Rightmove and Zoopla photo rules for UK agents

What can and cannot appear in a listing photograph?

Rightmove's rulebook is the stricter of the two and the one most agencies are measured against. Images must be of the property, the land being offered or the immediate locale, and must not be capable of misleading anyone about the offer. Text on images is prohibited, including incentives. The single exception is orientation: where the location of the property or a feature is unclear, for example in a drone shot, you may mark it with an arrow or an outline.

Borders, banners and corner flashes are prohibited, which rules out the "just reduced" flash and the branded frame. Logos that are not relevant to the property are prohibited. Composite images, meaning an image inside an image, are prohibited, so the gallery slot has to hold one photograph. Non property images are prohibited unless the member holds a Rental Operator Membership and the image is a lifestyle image, in which case lifestyle content may not exceed 40 per cent of the total images and videos in the listing and must be captioned as lifestyle imagery. Lifestyle content also has to comply with the CAP Code, and alcohol has to stay incidental.

Two further prohibitions catch people out on shoot day. An advertisement must not contain photographs or animated images by which a living person can be identified, unless the member holds a Rental Operator or Commercial Membership. Third party intellectual property has to be blurred until it is not identifiable, which is why framed prints, branded artwork and distinctive posters are worth taking off the wall rather than editing out later.

What are the watermark rules?

Rightmove sets numbers here rather than principles. A watermark may be used only to protect image copyright and must carry no further messaging. It must be white on photographs and grayscale on floorplans. It must be translucent, at 30 per cent opacity or lower. It must be no larger than one quarter of the overall image size. A branded corner logo at full opacity, or a watermark that doubles as a phone number, fails on all three counts.

The practical read is that a watermark is permitted but is not a branding opportunity. If your template puts a solid logo tile in the corner of every hero shot, it is a data quality breach on every listing you run, and it is the sort of breach that is visible from a search results page.

Do you have to declare AI edited photographs?

Yes, and this is the newest part of the rulebook. Rightmove's January 2026 guidelines draw a line between two categories. Light Touch Edits are minimal changes: cropping, brightness and contrast, colour balance, shadow lifting and warming tones. Enhanced Edits are content generated or manipulated by AI, CGI, or manual work that adds or removes objects or changes architectural features. Virtual staging, sky replacement, removing a neighbour's extension and adding a garden room all sit in the second category.

Both are permitted, provided the adjustment does not misrepresent the property. Enhanced Edits carry two extra conditions: they must be accompanied by current, accurate images of the same room or property, and they must be clearly labelled as AI or otherwise enhanced. Rightmove reserves the right to remove content it believes does not comply. Zoopla's member terms take a parallel line, requiring members to disclose where content has been produced using autonomous technology, machine learning or analogous technologies.

The compliance point sits underneath the portal rule. An unlabelled enhanced image that changes what a buyer thinks they are getting is a misleading action under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, and the same reasoning applies to the words, as covered in property description rules for UK estate agents.

Element	Rule	Where it comes from
Text on an image	Prohibited, except an arrow or outline to show location	Rightmove technical guidelines, January 2026
Borders, banners, corner flashes	Prohibited	Rightmove technical guidelines, January 2026
Watermark	White on photos, grayscale on floorplans, 30 per cent opacity or lower, one quarter of the image or smaller	Rightmove technical guidelines, January 2026
Composite image	Prohibited, one photograph per gallery slot	Rightmove technical guidelines, January 2026
Identifiable living person	Prohibited unless Rental Operator or Commercial Membership	Rightmove technical guidelines, January 2026
AI or CGI enhanced image	Permitted if labelled and accompanied by current accurate images	Rightmove technical guidelines, January 2026
AI produced content	Must be disclosed	Zoopla member terms, 1 December 2025
Number of images	Zoopla may limit a listing to 20 images	Zoopla member terms, 1 December 2025
Alternative text on photos	Required, clear and descriptive	Rightmove technical guidelines, January 2026

How many photographs, and what about video and tours?

Zoopla's member terms state that Zoopla may limit the number of photographs displayed by a member to 20 images per property. Rightmove does not publish a hard cap in the same terms, so plan the shoot around the tighter number and lead with the strongest frames rather than filling slots. Photograph content on Zoopla must be of good quality, must relate to the property or the member profile, and must not contain telephone numbers, email addresses, personal data, member promotions or advertisements for other products.

Video and virtual tours have their own rules on Rightmove. Video shown in the full details must contain property specific content only, must not carry direct or third party advertising, and must not direct a user to your own website or any external site. Contact details and lead request forms inside a tour are prohibited. Links for floorplans, brochures, online viewings and virtual tours must go to a contained area and must not push users towards other properties or other services. There is also a data protection warning worth repeating to whoever films: personal data is easy to capture by accident, so family photographs and anything identifying a living individual should be edited out.

What does a compliant shoot list look like?

Work the property in the order a buyer walks it, and shoot for the rule set rather than fixing it afterwards. Clear the walls of framed artwork and posters before the first frame. Keep people and pets out of shot. Take the hero exterior at the time of day the front elevation actually gets light, and take a second exterior in flat light as the accurate accompanying image if you intend to enhance the first one.

Accessibility is now explicitly part of the brief. Rightmove's guidelines ask members to align with the European Accessibility Act and similar law by giving every property photograph clear alternative text so it can be understood by everyone, keeping language plain, breaking text into short paragraphs or bullets, avoiding all capitals, and captioning property videos. Undescriptive alternative text such as a raw file name is called out as a failure, as is relying on an image alone to carry key information and uploading scanned brochures or images of text. A gallery of twenty photographs with no alternative text is a gallery that a screen reader user cannot use.

Finish by checking the energy band is on the listing before it goes live, because the photography pass and the compliance pass usually happen in the same ten minutes and the band is the item most often missed. The rules on that are in EPC rules when marketing a property in the UK.

Frequently asked questions

Can we put our logo on listing photographs?

Only as a copyright watermark inside Rightmove's limits: white on photographs or grayscale on floorplans, 30 per cent opacity or lower, no larger than a quarter of the image, and carrying no additional message. A solid branded corner tile does not meet that description.

Is virtual staging allowed on Rightmove?

Yes, as an Enhanced Edit, provided it does not misrepresent the property, it is clearly labelled as AI or otherwise enhanced, and the listing also carries current accurate images of the same room. An empty room presented only as a staged room is the version that causes complaints.

How many photos should we actually upload?

Zoopla may limit a listing to 20 images, so 20 is the sensible planning ceiling for a standard house. Quality decides performance well before quantity does, and a gallery padded with near duplicates of the same reception room is weaker than a tight set that covers every room once.

Are drone shots allowed?

Drone photography of the property and its immediate locale is within the rules, and it is the one case where Rightmove permits marking an image, using an arrow or outline, where the location or a relevant feature would otherwise be unclear. Ordinary text captions on the image remain prohibited.

What happens if a listing breaks these rules?

Rightmove reserves the right to edit, review, suppress or remove member data it believes is inaccurate or inappropriate, and to remove images and videos that do not comply. Repeated data quality breaches feed a sanctions process that can reach membership termination, which is a commercial risk rather than only a regulatory one.

Sources

• Rightmove Agent and Developer Technical Guidelines, January 2026, Rightmove
• Zoopla member criteria and guidelines, effective 1 December 2025, Zoopla
• Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, legislation.gov.uk
• Unfair commercial practices, CMA207, 18 November 2025, Competition and Markets Authority
• The CAP Code, UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing, Advertising Standards Authority
• Web Accessibility Initiative, introduction to web accessibility, W3C

Last verified: 2026-09-02