Virtual Staging for Real Estate Agents

California disclosure law · effective January 1, 2026

California AB 723: what listing agents must disclose

Assembly Bill 723 added Business and Professions Code § 10140.8 (Stats. 2025, Ch. 497). Since January 1, 2026, a real estate broker or salesperson — or anyone acting on their behalf — who uses a digitally altered image in an advertisement or other promotional material for the sale of real property owes two duties, not one.

The two-part disclosure duty

• A statement that the image has been altered. It must be reasonably conspicuous, located on or adjacent to the image, and must say that the original unaltered images can be accessed at the linked website, URL, or QR code.
• Access to the original. The ad must include a link to a publicly accessible website, URL, or QR code that includes — and clearly identifies — the original unaltered image. If the ad runs on a website you control, the unaltered originals must appear in the posting itself, though a clearly identifying link to them also satisfies this part.

A label alone is not enough under the statute: the conspicuous statement and the original-image access travel together.

Which edits trigger it

The statute defines a digitally altered image as one created by or at your direction and changed through photo editing software or artificial intelligence to add, remove, or change elements — and it names fixtures, furniture, appliances, flooring, walls, paint color, hardscape, landscape, facade, floor plans, and elements visible from the property such as streetlights, utility poles, window views, and neighboring properties. AI virtual staging of a vacant room sits squarely inside that definition.

Excluded: images where only lighting, sharpening, white balance, color correction, angle, straightening, cropping, exposure, or similar common adjustments are made that do not change how the property is represented. Ordinary photo finishing is not staging; adding furniture is.

Where MLS, brokerage, and portal rules fit

Section 10140.8 is a state statutory floor, not the whole rulebook. Your local MLS board, brokerage policy, and each syndication portal can add their own notation requirements on top — the strictest layer that applies to a photo is the one to meet, and MLS rules differ board to board. For Realtor members, NAR's 2026 Code of Ethics Article 12 (effective January 1, 2026) separately requires presenting a true picture in advertising, and Standard of Practice 12-10 confirms that duty covers internet content and images. The per-platform label and remarks language is in our virtual staging disclosure guide. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and this product does not certify MLS, brokerage, or statutory compliance.

Practice: keep the pair, label with the original's location

The fall samples above are original-to-staged review examples: the vacant original stays intact, the staged version adds furniture and decor only, and the two sit side by side so the difference is easy to check. They cover the access half of the statute — when you publish a staged image, the statement half still has to travel with it. Apply the full pattern to a live listing:

• Keep the unaltered original of every staged photo and host it somewhere publicly accessible
• Put a conspicuous altered-image statement on or next to each staged image, naming where the original can be viewed
• On your own site, show the original in the posting itself — the before and after gallery format does exactly this
• Reject any staged result that touches walls, floors, windows, fixtures, views, or visible defects — those edits also raise true-picture problems beyond disclosure

Sources: Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 10140.8 (added by Stats. 2025, Ch. 497, AB 723; effective January 1, 2026; accessed September 13, 2026) · NAR Code of Ethics, 2026 (Article 12 and Standard of Practice 12-10; accessed September 13, 2026).