Free tool · rules verified 29 July 2026
Virtual staging disclosure generator
Pick your province and get wording you can paste straight into your MLS remarks, your watermark, a social caption or your listing site.
Every snippet is marked Required or Recommended, because in ten of thirteen Canadian jurisdictions nothing actually compels you to disclose. Other tools hand you “compliance templates” without telling you that. Knowing which is which is the difference between following a rule and following a suggestion someone wrote.
Ontario — no disclosure required
Ontario requires no disclosure at all. What it prohibits is an image that doesn't accurately depict the property — so label it anyway, and never alter the property itself.
See the actual rule and its source →Virtually staged
Nothing in Ontario compels this. It's the cheapest defence against a TRESA s. 37 complaint, because the whole question is whether a reasonable person could be misled.
Some photos are virtually staged. Furniture is digitally added; the property is otherwise shown as-is.
Public remarks. PropTx doesn't ask for this. What PropTx Art. 5.01(a) does prohibit is a digitally altered image that doesn't accurately depict the property — so the real compliance work is in what you edit, not what you write.
Virtually staged to show the space furnished — the room itself is exactly as you'll find it.
In the caption, not buried in comments or a reply.
Virtually staged. Furniture and décor have been digitally added to illustrate the space. No structural features, finishes or views have been altered.
Directly beneath the image gallery, or as a caption on each staged photo.
Every snippet above is marked Recommended because nothing in Ontario compels a disclosure. I still use them on every listing — the general standard everywhere is whether a reasonable person could be misled, and a label is the cheapest way to settle that question before it's asked.
What it costs to get this wrong in Ontario
And the one almost nobody mentions — federal, applies everywhere
Most realtor-facing guides list provincial fines and stop. For a brokerage, the federal exposure is three to four orders of magnitude larger than the provincial one.
Individual: Greater of $750,000 (first order) / $1,000,000 (each subsequent), or 3× the benefit derived
Corporation: Greater of $10,000,000 (first order) / $15,000,000 (each subsequent), or 3× the benefit derived — or 3% of annual worldwide gross revenues if that can't be determined
Criminal track: On indictment: fine at the court's discretion, up to 14 years. On summary conviction: $200,000 and up to 1 year.
Competition Act, RSC 1985, c. C-34, ss. 74.1(1)(c), 52(5) · Read the section
The five things that actually keep you compliant
- 1
Furnish the room. Don't change it.
This is the whole test, in every jurisdiction. Adding a sofa depicts the room. Removing a support column, widening a doorway, changing the flooring, adding a window or improving the view does not — and that's what gets prosecuted.
- 2
Label the image itself, not just the listing.
A watermark travels with the photo when it's scraped, shared, or reposted to a portal that strips your remarks. Remarks-only disclosure disappears the moment the image leaves your listing.
- 3
Keep the original, unedited photo.
No rule in Canada requires this. It is still the single most useful thing you can have if a complaint is ever filed, because it turns an argument into a comparison.
- 4
Check your own board's rules, not just your regulator's.
In Alberta the requirement comes from the MLS rules while the regulator says nothing. In Ontario the only explicit rule is PropTx, not RECO. Reading your regulator alone will give you the wrong answer in at least two provinces.
- 5
Never put people in a listing image.
Ontario's PropTx rules ban "any persons or digital representations of persons" outright, with no accuracy qualifier. Alberta bans it too. AI-generated people are squarely caught.
Why the wording says what it says
A disclosure is one sentence, and every part of it is doing a job. If you would rather write your own than paste ours, this is what to keep.
“Some images” — not “images”
It scopes the statement. Most listings mix staged and unedited photos, and a blanket “images have been virtually staged” tells a buyer the whole gallery was worked on. That is its own kind of inaccurate, and it makes the honest photos look suspect.
“Virtually staged” — not “enhanced”, “edited” or “AI”
It is the term the rulebooks use, so it maps onto something. Alberta’s MLS rules define Virtually Staged and Virtually Enhanced as two different things, with two different consequences — staging is disclosed, enhancing is banned. “Enhanced” is the word for the prohibited one. Using it about your own photo describes something you did not do.
In the public remarks, not just a photo caption
Alberta and PEI both name that field specifically — the wording in each is that the listing brokerage must disclose it in the public remarks on the Board’s MLS® System. There is a practical reason as well as a drafting one: remarks travel with the listing to Realtor.ca and IDX feeds. A caption attached to one image often does not.
It says what was added — it does not apologise
A disclosure is a statement of fact about the listing, not a disclaimer about your tools. “Furniture has been added digitally” is a fact. “Images may not reflect actual condition” is a hedge, and a hedge invites the question of what else might not reflect actual condition.
In Quebec, use their words — not yours
Quebec is the only place in Canada that prescribes wording. The OACIQ guideline asks for a clear and visible statement such as “Image generated by artificial intelligence”. Where a regulator has written the sentence, write that sentence.
Each rule quoted above is set out in full, with its source and date, in the rules by province.
Before you rely on this
This page is information, not legal advice. I'm a licensed REALTOR®, not a lawyer. Every rule below is quoted from a primary source and linked so you can read it yourself — and where a rule doesn't exist, I say so instead of guessing. Rules change, and board MLS rules aren't public, so confirm anything you're relying on with your own board or regulator before you act on it.
Researched and maintained by Ali Annabi, Licensed REALTOR®, Ontario.