Trade guide, national
Painting contractors in the United States
This site publishes 41,847 painting contractor records across all fifty states and the District of Columbia, or 1.25 per 10,000 residents. 1 of them publishes a business-level licence source for painting that a listing can be matched against.
This page is the one place on this site that explains what painting work involves, what its credentials are and where to check one. The counts for a particular metro area are on that metro’s own page, and what a licence class means in a particular state is on that state’s page.
The national facts
- Painting contractor records
- 41,847Foursquare Open Source Places, release August 11, 2026
- Per 10,000 residents
- 1.25 per 10,000Population 334,914,895, Census Bureau Vintage 2023 population estimates, as of July 1, 2023
- States publishing a licence source for this trade
- 1 of 51State license files, as of September 2, 2026California.
- Licensed share where a source exists
- 22.1%State license files, as of September 2, 2026Counted only inside the states that publish a source, and never across a state line. It measures how often a published listing and a published licence could be matched to each other, which is not the same question as whether a business holds one.
- Active licences with no public listing
- 13,005State license files, as of September 2, 2026Active licences covering this trade with no matching record in open place data, summed over the states that publish a source. This is the home-based tail.
- Most records per resident
- Connecticut, 2.47 per 10,000Population 3,617,176, Census Bureau Vintage 2023 population estimates, as of July 1, 2023The fewest is Nebraska, at 0.36 per 10,000. Both ends describe where businesses are recorded, not where work is done.
- Employment and pay for this trade
- Not published for this tradeBLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 OEWS, published May 15, 2026No single BLS occupation maps to this trade cleanly enough to print, so no employment or wage figure is shown rather than one built from an occupation that means something else.
- Independent, franchise, corporate
- 40,437 independent, 614 franchise brand, 615 corporate owned, 181 awaiting chain reviewFoursquare Open Source Places, release August 11, 2026
What each row counts, and the universe it counts it in, is set out on the methodology page.
What is particular about painting work
Painting is the trade with a federal firm certification attached to the age of the house, where nearly all of the labour is preparation rather than paint, and where the coating that may be sold varies by region.
Pre-1978 houses and the EPA lead-safe rule
Under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule, a firm being paid to disturb painted surfaces in housing or in a child-occupied facility built before 1978 must be certified by the EPA or by an authorised state programme, must assign a certified renovator to the job, and must follow lead-safe work practices: contained work areas, no open-flame burning or uncontained power sanding, and a specified cleaning and verification step at the end.
The certification belongs to the firm, and the renovator credential belongs to a person. Both are separate from any state contractor licence, and this site publishes neither on any record, because they are federal or state-programme registrations rather than fields in the licence files this site reads. The EPA's page is where the rule is stated and where a firm's certification can be looked up.
The threshold is the age of the building, not the age of the paint. Sanding a window frame in a 1955 house is inside the rule; the same work in a 1995 house is not.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Renovation, Repair and Painting programme
You are buying preparation, not paint
On an exterior repaint, the paint is a small fraction of the price and the labour is nearly all of it: washing, scraping, sanding, filling, caulking the joints that move, spot-priming bare substrate, and protecting everything that is not being painted. Two quotes on the same house differ mostly in how much of that they intend to do, and the cheaper one is usually cheaper there rather than in the material.
This is why a written scope matters more here than a brand of paint. The useful questions are how many coats, over what preparation, on which surfaces, with what caulking and priming, and what happens where rot is found once the old coating comes off.
Coating rules are regional
Limits on the volatile organic compound content of architectural coatings are set by states and, in California, by regional air districts, so the same product line is sold in different formulations in different places. A contractor working near a district boundary carries both.
The practical effect for a homeowner is small but real: drying times, recoat windows and the temperature range a coating may be applied in differ between formulations, and an exterior job scheduled too late in the autumn can fail for that reason alone.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, volatile organic compounds
Where painting sits in state licensing
Painting is licensed as its own contracting classification in some states and in none of the licence files this site reads in others, so the licensed share on a painting hub is published for fewer states than for the mechanical trades. Where it is not published, that says the state has no business-level licence source for painting, and nothing at all about the businesses listed below.
Every rule stated above links the public page that states it: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Renovation, Repair and Painting programme; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, volatile organic compounds.
Painting state by state
Each state page carries its own licence classes, its number formats and what its rules do to this trade in particular. The record counts below are that state’s whole painting universe, the same figure its own page prints.
| State | Records | Per 10,000 | Licensed share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 422 | 0.83 | Not published |
| Alaska | 85 | 1.16 | Not published |
| Arizona | 793 | 1.07 | Not published |
| Arkansas | 236 | 0.77 | Not published |
| California | 4,589 | 1.18 | 22.1% |
| Colorado | 953 | 1.62 | Not published |
| Connecticut | 894 | 2.47 | Not published |
| Delaware | 139 | 1.35 | Not published |
| District of Columbia | 28 | 0.41 | Not published |
| Florida | 3,125 | 1.38 | Not published |
| Georgia | 1,332 | 1.21 | Not published |
| Hawaii | 135 | 0.94 | Not published |
| Idaho | 231 | 1.18 | Not published |
| Illinois | 1,993 | 1.59 | Not published |
| Indiana | 865 | 1.26 | Not published |
| Iowa | 405 | 1.26 | Not published |
| Kansas | 365 | 1.24 | Not published |
| Kentucky | 486 | 1.07 | Not published |
| Louisiana | 420 | 0.92 | Not published |
| Maine | 249 | 1.78 | Not published |
| Maryland | 745 | 1.21 | Not published |
| Massachusetts | 1,396 | 1.99 | Not published |
| Michigan | 1,496 | 1.49 | Not published |
| Minnesota | 1,031 | 1.80 | Not published |
| Mississippi | 235 | 0.80 | Not published |
| Missouri | 753 | 1.22 | Not published |
| Montana | 190 | 1.68 | Not published |
| Nebraska | 72 | 0.36 | Not published |
| Nevada | 201 | 0.63 | Not published |
| New Hampshire | 278 | 1.98 | Not published |
| New Jersey | 1,148 | 1.24 | Not published |
| New Mexico | 170 | 0.80 | Not published |
| New York | 1,853 | 0.95 | Not published |
| North Carolina | 1,581 | 1.46 | Not published |
| North Dakota | 146 | 1.86 | Not published |
| Ohio | 1,776 | 1.51 | Not published |
| Oklahoma | 304 | 0.75 | Not published |
| Oregon | 769 | 1.82 | Not published |
| Pennsylvania | 1,893 | 1.46 | Not published |
| Rhode Island | 204 | 1.86 | Not published |
| South Carolina | 551 | 1.03 | Not published |
| South Dakota | 100 | 1.09 | Not published |
| Tennessee | 748 | 1.05 | Not published |
| Texas | 2,365 | 0.78 | Not published |
| Utah | 286 | 0.84 | Not published |
| Vermont | 137 | 2.12 | Not published |
| Virginia | 1,095 | 1.26 | Not published |
| Washington | 1,304 | 1.67 | Not published |
| West Virginia | 125 | 0.71 | Not published |
| Wisconsin | 1,072 | 1.81 | Not published |
| Wyoming | 78 | 1.34 | Not published |
Nothing on this page is a rating, an endorsement, or a recommendation, and no figure here describes any individual business. Ordering never depends on payment, claim status, license status, or any commercial relationship, on this page or any other.