Commercial painting usually costs $1.50 to $6 per square foot. See typical prices by building size, what drives the cost, and how to compare quotes.
Commercial painting usually costs between $1.50 and $6 per square foot of paintable surface, depending on whether the job is interior or exterior, how much prep the surfaces need, and when the work has to happen. A small office repaint often lands between $2,500 and $10,000, while a full exterior on a mid-size building can run $10,000 to $30,000 or more.
Those are national planning ranges. The final number on any commercial job in Arlington, Fairfax, Alexandria or Loudoun comes down to a handful of things a walkthrough reveals: wall height, surface condition, coating type, and whether the building stays open while the crew works. Below is what drives the price, what typical jobs cost by size, and how to read the quotes you get.
Most commercial painting falls between $1.50 and $5 per square foot, according to Housecall Pro's 2026 painting price guide. Exterior work tends to sit a little higher, at about $2 to $6 per square foot of paintable surface, based on HomeAdvisor's commercial exterior cost data.
One thing trips up a lot of property managers: "per square foot" does not always mean the same thing. Some contractors price by floor area, some by paintable wall area, and some by the total of walls, ceilings and trim. A 1,000 square foot office has far more than 1,000 square feet of wall once you add up every side of every room. When two quotes look wildly different, check which number each one is multiplying.
That is also why many commercial painters avoid quoting a single per-foot price at all. CertaPro's 2026 commercial pricing guide calls a single price per square foot "misleading" and prices by scope instead. Use per-foot numbers to sanity-check a budget, not to set one.
For a closer look at what goes into an interior commercial job, see our interior commercial painting page.
For a whole building, total cost scales with size, height and access more than anything else. These ranges come from published 2025 and 2026 cost guides, and they are a reasonable starting point for budgeting.
Sources: HomeAdvisor for exterior totals by size, and CertaPro for interior, multifamily and warehouse totals.
Labor is the biggest share of most commercial bids. HomeAdvisor puts commercial painting labor at about $50 to $100 per hour. Paint itself is a smaller line: a gallon of commercial acrylic runs about $25 to $60 and covers roughly 250 to 400 square feet, while specialty coatings like epoxy and elastomeric cost more per gallon and cover less.
Planning an exterior? Our exterior commercial painting page explains how we scope washing, repairs and coatings for offices, condos and retail buildings.
At $1.50 to $5 per square foot, painting 1,000 square feet of commercial wall surface runs about $1,500 to $5,000. A 500 square foot area would be roughly half that, though small jobs often carry a minimum charge because setup, protection and cleanup take about the same time no matter how small the room is.
Remember the floor area versus wall area point above. If you are measuring a 1,000 square foot suite by its floor plan, the paintable wall area is likely to be larger, and ceilings add more on top.
A professional painter covers roughly 85 square feet of wall per hour for two coats, based on the example production rate in PaintScout's estimating guide. Ceilings are slower, at about 60 square feet per hour in the same example. HomeAdvisor puts a full crew at about 150 to 200 square feet per hour on exterior work.
Here is how that plays out for a typical interior. 5,000 square feet of walls at 85 square feet per hour is about 59 labor hours. A four-person crew could finish the walls in about two working days, with trim, doors, ceilings, setup and touch-ups adding time on top. Occupied buildings usually take longer on the calendar because the work is split into phases around the people using the space.
Two buildings with the same square footage can come back with very different quotes. These are the factors that move the price most.
If your project includes floors, our commercial epoxy floors page covers coatings for warehouses, garages and service areas.
Usually, yes. Night and weekend work often costs more per hour, and it can stretch a project over more calendar days because each shift is shorter. The tradeoff is that your business keeps running. For offices, retail stores, schools and medical practices, the cost of closing for a day is often higher than the after-hours premium.
Many commercial jobs use a mix. Low-impact areas like stairwells, back hallways and exteriors get painted during the day, while customer-facing and occupied areas get done after hours or in phases. Ask any contractor you talk to how they would sequence the work around your hours, not just what it costs.
The cheapest number on paper is not always the cheapest job. Before comparing prices, make sure every bid covers the same scope.
For budgeting, plan on roughly $1.50 to $5 per square foot for most commercial painting and about $2 to $6 per square foot for exteriors, then adjust for height, prep, coatings and scheduling. A small office repaint often lands in the low five figures or less, while full exteriors on larger buildings climb well beyond that.
Published ranges only get you so far. A walkthrough is the only way to price a real building, because prep, access and scheduling change the labor more than square footage does.
My Painter & Exteriors paints offices, condo and HOA buildings, schools, churches and retail spaces across Northern Virginia and DC. See our commercial painting services, or request a free estimate and we will walk your property and give you a written scope and price.
Most HOA and condo exteriors need repainting every 5 to 10 years. See repaint intervals by surface, Virginia reserve study rules, and how to plan a repaint.
Commercial painting usually costs $1.50 to $6 per square foot. See typical prices by building size, what drives the cost, and how to compare quotes.
