How much does the paint price increase add to a repaint?

If your quote's paint allowance moves in line with the 5.9% rise in the prepared paint producer price index, the increase is about $5 on a single room with a $90 allowance and about $56 on a 2,000 sq ft interior with a $1,000 allowance. That is roughly 0.6% to 1.1% of the total bill, because labor, not paint, makes up most of a repaint. Retail shelf prices can differ from producer prices, so treat these as estimates.

How much does it cost to repaint a house in 2026?

Using the BLS median painter wage of $23.75/hr, a burden multiplier of 2.0 to 3.0, and assumed crew-hours and material allowances, a 2,000 sq ft interior repaint works out to $5,940 to $8,410. A single 12 by 12 room works out to $470 to $660. These are derived estimates built from federal wage data, not collected quotes, and they exclude prep surprises, permits and repairs.

Is a painter's quote fair if it is double the hourly wage?

Probably yes. The BLS median painter wage is $23.75/hr, but a homeowner is billed for payroll taxes, insurance, vehicles, tools, office time and profit as well. At an assumed 2.0 to 3.0 times the wage, the billed labor rate is $47.50 to $71.25 per painter-hour. A bill near $50 per painter-hour is therefore within the normal range, not a markup red flag.

Why did paint prices go up 5.9% but my quote went up less?

Paint is only part of a repaint. Under the allowances used here, materials are about 12% to 19% of the total, so a 5.9% rise on that slice moves the whole bill by roughly 0.7% to 1.1%. Labor, which is 80% or more of the bill in these examples, is driven by wages and not by the paint price index. A quote that rose by 6% or more is rising for other reasons.

What does the prepared paint index level of 456.224 mean in dollars?

It means nothing in dollars. The Producer Price Index for prepared paint (series WPU0621) is an index set to 1982 = 100, so 456.224 says paint producers' prices are about 4.56 times their 1982 level. It cannot be converted to the price of a gallon. Its only use here is direction and rate: up from 430.843 a year earlier, a 5.9% rise.

Paint Prices Are Up: What That Adds to a Repaint Job

The rise in paint prices adds about $5 to $61 to a typical repaint. The whole job is much bigger: under the assumptions below, a single room comes to roughly $470 to $660 and a 2,000 sq ft interior to $5,940 to $8,410. Prepared paint prices rose 5.9% in a year, but labor is most of the bill, so the increase is under about 1% of the total.

Key points

The BLS Producer Price Index for prepared paint rose from 430.843 to 456.224 between August 2025 and August 2026, an increase of 5.9%.
The BLS median wage for painters is $23.75/hr, which becomes a billed rate of about $47.50 to $71.25 per painter-hour at an assumed 2.0 to 3.0 times burden.
A 5.9% paint price rise adds about $56 to a whole-interior repaint with a $1,000 material allowance, which is 0.7% to 0.9% of the bill.
Moving from the 25th to the 75th percentile wage and from 2.0 to 3.0 times burden changes a 2,000 sq ft interior by $4,787, roughly 85 times the paint price effect.
Every job size, crew-hour count and material allowance below is an assumption, not a collected quote.

Couple painting and enjoying a scenic mountain view from their home renovation.

What are the assumptions behind these numbers?

Every figure here comes from federal wage and price data plus assumptions you can change. This site does not inspect homes, survey contractors or collect quotes, so none of the results below describe a job anyone completed.

A close-up of a person using a roller to paint a wall during renovation.

The sourced inputs:

Wages: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), series OEUN000000000000047214108, Painters, Construction and Maintenance (SOC 47-2141), United States, survey year 2025. Median $23.75/hr, 25th percentile $21.46/hr, 75th percentile $29.65/hr, mean $26.64/hr, 225,190 employed.
Supervisor wage: First-line supervisors of construction trades earn a median $38.42/hr in the same data pull.
Paint prices: BLS Producer Price Index, series WPU0621, prepared paint, 1982 = 100. August 2026 is 456.224, August 2025 is 430.843. Data pulled 2026-10-08.

The assumptions, which are mine and not measured:

Burden multiplier of 2.0 to 3.0 times the wage, with 2.5 as the midpoint. This is a working assumption for small residential contractors covering payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, liability insurance, vehicles, fuel, tools, office time, warranty reserve and profit.
Person-hours per job and material allowances, listed in the next table.
The material allowance moves with the paint index. That is a simplification. The index tracks producer prices, not what a contractor pays at a supply counter.

Two warnings on units. A wage is what the worker is paid, not what you are billed. And an index level of 456.224 is index points, not dollars.

What does a repaint cost across job sizes?

A repaint costs from about $470 for one room to about $8,410 for a full 2,000 sq ft interior, depending on size. Find your project in the table and read across.

Female using blue tape for home painting project in a modern apartment.

Working for each row: person-hours × $23.75 median wage × burden (2.0 or 3.0) + material allowance. The person-hours and allowances are assumptions.

Job (assumed scope)	Person-hours	Wage cost at $23.75	Billed labor at 2.0x	Billed labor at 3.0x	Material allowance	Total range
One 12 by 12 room, walls and ceiling	8	$190.00	$380	$570	$90	$470 to $660
Three rooms	24	$570.00	$1,140	$1,710	$240	$1,380 to $1,950
1,200 sq ft interior	64	$1,520.00	$3,040	$4,560	$600	$3,640 to $5,160
2,000 sq ft interior	104	$2,470.00	$4,940	$7,410	$1,000	$5,940 to $8,410
Exterior of a 2,000 sq ft house	96	$2,280.00	$4,560	$6,840	$1,100	$5,660 to $7,940

Take the 2,000 sq ft interior as a full example. A crew of two painters working 52 hours each is 104 person-hours. At the median wage that is 104 × $23.75 = $2,470. At 2.0 times burden that is $4,940, and at 3.0 times it is $7,410. Adding the $1,000 material allowance gives $5,940 to $8,410. At the 2.5 midpoint the total is $7,175.

Materials are the smaller piece. The allowance is 14% to 19% of the one-room total and 12% to 17% of the 2,000 sq ft interior total. Hold that in mind for the next section.

How much of the repaint bill is the 5.9% paint price rise?

The paint price rise adds between about $5 and $61 across these jobs, which is 0.6% to 1.1% of the total. The rise is small because a 5.9% increase applies only to the material slice.

The method: if today’s allowance already includes the increase, the year-ago allowance was today’s figure divided by 1.059. The difference is the added cost.

Job	Allowance a year ago	Allowance now	Added by paint prices	Share of total bill
One room	$84.99	$90	$5.01	0.8% to 1.1%
Three rooms	$226.63	$240	$13.37	0.7% to 1.0%
1,200 sq ft interior	$566.57	$600	$33.43	0.6% to 0.9%
2,000 sq ft interior	$944.29	$1,000	$55.71	0.7% to 0.9%
2,000 sq ft exterior	$1,038.72	$1,100	$61.28	0.8% to 1.1%

The index itself moved 25.381 points (456.224 − 430.843) on a base of 430.843, which is 5.9%. That percentage is the only thing the index contributes here. It does not give you the price of a gallon.

What if the wage and the burden are different from the median case?

For a 2,000 sq ft interior, the total ranges from $5,464 to $10,251 as wage level and burden change, a spread of about 88% from lowest to highest. That spread is much larger than any effect from paint prices.

Here the job is held fixed at 104 person-hours and a $1,000 material allowance. Two things vary: the wage percentile from the BLS OEWS painter data and the burden multiplier. Each cell is person-hours × wage × burden + $1,000.

Wage level	Hourly wage	Burden 2.0x	Burden 2.5x	Burden 3.0x
25th percentile	$21.46	$5,464	$6,580	$7,696
Median	$23.75	$5,940	$7,175	$8,410
75th percentile	$29.65	$7,167	$8,709	$10,251

Check one cell: 104 × $29.65 = $3,083.60, times 3.0 is $9,250.80, plus $1,000 is $10,250.80, shown as $10,251.

The spread has two sources. Across the wage axis alone, the 75th percentile wage is 38% higher than the 25th percentile wage ($29.65 ÷ $21.46 = 1.38). Across the burden axis alone, 3.0 is 50% higher than 2.0 on the labor part. Combined they reach the 88% range. The highest and lowest cells differ by $4,787, while the paint price rise adds $56.

The supplied data covers the United States only, so this page does not compare metro areas. The percentile spread is the nearest honest stand-in: wages differ by place, and a place at the 75th percentile level would sit near the right-hand rows. Look up the local OEWS figure for your area before using these rows as a local estimate.

How big a paint price rise would it take to matter?

On a $1,000 allowance, a paint price rise would have to reach 10% to add $100 to the bill. That is the reverse calculation: start from the dollars you care about and ask what paint rise is needed. It uses the 2,000 sq ft interior, with a $5,940 low-end total.

Added cost you would notice	Paint price rise needed on a $1,000 allowance	Multiple of the actual 5.9% rise	Share of the $5,940 low-end bill
$100	10.0%	1.7 times	1.7%
$297 (5% of the bill)	29.7%	5.0 times	5.0%
$594 (10% of the bill)	59.4%	10.1 times	10.0%

The billed labor rate gives another way to see the scale. At the median wage and the 2.5 midpoint, a painter-hour is billed at $23.75 × 2.5 = $59.38. The $56 paint effect on the large interior is under one hour of one painter’s billed time (56 ÷ 59.38 = 0.94). Across the full range, the billed rate runs from $47.50 (median at 2.0) to $71.25 (median at 3.0), and from $42.92 (25th percentile at 2.0) to $88.95 (75th percentile at 3.0).

What are the common misconceptions about paint prices and quotes?

Three misreadings account for most of the confusion.

“Paint is up 5.9%, so my repaint costs 5.9% more.” Not under these numbers. Paint is 12% to 19% of the total, so a 5.9% rise on that slice adds 0.6% to 1.1% to the bill. If a contractor tells you the job went up 6% purely because of paint, ask for the material line and divide.

“The $23.75 median is what a painter charges per hour.” It is what a painter is paid. Billed at 2.0 to 3.0 times, the same hour costs you $47.50 to $71.25. A quote at $55 per painter-hour is not padding. It is about 2.3 times the median wage.

“The index at 456.224 means paint costs $456.” The prepared paint PPI is an index, 1982 = 100, and the level converts to no dollar amount. Only the 5.9% change is usable.

A fourth is smaller but common. People assume a contractor’s crew is all journeyman painters at the median. The supervisor data says otherwise, as the next section shows.

When is this estimate wrong?

This estimate is wrong whenever hours, materials or the crew differ from the assumptions, and the hours are the biggest unknown. Specific cases:

Heavy prep. Peeling exterior paint, wallpaper removal, patching drywall, caulking and priming can double the person-hours for the same square footage. At 2.5 times burden, each extra 10 hours adds $593.75 in labor.
Supervisor-led crews. If half the hours are billed at the $38.42/hr supervisor median instead of $23.75, the blended wage is $31.09. On the 2,000 sq ft interior that is 52 × $23.75 + 52 × $38.42 = $3,232.84. At 2.5 times plus $1,000 materials the total is $9,082, which is $1,907 above the $7,175 all-median case.
Premium or specialty coatings. A $1,000 allowance assumes ordinary paint. Specialty finishes, stains and primers for problem surfaces can push the allowance far higher, and the PPI for prepared paint in general says nothing about those lines.
Retail versus producer prices. The PPI measures what producers receive. Contractor and retail prices can rise by more or less, so the paint effect could be a few dollars away from the table above.
Small-job minimums. A one-room job often carries a minimum charge. The $470 low end for one room may be below a contractor’s floor.

What can this calculation not see?

This calculation sees wages, an assumed burden and an assumed material allowance, and it misses everything specific to your house. The excluded items:

Permits and rules. Most repaints need no permit, but work in some historic districts or on homes in associations may require approval. Older homes may need lead-safe work practices that add cost; ask any contractor how they handle this.
Disposal. Old paint, drop cloths, scraped material and masking supplies. Ask whether disposal is in the price.
Code upgrades and repairs. Rotted trim, damaged siding and drywall repairs found during prep are separate from the painting hours.
Access. Tall stairwells, steep ground, scaffolding, lift rental and second-story exteriors all raise hours or equipment cost.
Difficulty. Steep roof pitch for roof-edge work, ornate trim, many window panes, dark-to-light color changes and extra coats.
Season. Exterior painting depends on weather, and busy seasons can raise prices or lengthen schedules. Interior work is less sensitive.
Emergency or rush premiums. A job needed in days, such as before a sale closing, can carry a premium that this model does not include.

For wage context beyond this page, the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook profile covers duties and national pay for painters.

How do I read a real painting quote against these numbers?

Divide the quote into labor and materials, then compare each against the table. A fair quote makes this easy by itemizing. The lines that should be separate:

Labor, with hours or a crew-days count and a rate.
Paint and primer, with product, number of gallons and coats.
Prep and repairs, with scope: patching, caulking, scraping, sanding.
Supplies and disposal.
Exclusions, stated in writing.

Then test it. Take the labor line and divide by the hours, giving the billed rate per painter-hour. If it lands between about $47.50 and $71.25, it matches the median-wage range at 2.0 to 3.0 times burden. If it is far above $89, which is the 75th percentile wage at 3.0 times, ask why.

The one question that exposes a padded bid is: “How many painter-hours is this, and how many gallons?” A contractor who built the number can answer in seconds. Compare the answer with the person-hours column above. If the quote asks for 200 hours on a job similar to the 104-hour interior, the extra is in the hours, not the rate. Likewise, if the material line is $3,000 for a house the table prices at $1,000, ask for the gallon count and the product.

What should I check before signing?

Check the following before you sign any painting contract:

The quote separates labor, materials, prep and disposal.
Hours or crew-days are stated, so you can compute the billed rate per painter-hour.
Coats, product names and gallon counts are written down.
Prep scope and repairs are listed, with a price for surprises found during prep.
The exclusions list names permits, access equipment and any lead-safe requirements for an older home.
Start and finish dates are written, along with what happens if weather delays exterior work.
Insurance coverage is confirmed in writing, since insurance is a large part of the burden you are paying.
You have at least two quotes with the same scope, compared line by line and not by total.

Paint prices rising 5.9% is real, but on these estimates it moves your total by about 1% or less. The size of the crew, the hours and the burden decide the bill, so those are the lines to question.