Census CBP 2023 · NAICS 238320
How many painting contractors are there in the US?
Employer painting and wall covering contractors, with an honest note on why the nonemployer figure is not clean.
- With employees38,280establishments
- Without employeesNot publishedat this code
- Employees208,201in the employer half
- Annual payroll$11.5 billionemployer half
38,280 painting firms with staff, averaging five and a half employees. The trade is dominated by small crews, and the self-employed painter is invisible in this table.
Businesses with staff, and businesses without
These are two different federal surveys covering two different universes, and adding them together without saying so is the most common way this data gets misquoted. They are kept separate here on purpose.
| Measure | Employer | Nonemployer |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses | 38,280 | Not published |
| People employed | 208,201 | None, by definition |
| Average staff each | 5.4 | Zero |
| Annual payroll | $11.5 billion | Not published |
| Source | Census CBP 2023 | See the note below |
Census stops publishing nonemployer detail above this code. The nearest level is NAICS 2383, Building Finishing Contractors, at 669,136 nonemployer businesses, which also contains drywall, flooring, tile and finish carpentry. Painting is a large share of it, but the figure is not a painting count and is not presented as one.
painting contractors with employees are 0.458 per cent of all 8,361,342 US establishments with employees
The five states with the most painting contractors
| State | Establishments with employees |
|---|---|
| California | 4,880 |
| Florida | 4,421 |
| New York | 2,579 |
| Washington | 1,809 |
| Illinois | 1,505 |
Employer establishments only. The nonemployer side is not published by state at this level of detail, and in most of these trades it is the larger half, so treat this table as a ranking rather than a census of the trade.
Painting and Wall Covering Contractors
Counted here
Interior and exterior painting contractors, paperhanging and wall covering contractors.
Counted somewhere else
Painting done in house by a general contractor, and industrial or marine coating specialists.
NAICS 238320 · 1 August 2026
What these figures actually say about painting contractors
Small crews, a large national payroll, and a self employed half the federal data will not size.
Painting firms with staff average around five and a half employees. That is the whole shape of the employer side: a large number of small crews rather than a small number of large contractors, spread thinly across every populated part of the country. The industry sits at roughly half a per cent of American establishments with employees.
The self employed painter is invisible in this table. Census stops publishing nonemployer detail above this code, and the nearest level combines painting with drywall, flooring, tile and finish carpentry. Painting is a large share of that group, but the figure is not a painting count and is not presented as one anywhere on this site.
Payroll per employee runs above the cleaning and personal care industries and below the finish carpentry and remodelling codes, which is where a licensed but not certified trade generally sits. Painting done in house by a general contractor is excluded, so this count is painting specialists rather than everybody who paints for money.
Five and a half employees means the owner is on the tools and the marketing has to be something they can do from a phone at the end of a job. The same corner, the same time of day, the same curtain position, and a colour name in the caption is the whole method.
Every figure quoted above appears in the tables on this page or is arithmetic on them. Nothing here forecasts, values a business or suggests a price, because none of the three is measurable from a business count.
Where these numbers came from
Public domain US federal statistics, fetched by hand and baked into this site rather than called at build time. If you quote a figure from this page, cite the agency rather than this site, and use the wording below.
US Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, 2023, United States, NAICS 238320 Painting and Wall Covering Contractors. Accessed 2026-08-01.
Counts establishments with at least one paid employee, measured in the week of 12 March 2023. A business with no employees is counted by Nonemployer Statistics instead, not here.
What these workers are paid
Marketing the trade
All the numbers
Common questions
- How many painting contractors are there in the US?
- Census County Business Patterns counted 38,280 painting contractors with at least one paid employee in 2023, employing 208,201 people on a payroll of $11.5 billion. Census does not publish a nonemployer count at this level of detail, so the figure above covers businesses with staff only. NAICS code 238320.
- Why are there two different numbers?
- Because they measure two different universes. County Business Patterns counts establishments with at least one paid employee. Nonemployer Statistics counts businesses with no employees and at least a thousand dollars of annual receipts. Together they cover every US business, and adding them without saying so would be misleading, so this page keeps them apart.
- What else is inside this code?
- Interior and exterior painting contractors, paperhanging and wall covering contractors. What it excludes: painting done in house by a general contractor, and industrial or marine coating specialists.
- What does this count tell somebody running one of these businesses?
- Small crews, a large national payroll, and a self employed half the federal data will not size. Five and a half employees means the owner is on the tools and the marketing has to be something they can do from a phone at the end of a job. The same corner, the same time of day, the same curtain position, and a colour name in the caption is the whole method.
- How current is this?
- 2023 is the most recent County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics release published by the Census Bureau. Both were fetched and baked into this site on 1 August 2026. This page makes no live API call.
Numbers persuade nobody. The pair does.
Every trade on this page sells the same way: a photograph of the problem beside a photograph of the result. Take the two, and Before and After Video Maker turns them into a 1080p video, a looping GIF or a still.