Commercial Painting Cost Australia 2026
Commercial painting in Australia is priced per square metre of wall and ceiling area, from a straightforward interior office repaint through to exterior facade work, warehouse and factory coatings and specialist protective systems. The biggest cost levers are the surface prep, how the painters access the work and whether the job has to run after hours around an operating business. Pick your city below for local pricing, or see the national job-by-job breakdown underneath. Interior repaints run $20-$45/m2 and exterior facade and render work $40-$90/m2.
| City | Typical range | Year on year |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $15-$45/m2 | ↑ +4.1% |
| Melbourne | $15-$45/m2 | ↑ +3.9% |
| Brisbane | $15-$45/m2 | ↑ +4.2% |
| Perth | $14-$41/m2 | ↑ +3.5% |
| Adelaide | $12-$36/m2 | ↑ +4.6% |
| Gold Coast | $15-$44/m2 | ↑ +4.2% |
| Canberra | $14-$43/m2 | ↑ +4.0% |
| Hobart | $12-$35/m2 | ↑ +4.0% |
| Darwin | $16-$48/m2 | ↑ +4.0% |
| Newcastle | $12-$37/m2 | ↑ +4.1% |
| Geelong | $14-$42/m2 | ↑ +3.9% |
| Sunshine Coast | $15-$44/m2 | ↑ +4.2% |
| Wollongong | $14-$42/m2 | ↑ +4.1% |
| Townsville | $14-$42/m2 | ↑ +4.2% |
| Byron Bay | $14-$41/m2 | ↑ +4.1% |
Commercial Painting by city
Commercial Painting prices at a glance
| Service | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colour and spec consultation (inspection usually free) | $200per job | $350 | $500 |
| Interior commercial repaint (walls & ceilings) | $20per m² | $30 | $45 |
| Exterior commercial repaint (facade & render) | $40per m² | $65 | $90 |
| Warehouse & factory wall painting | $15per m² | $30 | $45 |
| Structural steel & metalwork repaint (maintenance, in situ) | $15per m² | $30 | $45 |
| Protective / industrial coating system | $50per m² | $90 | $140 |
| Intumescent / fire-rated coating | $45per m² | $90 | $130 |
| Surface preparation (wash, sand, patch, prime) | $8per m² | $15 | $25 |
| High-access work (EWP / scaffold loading) | $500per day | $900 | $2,000 |
| After-hours / night-shift loading (two-painter crew) | $250per day | $500 | $900 |
| Line marking & epoxy floor coating (adjacent) | $30per m² | $40 | $55 |
| Repaint cycle / maintenance contract | $2,000per project | $8,000 | $30,000 |
| Commercial painter hourly rate | $60per hour | $75 | $95 |
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Get free quotes →Commercial Painting Costs by Sector
Office floors and government tenancies
Office floors in capital-city towers and suburban business parks across Australia are repainted between leases, at make-good or on a building's planned cycle. Walls and ceilings run $20–$45 per m², and work staged at night or over weekends adds a crew loading of $250–$900 a day.
Shopfronts and street-facing facades
Strip shops, main-street buildings and centre frontages are judged on how they look from the footpath, so facades tend to be recoated more often than the space behind them. Exterior coats price at $40–$90 per m², with washing, crack filling and priming as a separate line at $8–$25 per m².
Warehouses, factories and steelwork
Distribution centres and factories are painted inside at $15–$45 per m² on the warehouse rate, and exposed structural steel is recoated in place at $15–$45 per m². Plant rooms, tanks and steel exposed to salt air often move up to a protective coating system at $50–$140 per m².
Apartment buildings and strata common areas
Owners corporations and body corporates tend to budget repainting as a cycle rather than a one-off, staging foyers, hallways and fire stairs separately from the outside walls. A planned program is priced at $2,000–$30,000 per project, with interiors at $20–$45 per m² and render or facade at $40–$90 per m².
What affects commercial painting costs across Australia
Commercial painting quotes in Australia are driven by surface preparation, how the crew reaches the work and whether the building keeps trading during the job, more than by area alone. A tilt-slab warehouse, a rendered strata tower on a salt-air coastline and a brick workshop in a frosty inland town can share a floor plan and still price very differently.
- Surface preparation. Washing, sanding, patching and priming run $8–$25 per m²; a sound painted wall sits at the low end, chalky render or rusty steel at the top.
- Access and height. Upper facades, atriums and gantries add boom lifts or scaffold at $500–$2,000 per day on top of the coating rate.
- After-hours shifts. Occupied offices, shopping centres and hospitals mean nights and weekends, adding $250–$900 per day for a two-painter crew.
- Coating system. A plain interior repaint is typically $30 per m², a protective industrial system runs $50–$140 per m² and intumescent fire-rated coatings sit at $45–$130 per m².
- Climate band. Humid tropical summers slow curing and call for anti-mould primers, while cold inland winters shorten the painting day and push exterior work into the warmer months.
- Scale and repaint cycles. Multi-building sites and rolling maintenance programs are priced as a whole at $2,000–$30,000 per project.
Use the form on this page to get quotes from commercial painters across Australia.
How to Control Commercial Painting Costs
Our Methodology
Commercial pricing on this page is compiled from Australian commercial contractors, suppliers, published commercial rate guides and peak industry data. We cross-reference ranges from multiple sources and adjust for city-specific factors. Our guides are produced independently; no contractor can influence a published figure. All prices are GST-inclusive estimates and will vary with your specific site. Read our full methodology →
Painting a whole commercial building — exterior costs that scale
The searches that land here most often ask one blunt question: what does it cost to paint a commercial building? The honest answer is a method, not a number — commercial painting prices per square metre by surface type, and the whole-building figure is those bands applied to your measured areas.
Exterior work is where budgets are won and lost. Facade and render repaints run $40–$90 per square metre, but preparation is its own line at $8–$25 per square metre — wash-down, sanding, patching and priming — and its share grows with the age of the substrate and the height of the building. A neglected facade can carry as much prep cost as paint cost.
Inside the envelope, warehouse and factory walls band at $15–$45 per square metre and standard interior repaints at $20–$45 per square metre. Where compliance enters — structural steel needing fire ratings — intumescent coating is its own specialist band at $45–$130 per square metre, and it belongs in the budget as a separate certified line, not buried in the general rate.
To estimate a whole building: measure each surface class, apply its band, then add access. Elevated work platforms and scaffold are quoted separately from the painting rate — on multi-storey exteriors they can rival the paint line itself, and our scaffolding cost guide covers those numbers.
Commercial painting prices in Australia: per hour or per square metre
Commercial painters in Australia fall back on an hourly rate when the work is too small or scattered to measure, such as touch-ups, a run of door frames or patching after a tenant moves out. That rate sits at $60–$95 per hour, $75 typical. Once there is a surface to measure, the quote switches to square metres: $20–$45 per m² for office and shop interiors, $40–$90 per m² for a rendered facade, and $15–$45 per m² for the walls of a shed or factory.
Area is only part of the price. Washing, sanding, patching and priming come to $8–$25 per m² when a painter lists them on their own line, so a square-metre rate means little until the quote says whether that work is inside it or extra. Anything above ladder height adds boom lift or scaffold days at $500–$2,000 per day, and premises that keep trading through the job add a night loading of $250–$900 for each night shift a two-painter crew works.
Owners with several buildings in Australia often move from one-off quotes to a repaint cycle or maintenance contract, priced at $2,000–$30,000 per project depending on how many sites and surfaces it covers. Specialist systems sit apart from ordinary repainting: a protective or industrial coating runs $50–$140 per m², and intumescent coating on steelwork $45–$130 per m². A colour and specification consultation, where one is wanted, is $200–$500 per job.
Commercial painting cost in Australia: what it costs to paint a commercial building, interior, exterior and warehouse, per m²
The cost to paint a commercial building in Australia is quoted per square metre of surface, and the surface sets the rate. An interior commercial repaint of walls and ceilings costs $20–$45/m². Warehouse and factory wall painting, where the walls are large, plain and reached by lift, runs $15–$45/m². An exterior commercial repaint of a facade or rendered wall is the dearest surface at $40–$90/m² because of the access, the weather window and the preparation.
Preparation is its own line on a commercial job: washing, sanding, patching and priming at $8–$25/m² before any topcoat. Where the building needs a fire rating, an intumescent or fire-rated coating on structural steel costs $45–$130/m². Where a painter is charging by time instead, the commercial painter hourly rate is $60–$95.
For a building owner who repaints on a schedule, a repaint cycle or maintenance contract is priced per project at $2,000–$30,000, depending on the size of the estate and how many surfaces each cycle covers. A commercial painting quote should give the rate per m², the area it was measured on, and whether preparation is inside the rate or on its own line; an all-in per-m² figure that includes prep is not cheaper than one that excludes it, it is just a different quote.
What a Compliant Commercial Painting Quote Includes — Cost in Australia
A commercial painting quote anywhere in Australia is only comparable once the scope, the measurement method and the preparation allowance are written down. The checklist below covers what to look for before any two prices are set side by side.
- Square metres of wall, ceiling and facade area per building or tenancy, with the measurement method stated so the figure can be checked on site
- The preparation scope spelled out in words, with its cost shown on its own line, $8–$25 per m²
- The coating system for each surface: brand, product, primer, number of finish coats and sheen, with manufacturer data sheets available on request
- Access costs for anything above ladder height, priced per day of elevated work platform or scaffold hire, $500–$2,000 per day
- Whether out-of-hours shifts are included, because trading tenancies across Australia are usually repainted at night or over weekends
- Seasonal assumptions written in: wet-season limits in the tropical north, frost and short daylight in the southern states, and what happens to the price if the program slips
- GST treatment, payment stages tied to completed areas, and the name of the person who inspects and signs off each stage
- Site clean-up, protection of fixtures and disposal of paint tins and masking, listed as included or as an extra