How much do painters make in Illinois in 2026?

The median painter salary in Illinois is $61,260 a year, which works out to roughly $29.45 an hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That's the midpoint — half of Illinois painters earn more, half earn less. Where you land depends on experience, specialty, employer type, and where in the state you're working.

The bottom quarter of Illinois painters — those just starting out or working steadier but lower-paying residential jobs — comes in at $47,990 a year, or about $23.07 an hour. That's still a livable wage in most parts of Illinois outside of the Chicago metro, and it's the realistic starting point for someone finishing an apprenticeship or moving from helper to journey-level work. The top quarter of earners clears $93,220 annually, which is $44.82 an hour. Those are painters who have typically built a specialty — industrial coatings, lead abatement, high-rise exterior work — or are running their own crews on commercial and institutional projects.

The $45,000+ gap between the 25th and 75th percentile is wider than you'll see in many trades, and that spread reflects how varied painting work is. A residential repaint on a single-family home in Peoria pays very differently from a bridge coating contract in the Chicago metro or an epoxy floor system in a Lake County distribution warehouse. Specialty coatings and industrial work sit at the top of that range for good reason — they require knowledge of surface prep standards, specific application equipment, and safety certifications that not every painter carries.

Geography matters inside Illinois. The Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro concentrates the largest volume of commercial and industrial work, and wages there trend toward the upper half of the statewide range. Downstate markets — Springfield, Rockford, Peoria, the Quad Cities — have lower cost of living and in some cases lower prevailing wages on public projects, though skilled journeymen with specialty certifications can still push well past the median even in those markets.

Prevailing wage laws apply to public-funded construction projects in Illinois. If you're working on a school, a state building, or a municipal project, the wages are set by the Illinois Department of Labor's prevailing wage schedule for your county, and those rates are published and updated annually. Getting onto public projects — even as an employee rather than a contractor — is one of the cleaner paths to consistent pay at or above the statewide median. Some workers in this trade may be covered by a collective bargaining agreement — check with your local for current rates.

Experience is the single biggest lever on pay within this trade. A painter with two to four years of journey-level experience who can handle spray, brush, and roller across both interior and exterior applications is more valuable than a specialist in only one method. Adding certifications — OSHA 30, lead renovation/repair/painting (RRP) certification, or industrial coating inspection credentials — makes you harder to replace and justifies a higher rate in negotiations.

Overtime is common on commercial and industrial jobs, particularly during the spring-to-fall busy season in Illinois when contractors stack schedules to get exterior work done before weather closes in. A painter earning $29.45 an hour straight time earns $44.18 an hour at time-and-a-half. Even 200 hours of overtime in a year adds roughly $2,946 on top of a base salary — and many painters working active commercial sites see far more than that.

The BLS figures here are from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, May 2025 release. They cover wage and salary workers and are based on employer-reported data. They do not capture unreported cash pay, owner-operator net income if you're running your own painting business, or the value of benefits like health insurance and retirement contributions — all of which affect total compensation. Use the numbers as a benchmark, not a ceiling.