How much do painters make in New Jersey in 2026?

The median painter salary in New Jersey is $59,250 a year, which works out to roughly $28.49 an hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That's your midpoint — half of painters in the state earn more, half earn less. Where you fall on that range depends on experience, specialty, employer type, and where in New Jersey you're working.

The bottom quarter of painters — those just starting out or working lower-paying residential jobs — bring in $45,490 or less annually, about $21.87 an hour. The top quarter clear $72,380 or more, around $34.80 an hour. That's a $26,890 spread from the 25th to the 75th percentile, which tells you this trade has real room to grow if you stay in it and build the right skills.

New Jersey is a dense, high-cost state with a steady mix of residential, commercial, and industrial painting work. The state's commercial and industrial sectors — think warehouses along the Turnpike corridor, office complexes in Newark and Jersey City, and institutional buildings across the state — tend to pay more than straight residential repaint work. Industrial painters who handle protective coatings, epoxy floors, or bridge and structural steel work typically sit at or above the 75th percentile. Residential repaint contractors are often where newer painters start, and wages there tend to cluster in the lower half of the range.

Geography matters inside New Jersey. The northeastern counties — Bergen, Hudson, Essex, Union — sit directly in the shadow of the New York metro labor market. Painters working commercial jobs in that corridor often earn at or near the top of the state's range. Move into central or southern Jersey and wages generally soften, though there's still steady work in those markets.

Experience is the single biggest driver of pay progression for painters. A first-year apprentice or helper is almost always in the $21–$23/hr range. A journeyman with five or more years on commercial and industrial jobs can realistically hit $30–$35/hr in New Jersey. Specialty certifications help — lead abatement certification, OSHA 30, and spray application experience all signal to employers that you're worth a higher rate.

Overtime is common in this trade, especially during the spring and summer push when exterior work piles up and contractors are racing daylight and weather windows. Painters who can work 50-hour weeks during the busy season meaningfully boost their annual take-home beyond what the base hourly rate suggests. A painter at the median hourly rate of $28.49 working 10 hours of overtime per week for 20 weeks adds roughly $8,547 to their annual earnings — that math is worth knowing when you're evaluating a job offer.

Some painters in New Jersey work under a collective bargaining agreement. If that applies to you, check with your local for current rates, as negotiated wages are set outside the BLS survey framework and may differ from the figures shown here.

The numbers on this page come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, published May 2025. The BLS captures base wages reported by employers — it does not include overtime pay, bonuses, per diem, or the value of employer-provided benefits like health insurance or pension contributions. Your real total compensation may be higher than the figures shown.

To move toward the 75th percentile, the path is straightforward: log hours on commercial and industrial jobs, pick up specialty certifications, and don't stay with an employer whose pay has flatlined. Painters who move between employers every few years, taking on progressively larger and more complex scopes, consistently out-earn those who stay in one lane. If you're doing residential repaint work and want to earn more, transitioning to commercial or industrial coatings work in the northeastern part of the state is the clearest route to a higher wage.