How much do painters make in Wisconsin in 2026?

The median painter salary in Wisconsin is $50,090 per year, which works out to $24.08 per hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That's the midpoint — half of painters in the state earn more, half earn less. If you're just starting out or working residential production work, you're more likely to land in the lower range. If you're running commercial jobs, handling specialty finishes, or supervising a crew, you're pushing toward the top end.

The 25th percentile sits at $46,640 annually, or roughly $22.42 per hour. Workers at this level typically have limited experience, are still building their skill set, or are concentrated in lower-wage markets within the state. It's not a bad starting point, but it's the floor most painters want to move past quickly.

At the 75th percentile, Wisconsin painters earn $60,100 per year — about $28.89 per hour. Getting here usually means a combination of years on the job, specialty skills (epoxy coatings, lead abatement, industrial painting, spray application), and the kind of reliability that keeps you busy year-round. The gap between the 25th and 75th percentile is about $13,460 annually, which underscores how much experience and specialization actually pay off in this trade.

Geography plays a real role in where you fall on that range. The Milwaukee metro — including Waukesha and the surrounding suburban counties — tends to support higher wages because of the volume of commercial, industrial, and multi-family construction activity. Madison pulls similarly strong numbers, driven by state government facilities, university buildings, and dense residential development. Markets like Green Bay and Racine fall somewhere in the middle. Rural areas and smaller cities in central or northern Wisconsin generally come in below the state median, partly due to lower project volumes and more competition for fewer commercial jobs.

The type of work matters just as much as location. Commercial and industrial painters consistently out-earn residential painters in Wisconsin. Industrial coatings work — think manufacturing plants, water treatment facilities, or bridge maintenance — often commands the highest rates because of the physical demands, safety certifications required, and specialized equipment involved. Residential repaint work, on the other hand, is competitive and price-sensitive, which tends to compress wages.

Seasonality is a real factor in Wisconsin. The painting season for exterior work runs roughly April through October in most of the state, and shorter in the north. Painters who line up steady interior commercial or industrial work through the winter months protect their annual earnings. Those who rely heavily on exterior residential work may face slower stretches from November through March, which cuts into the annual total even if the hourly rate is solid.

Overtime is another variable the BLS median doesn't fully capture. On busy commercial or public works projects, painters can log 50- to 60-hour weeks during peak season. At $24.08 straight time, overtime hours at 1.5x come out to about $36.12 per hour — those extra hours can add several thousand dollars to annual take-home.

Certifications and licenses add real leverage. Wisconsin doesn't require a statewide painter's license, but EPA RRP (Renovation, Repair, and Painting) certification is required for work on pre-1978 housing, and OSHA 10 or OSHA 30 cards are increasingly expected on commercial job sites. Painters with OSHA 30 cards and lead-safe certifications are more competitive for the higher-paying public and institutional work. Some painters also pursue manufacturer certifications for specific coating systems, which can open doors to specialty industrial contracts.

Apprenticeship programs in the state provide structured training that typically spans three to four years, combining on-the-job hours with classroom instruction in surface preparation, color theory, blueprint reading, and safety. Apprentices earn a percentage of journeyman scale that increases each year, so wages climb steadily through the program. Some workers may be covered by a collective bargaining agreement — check with your local for current rates.

The BLS OEWS figures here represent wages for employed painters and do not include self-employed painters running their own contracting businesses. Owner-operators who handle estimating, client management, and field work can earn considerably more or less depending on how well their business runs — those numbers fall outside what BLS tracks in this dataset.

All figures on this page are sourced from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, May 2025 release.