How much does it cost to paint a house in Toronto?

Painting a whole house in Toronto is really two jobs with two very different price tags: the inside, which is priced off the surface area of walls, ceilings and trim, and the outside, which is priced off the wall area of the building and how hard it is to reach. For a typical two storey semi with about 1,200 sq ft of living space, a full interior repaint lands around $8,100 to $12,900 and a full exterior on wood siding lands around $6,900 to $11,000. Those figures are CAD, before HST at 13%, and they cover labour and standard prep with paint costed separately.

The rest of this guide shows exactly how those numbers are built, so you can do the same arithmetic for your own house instead of guessing.

The rates everything is built from

Every figure on this site comes from one rate table. For interior work, on a prepared surface with two finish coats, labour and standard prep included and paint extra:

For exterior work, per square foot of exterior wall area, again two coats with standard prep:

Soffit, fascia and eaves trim run $3.00 to $5.00 per linear foot. A front door is $250 to $450, a single garage door $300 to $550, and a porch or deck $500 to $1,500 depending on size and whether it is stained or painted.

There is also a floor on all of this. Most insured crews will not book a job under about $450, because a half day with two painters, drop sheets, travel and parking costs them roughly that much whether they paint one wall or five.

Worked example: the interior of a 1,200 sq ft semi

Take a two storey semi near the Danforth with about 1,200 sq ft of finished living space, furnished, walls in fair shape with some patching and scuffs, going from beige to a noticeably different but similar depth colour, standard 8 ft ceilings.

Step one, wall area. Wall area runs about 2.65 times the floor area at 8 ft ceilings, which is 1,200 x 2.65 = 3,180 sq ft. Take off 12% for doors and windows and you are painting roughly 2,800 sq ft of wall.

Step two, the three line items.

• Walls: 2,800 sq ft x $1.40 to $2.20 = $3,920 to $6,160
• Ceilings: 1,200 sq ft (ceiling area matches floor area) x $1.30 to $2.00 = $1,560 to $2,400
• Trim: about 0.35 linear feet of baseboard and casing per floor sq ft, so 1,200 x 0.35 = 420 linear feet, x $2.00 to $3.50 = $840 to $1,470

That is a base of $6,320 to $10,030.

Step three, the multipliers. Fair condition adds 10%. A noticeable colour change of similar depth adds 8%. Furnished, with the crew moving and covering furniture, adds another 8%. Multiply 1.10 x 1.08 x 1.08 and you get about 1.28.

$6,320 x 1.28 = about $8,100. $10,030 x 1.28 = about $12,900.

So $8,100 to $12,900 (CAD, before HST) for the interior, labour and prep, paint on top.

If that house were downtown in an M4, M5 or M6 postal code, add 6% for the parking and access realities of the core. If it were a condo rather than a house, add 6% for elevator bookings and building hours.

What the paint adds

Materials are separate because the grade is your choice. You are painting 2,800 sq ft of wall plus 1,200 sq ft of ceiling, which is 4,000 sq ft. Two coats is 8,000 sq ft of coverage, and a 3.78 L can covers about 350 sq ft per coat on smooth interior wall, so you need about 23 cans.

• Contractor grade (Behr Premium Plus, Dulux Diamond) at $45 to $65 a can: roughly $1,050 to $1,500
• Premium (Benjamin Moore Regal, Sherwin-Williams Emerald) at $70 to $95: roughly $1,600 to $2,200
• Designer (Benjamin Moore Aura, Farrow and Ball) at $110 to $140: roughly $2,500 to $3,200

Add about 8% on top of the paint for sundries: tape, plastic, filler, caulk and roller sleeves. Primer, where it is needed, is $35 to $55 a can.

Worked example: the exterior of the same house

Same semi, 1,000 sq ft footprint, two storeys, wood siding in sound condition, tight side yards.

Perimeter. A perfect square with a 1,000 sq ft footprint has a perimeter of 4 x the square root of 1,000, which is about 126 feet. Real houses have bumps, bays and returns, so multiply by 1.10 to get about 139 feet.

Wall area. Each storey is about 9.5 feet of wall once you count the rim joist and the bit of foundation that shows. So 139 x 9.5 x 2 storeys = about 2,640 sq ft, less 18% for windows and doors, which leaves roughly 2,170 sq ft of siding.

Rate. Wood at $2.50 to $4.00 = $5,420 to $8,670.

Multipliers. Two storeys adds 15%. Tight side yards, which describes most Toronto semis, adds 10%. Sound paint needing only a wash and a light sand adds nothing. 1.15 x 1.10 = about 1.27.

$5,420 x 1.27 = about $6,900. $8,670 x 1.27 = about $11,000.

Soffit, fascia and eaves trim are extra: about 1.4 linear feet of trim per foot of perimeter, so 139 x 1.4 = roughly 195 linear feet, x $3.00 to $5.00 = $600 to $1,000.

Exterior paint covers less, about 300 sq ft per can, so 2,170 sq ft x two coats divided by 300 is about 15 cans: $1,050 to $1,450 at premium grade.

If the siding is peeling or chalking and needs scraping and spot priming, that is a 20% add on the labour. Bare wood and repairs is 45%. Brick instead of wood would push the same house to roughly $8,200 to $12,300 before trim. Booking for April or October instead of the May to September peak takes 5% off.

What actually moves the number

Condition, more than anything. Good walls are a flat rate. Fair condition adds 10%, poor condition with cracks and water stains adds 25%, and wallpaper removal or damaged plaster adds 45%. In older Toronto houses with original plaster, this is the single biggest swing between two otherwise identical quotes.

Ceiling height. 9 ft ceilings add 10%, 10 ft adds 22%, and anything over 10 feet, vaulted or a stairwell adds 40%. The paint does not change. The ladder work, the staging and the cutting in do.

Colour change. Same or similar colour is a straight two coats. A dark to light or light to dark change effectively needs a third coat and adds 18%.

Whether you are living there. An empty house is the cheapest thing to paint. Furnished adds 8%. Lived in with kids, pets or a home office adds 12%, because the crew works around you in smaller zones.

Where you are. Downtown and central Toronto adds 6%. The rest of the city is the baseline. GTA outside Toronto comes off about 3%.

When you book. Within two weeks adds 10%. One to two months out is standard. Genuinely flexible, happy to wait for a gap in the schedule, takes 5% off.

Interior and exterior together

For the semi above, interior and exterior in the same year comes to roughly $15,000 to $24,000 before paint, trim extras and HST. That is a real number and it surprises people, which is why most Toronto homeowners split it: exterior in one summer, interior over a winter, or main floor first and bedrooms later.

If you do split it, do the exterior first when there is any peeling. Water getting behind siding or into a window frame damages the inside of the wall you were about to repaint.

How long it takes

A painter covers roughly 900 sq ft of finished wall and ceiling per day with two coats, and most residential crews are two people. The 4,000 sq ft interior above is about 1,800 sq ft a day, so a little over two days of painting. Add a day for masking, patching and setup and you are at three to four days on site.

Exterior production is slower, about 600 sq ft per painter per day, because of ladders, moving staging and washing. The 2,170 sq ft exterior is two days of coating plus prep, trim and weather windows, so plan for four to six days spread across a week.

Getting from an estimate to a quote

An estimate built the way this guide builds one is good enough to budget with and good enough to sanity check a quote that lands in your inbox. It is not a quote. Nobody has seen your plaster, your window count or the state of your fascia.

You can run your numbers through the free estimator in a couple of minutes and get the same arithmetic done for your room count, condition and postal code. Then, if you want an exact quote for a job like this, All Painting is the Toronto contractor we recommend: their house painting service covers interior and exterior, and you can reach them at 416-710-4224.

For the detail behind each half of the job, see our interior painting cost per square foot guide and the exterior painting cost guide.

Frequently asked questions

Is painting priced per square foot of floor or of wall?

Of wall. Floor area is only a shortcut to get there. At 8 ft ceilings, wall area is about 2.65 times floor area before you deduct 12% for openings, so a 150 sq ft bedroom has roughly 350 sq ft of paintable wall. Quotes that price off floor area alone are hiding an assumption about your ceiling height.

Does the quote include paint?

Often not, and you should check. The rates in this guide are labour and standard prep only. Paint for a 1,200 sq ft interior runs roughly $1,050 to $3,200 depending on whether you choose contractor, premium or designer grade, plus about 8% for sundries.

Why is my brick house more expensive than my neighbour's siding?

Brick is $3.00 to $4.50 per sq ft against $1.75 to $2.75 for vinyl, because masonry drinks paint, needs a masonry primer or stain system and takes far more prep. Painting brick is also close to permanent, so it is worth being sure before you start.

Do I pay HST on house painting?

Yes. Residential painting is a taxable service in Ontario, so add 13% to every figure in this guide. A contractor who offers a cash price with no HST is not registered or is not reporting it, and you lose any paper trail if something goes wrong.

Should I paint the interior before or after new flooring?

Paint first if the floors are going in after, because installers can scuff fresh baseboard but painters can cut to a subfloor without worry. If the floors are staying, the crew covers them and the occupancy multiplier already accounts for that extra care.

How far out should I book?

One to two months is the normal window and carries no premium. Asking for a crew inside two weeks adds about 10%, since they have to shuffle other work. If you can be flexible and take a gap in the schedule, you save about 5%.