Painting and Wall Covering Contractors (U.S.) — NAICS 23832

A rollup primer. This page covers the five-digit NAICS industry 23832, which contains a single six-digit child, 238320. For full detail — segment economics, the investable universe, regulation, and the investment case — see the 238320 primer. This page explains why the two levels are effectively the same and gives this level's own ground-truth figures.

1. Overview

Painting and wall covering contractors are the specialty-trade firms that apply paint, stains, coatings, and wallpaper to the inside and outside of buildings — and, at the industrial end, to bridges, water tanks, ships, steel structures, and factory equipment.[1] Under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS, the U.S. government's standard scheme for grouping businesses), this is one industry code, 23832.

It is one of the most fragmented, lowest-barrier corners of the U.S. construction economy: roughly 38,000 employer establishments and about 208,000 payroll employees, plus a much larger uncounted tail of one- and two-person operators.[2][3] Painting is a recurring-maintenance business as much as a construction business — exteriors need repainting every 7–10 years and interiors every 5–7 — so a durable base of demand recurs regardless of the new-building cycle.[8] The work is labor-heavy, asset-light, and cash-generative, but margins are thin and competition is relentless because almost anyone can enter.

There is no pure-play public painting contractor to buy. Public-market investors get exposure only indirectly, through paint suppliers (Sherwin-Williams, PPG, RPM) or a franchisor like FirstService (owner of CertaPro Painters); the direct route is private.[13][14][16] For the full treatment of all of this, read the child primer, 238320.

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

NAICS is a nested hierarchy: each five-digit industry splits into one or more six-digit national industries. NAICS 23832 splits into exactly one child:

Because there is only one child, the five-digit industry (23832) and the six-digit industry (238320) describe the same set of businesses. The federal statistical agencies report them with the same definition, the same firm counts, and the same receipts; the extra trailing digit adds no further breakdown. In effect, 23832 is a pass-through to 238320. This short page exists only to occupy the five-digit rung of the taxonomy; everything substantive lives one level down.

The trade itself spans three loose segments — residential repaint and new-construction painting; commercial painting (offices, retail, multifamily, institutional); and industrial/infrastructure coatings (bridges, tanks, pipelines, marine, steel) — but those segments live inside 238320, not as separate NAICS children. See the child primer's Section 2 for the full scope, inclusions, and the adjacent codes (paint manufacturing 325510, drywall 238310, roofing 238160, and so on) where related work is classified instead.[1]

3. Size (this level's rollup figures)

Because 23832 equals its one child, the rollup figures are simply this industry's own federal statistics — our ground-truth ingested data for NAICS 23832. These blend the 2022 Economic Census with 2023 County Business Patterns (CBP), so they are not a single-year series:

That works out to roughly $870,000 in average receipts and about 5–6 employees per firm — many small shops, not a few big ones.[2][3]

The undercount caveat (important here). These Census figures count only employer businesses. CBP excludes the self-employed, businesses without an employer identification number (EIN), firms with an EIN but no employees, and most government workers.[5] Painting is a textbook case of an industry dominated by tiny and individual operators — a very large share of working painters are self-employed nonemployer sole proprietors who never appear in CBP.[6] Private research that includes those operators counts far more businesses — one widely cited estimate puts U.S. house-painting-and-decorating businesses alone at about 221,000, versus the ~38,000 employer firms in the federal data.[7] Treat the ~$33 billion federal receipts number as the employer-firm baseline, not the whole market.[3][7]

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

With only one child, there is nothing to compare across siblings — all value in this level is the value inside 238320. The short version: no listed company's core business is painting contracting. The cleanest public exposure is to the suppliers and franchisor around the trade, while the operators themselves are private.[13][14]

• Public, indirect: Sherwin-Williams (NYSE: SHW), PPG Industries (NYSE: PPG), and RPM International (NYSE: RPM) make the paint and coatings; FirstService (NASDAQ/TSX: FSV) owns the CertaPro Painters franchise brand — the closest listed proxy, though still a diversified company.[13][14][15][16]
• Private, direct: the actual contractors — industrial players like ASRC Industrial and Cherry Coatings, commercial contractors, and franchise platforms (CertaPro, Five Star, Fresh Coat, 360° Painting) — are private, family-, employee-, Alaska-Native-corporation-, or private-equity-owned.[12][18][21]

Even the biggest independents hold a tiny slice of a $33 billion market. See the child primer's Section 4 for the full company tables.

5. How the money works

Painting is a labor business with a materials pass-through. Labor is commonly 75–85% of a project's cost, with paint and supplies at 15–20%.[9] Gross margins on jobs run 30–50%, and net margins land in the low-double-digits to mid-teens percent for a healthy small contractor.[9] Capital intensity is low — sprayers, ladders, scaffolding, and trucks, no factory — which keeps entry cheap (and competition fierce) and the business cash-generative. The franchise layer converts a fragmented trade into an asset-light fee stream (upfront fees plus ongoing royalties), which is what makes it investable through a public parent like FirstService.[13] Full unit economics and the operating metrics that matter are in the child primer's Section 5.

6. Demand drivers

Demand rests on the repaint cycle (exteriors every ~7–10 years, interiors ~5–7), an aging building stock (median U.S. owner-occupied home age 44 years in 2023), remodeling and repair spending, existing-home sales and turnover, new construction, and commercial, institutional, and infrastructure maintenance budgets.[8][24][25] Interest rates sit underneath much of this by shaping housing turnover and remodeling budgets. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects ~4% employment growth for painters from 2024 to 2034 and names do-it-yourself work as a limit on growth.[21] See the child primer's Section 6 for detail.

7. Regulation

The distinctive federal burden is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Rule, which requires certification for any firm paid to disturb paint in housing or child-occupied facilities built before 1978.[22] Layered on top: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hazard-communication, respiratory-protection, and construction-lead standards; federal and state limits on the volatile organic compound (VOC) content of coatings; and state and local contractor licensing and bonding.[23][24][25][26] None of this is heavy relative to health care or finance, but it is a real ongoing cost that informal operators often skip — and, in industrial and public work, a qualification barrier that protects established contractors. Full detail is in the child primer's Section 7.

8. Consolidation

This is one of the least concentrated industries in the entire economy: the top 4 firms hold just 2.1% of receipts, the top 50 about 10.5%, and the HHI sits essentially at the floor at 2.9.[3] Low capital requirements and modest licensing let painters enter constantly, keeping work distributed among small shops. The consolidation vectors that do exist — franchising, private-equity roll-ups, and national-account coverage — are real but have barely dented the fragmentation.[12][13][23] The industry is structurally consolidatable, especially in commercial maintenance, multifamily, and specialized coatings, but roll-ups destroy value when they buy weak job costing or owner-dependent sales. See the child primer's Section 8.

9. Risks

The principal risks are labor availability and cost (labor is 75–85% of job cost, and the skilled-painter pool is tight), cyclicality and rate sensitivity, input-cost volatility, thin margins and estimating risk, execution and liability (overspray, callbacks, falls, lead claims), cash-flow strain from retainage and slow payers, low barriers that invite constant undercutting, seasonality and weather, and data risk (the federal statistics omit the large nonemployer tail).[5][8][9] Full discussion in the child primer's Section 9.

10. How to invest and outlook

There is no listed pure-play, so public-market routes are all indirect — paint and coatings makers (SHW, PPG, RPM), franchisor exposure (FSV), or retail proxies (Home Depot, Lowe's).[14][15][16][13][17] The direct routes are private: owning or building an independent contractor, buying a franchise territory (review the Franchise Disclosure Document first), backing a private-equity roll-up, focusing on the higher-barrier industrial/infrastructure coatings niche, or lending to established operators.[13][18][21][23]

Near-term outlook. The next couple of years look flattish for residential painting after the rate-driven housing slowdown, but the recurring repaint cycle and an aging building stock provide a demand floor even in a soft year.[8][24][25] Watch three levers: interest rates, labor costs, and infrastructure and commercial-maintenance spending.[8][21] The enduring feature of this industry is not growth but its fragmentation — hard to dominate, fertile for disciplined operators and consolidators. For the complete investment case, read the child primer, 238320.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 NAICS Manual — 238320 Painting and Wall Covering Contractors (definition, inclusions, and exclusions). https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=238320&input=238320&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 238320 — establishments, employment, annual and Q1 payroll (2023). https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2023/econ/cbp/2023-cbp.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration of Largest Firms, NAICS 238320 — receipts, firm count, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI (2022). https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN?q=238320
4. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards, NAICS 238320 — $19.0M receipts threshold (2023). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2023-title13-vol1/pdf/CFR-2023-title13-vol1-part121.pdf
5. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns Methodology — coverage and exclusions (self-employed, no-EIN, nonemployers). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
6. U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics — businesses without paid employees. https://www.census.gov/econ/overview/mu0500.html
7. IBISWorld, House Painting & Decorating Contractors in the US — Market Size and Number of Businesses (~221,000 businesses; ~$28B residential; no >5% share) (2024–2025). https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/industry/house-painting-decorating-contractors/5738/
8. Future Market Insights and industry trend research, Repaint cycles, remodeling spend, and painting demand drivers (2025). https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/decorative-paints-market
9. ServiceTitan / Knowify, Painting contractor margins, labor and material cost structure (2025). https://www.servicetitan.com/blog/paint-business-profit-margin
10. Cherry Coatings / Levelset, Largest U.S. Painting Contractors rankings — ASRC, Graydaze, Cherry, Champion (2024). https://cherrycoatings.com/3rd-largest-painting-contractor-2024/
11. FirstService Corporation / CertaPro Painters, FirstService Brands and CertaPro ownership (NASDAQ/TSX: FSV) (2026). https://www.firstservice.com/brands/
12. The Sherwin-Williams Company, 2024 Year-End and Fourth-Quarter Financial Results (~$23.1B FY2024 revenue) (2025). https://investors.sherwin-williams.com/investor-home/default.aspx?family=multi
13. PPG Industries, PPG Completes Sale of Architectural Coatings U.S. and Canada Business to American Industrial Partners (Pittsburgh Paints Company) (2024). https://news.ppg.com/Press-Releases/news-details/2024/PPG-completes-sale-of-architectural-coatings-U-S--and-Canada-business-to-American-Industrial-Partners/default.aspx
14. RPM International, 2025 Form 10-K (2025). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/110621/000095017025098313/rpm-20250531.htm
15. Home Depot, 2025 Annual Report; Lowe's, 2025 Annual Report (2026). https://ir.homedepot.com/; https://corporate.lowes.com/
16. Neighborly / KKR, Our Brands (Five Star Painting, ProTect Painters) (2026). https://www.neighborlybrands.com/our-brands/
17. ASRC Industrial Services (Arctic Slope Regional Corporation), Who We Are (2026). https://asrcindustrial.com/who-we-are/
18. Construction Briefing / Delancey Street Partners, Contractor acquisitions and private-equity consolidation (2024–2025). https://www.constructionbriefing.com/news/2025-could-be-a-big-year-for-contractor-investment-and-consolidation/8049276.article
19. Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, Improving America's Housing 2025 — median age of housing stock 44 years (2023). https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/reports/files/Harvard_JCHS_Improving_Americas_Housing_2025.pdf
20. Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) — remodeling forecast, ~$518B (2026). https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/remodeling-growth-set-downshift-late-2026
21. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook — Painters, Construction and Maintenance — median wage (May 2024), 4% projected growth, ~28,100 annual openings, DIY substitution. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/painters-construction-and-maintenance.htm
22. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Program — Contractors (accessed 2026). https://www.epa.gov/lead/renovation-repair-and-painting-program-contractors
23. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Hazard Communication, 29 CFR 1910.1200. https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.1200
24. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Respiratory Protection, 29 CFR 1910.134. https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.134
25. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Construction Lead Standard, 29 CFR 1926.62. https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1926/1926.62
26. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Architectural Coatings — National Volatile Organic Compound Emission Standards. https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/architectural-coatings-national-volatile-organic-compounds