Government painting contracts and painting contracts for bid
Government painting contracts are steady but thin on SAM.gov, and they hide well. On October 15, 2026 the public SAM.gov file held 9 open painting and coating notices out of 7,510 open federal solicitations, and only 3 of them carried the painting NAICS code 238320. The rest were filed under building construction, heavy civil or abatement codes, with titles like "FY26 Upgrades, Paint Only" or "Protective Coatings Requirements Contract". FederalContracts reads every new federal notice the morning after it posts, scores it out of 100 against your trades, codes, set-asides and states, and sends one short list with the best fits first.
A three person repaint crew in San Diego and an industrial coatings contractor working Corps of Engineers dams should not be reading the same list.
| Match | Solicitation and agency | NAICS | Set-aside | Place of performance | Response due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 75 | EOIR Schwartz FOB Courtroom Painting | 236220 | Total small business | San Diego, California | 21 Oct 6 days left |
| 72 | Solicitation: Construct Combat Rescue Helicopter Flight Simulator Facility at Moffett ANGB | 236220 | Total small business | Moffett Field, California | 13 Nov |
| 69 | ICE HSI Schwartz 2nd Floor Window Coverings | 236220 | Total small business | San Diego, California | 21 Oct 6 days left |
| 68 | Munitions Maintenance and Inspection Facility and Conventional Munitions Cube Storage Addition, HIANG, JBPHH, HI | 236220 | Total small business | Not stated | 30 Oct |
| 67 | GAOA Facilities, Barracks Inyo NF | 236220 | Total small business | Lone Pine, California | 27 Oct |
Where do I find government painting contracts?
You find federal painting contracts on SAM.gov under Contract Opportunities, filtered by NAICS 238320 (painting and wall covering contractors) and construction service codes Z1 and Z2, because most repaint work is posted as maintenance, repair or alteration of real property. Search notice text for "paint" and "coating" too, since many jobs sit under 236220 or 237990. State, county and school district painting bids are on each buyer's own portal.
| Where the work is | Typical buyers | What it looks like | How you get in |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAM.gov construction notices | Army, Air Force, Navy, VA, GSA, National Park Service | Interior and exterior repaints, courtroom and office refresh, barracks and recruiting stations | |
| Industrial coating notices | Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service | Spillway gates, lock doors, powerhouse doors, bridges, steel tanks | |
| IDIQs and requirements contracts | Air Force bases, Navy installations, Corps districts | Multi-year painting or protective coating vehicles priced per task order | |
| Overseas posts | State Department embassies and consulates | Chancery repaints, residence exterior work, apartment maintenance | |
| State and local portals | School districts, counties, housing authorities, transit agencies | Summer school repaints, housing turnover painting, bridge and tank coating |
The ranked list covers the SAM.gov side every morning. On Capture it adds New York City bids from the City Record, so a city housing repaint and an Army Reserve center job land in the same list. Other states and cities are not covered yet.
Painting contracts for bid in a typical month
In the 30 days before October 15, 2026, federal buyers posted 28 painting and coating solicitations, presolicitations and sources sought notices. The examples below come from the summer and fall of 2026, all public records, and the mix shows where the federal work actually is.
- Building repaints. Courtroom painting at a federal building in California for GSA, exterior painting of three buildings at the Boise VA medical center, painting of Army recruiting stations across western upstate New York, interior paint for a building at Nellis Air Force Base.
- Protective coatings. A protective coatings requirements contract at an Air Force base in North Dakota, a protective coating maintenance IDIQ set aside for economically disadvantaged women owned small businesses, a Bureau of Reclamation protective coatings IDIQ.
- Dams, locks and bridges. Barkley Dam emergency gate painting and spillway machinery painting in Kentucky, Dale Hollow powerhouse door coating in Tennessee, bridge painting and repairs on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
- Overseas. Exterior painting at embassy compounds, a residence repaint and roofing project in the Philippines, apartment painting and maintenance for the US Mission in Paris.
- Odd ones worth knowing. A mural at a NOAA aircraft operations center in Florida, lead paint abatement at a National Park Service site in Virginia.
Notice the titles. "FY26 Upgrades, Paint Only" and "Correct FCA Deficiencies" do not say painting contractor in a way a keyword alert catches, which is why reading the full notice text matters more for painters than for most trades.
Painting NAICS and service codes the matching reads
Put every code you can perform on your profile. The same repaint can post under 238320 at one office and under 236220 at another, depending on how the contracting officer wrote it up.
| Code | What it covers | Typical federal notice |
|---|---|---|
| NAICS 238320 | Painting and wall covering contractors | Interior and exterior repaints, protective coatings, wall covering |
| NAICS 236220 | Commercial and institutional building construction | Renovations where painting is the main or only scope |
| NAICS 237990 | Other heavy and civil engineering construction | Bridge painting, spillway and lock gate coating |
| NAICS 238310 | Drywall and insulation contractors | Wall repair and finish work bundled with painting |
| NAICS 562910 | Remediation services | Lead paint abatement before repainting |
| PSC Z1 and Z2 | Maintenance, repair and alteration of real property | Z2AA office buildings, Z2JZ miscellaneous buildings, Z1AZ and Z1JZ base structures |
The SBA size standard for NAICS 238320 is 19 million USD in average annual receipts, so nearly every painting company is small. A job posted under 236220 carries a much higher limit, which lets larger general contractors compete for it, so read the size standard on each notice.
Who awards federal painting contracts
Defense buys the most. Army garrisons, Army Reserve centers, recruiting stations, Air Force wings and Navy installations all buy interior and exterior repaints, and they increasingly bundle years of painting into IDIQs and requirements contracts. Of the 53 painting and coating notices in the public SAM.gov file on October 15, 35 came from the Department of Defense, 24 of them from the Army.
The Army Corps of Engineers deserves its own line. Its dams, locks, spillway gates and powerhouses need industrial coatings, often set aside for service disabled veteran owned small businesses, and the work pays better than a brush and roller repaint because fewer firms can do it.
GSA buys repaints in federal buildings and courthouses, the VA paints hospital buildings under its veteran first rules, and the State Department buys painting at embassies and residences abroad. If painting is one trade inside a wider building business, government construction contracts covers renovation and new build work, and government contracts for veterans explains how veteran set-asides at the VA and the Corps work.
What decides whether you win a government painting contract
- Davis-Bacon wages. Painting a federal building is construction work, so contracts over 2,000 USD carry Davis-Bacon prevailing wages and certified weekly payroll at the painter rates in the attached wage determination. Price labor from that determination, not your commercial rate.
- Bonds. The Miller Act requires performance and payment bonds on federal construction over 150,000 USD, usually each at 100% of the price, and sealed bids need a bid guarantee. A large spillway coating job can outrun a small painter's bonding line quickly.
- Lead and coatings rules. Work that disturbs lead paint falls under the OSHA lead in construction standard, and housing or child occupied facilities built before 1978 also need an EPA lead safe certified firm. Corps of Engineers and Reclamation coating jobs often ask for AMPP (formerly SSPC) QP 1 or QP 2 contractor certification.
- Small jobs first. Contracts under the simplified acquisition threshold, now 350,000 USD, use faster procedures and are usually set aside for small business. Repainting a recruiting station or a single building there builds the past performance that IDIQs and industrial coating jobs ask for.
- Site visits. Most painting notices hold one site visit, and the square footage, surface condition and access you see there decide your number. A list that shows the site visit date on day one beats a longer list you read a week late.
How painting bid matching works
- Describe your work in one line. Interior and exterior repaints, protective coatings, lead abatement, wall covering, sealcoating and striping. The matcher reads the full notice text against it, so a notice titled "Correct FCA Deficiencies" still reaches you when the scope is repainting.
- We read every new notice. Each federal solicitation, presolicitation and sources sought notice is read in full the morning after it posts, not only the title and the NAICS code.
- Each notice gets a score out of 100 with a reason. Scope fit, set-aside eligibility, place of performance and days left to respond, so a courtroom repaint in your state ranks above a coating job across the country.
- You get one short list. The best fits first, with the due date and the award history of similar contracts, so you know who painted that base last time before you price the recompete.
Who pays for a painting bid list
- Commercial painting contractors. Firms that already repaint offices, schools and hospitals add federal buildings within driving distance of their crews.
- Industrial coatings contractors. Crews with blasting equipment and coating certifications see Corps, Reclamation and Fish and Wildlife coating work, which few painters can bid.
- Veteran owned painting firms. An SDVOSB near a VA medical center or a Corps district sees the set-aside work ranked above notices it cannot bid.
- Estimators and owners pricing their own bids. A painter who prices four federal jobs a month needs the right four on Monday morning with the site visit date, not sixty construction notices to sort.
Ways to find painting bids compared
| Option | What you get | What it costs | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAM.gov saved searches | Every federal notice by keyword or code, emailed raw | Free | |
| Construction bid services | Private and public plans and bids, mostly building projects | Typically several hundred to a few thousand USD a year | |
| Bid aggregators | Federal, state and local notices in one feed | From about 599 USD a year for one state on BidNet Direct to five figures nationally | |
| Research databases | Award history, forecasts, contacts | GovTribe from 1,500 USD a year, GovWin IQ quoted in five figures | |
| FederalContracts | Federal notices scored out of 100 against your work, codes and set-asides, with the reason and the deadline | 129 USD a month, or 768 USD a year on Bid Desk |
If most of your painting is private commercial work from general contractors, a construction plans room does more than we do. If the problem is catching the few federal repaint and coating notices a month that fit your crew before the site visit, the ranked list is what saves the time. Government bidding sites compared lists the official portals and paid services side by side.
What painting contractors get on each plan
- Bid Desk, 129 USD a month or 768 USD a year. Federal solicitations, 1 company profile, 3 seats, 5 saved searches, a daily ranked digest, deadline reminders and 3 years of competitor award history, so you see who won the last repaint at that base before you price.
- Capture, 349 USD a month or 2,088 USD a year. Federal solicitations plus New York City bids from the City Record, 5 business lines (for example building repaints, industrial coatings and abatement as separate lines), 15 seats, per business line digests and full award history with exports.
Every plan feature is on pricing. Annual billing costs half of twelve monthly payments.
How to get government painting contracts?
To get government painting contracts, register in SAM.gov with NAICS 238320 and the related codes you can perform, then bid repaint and coating notices near your crews. Start with small building repaints under the simplified acquisition threshold, claim every set-aside you qualify for, price labor from the Davis-Bacon wage determination and use those jobs as past performance for IDIQs.
What is the NAICS code for painting?
The NAICS code for painting contractors is 238320, Painting and Wall Covering Contractors. Its SBA small business size standard is 19 million USD in average annual receipts. Federal painting work also posts under 236220 for building renovations, 237990 for bridges and dam structures and 562910 for lead paint abatement, so list those too if you do that work.
Where can I find painting contracts for bid?
You find federal painting contracts for bid on SAM.gov Contract Opportunities, filtered by NAICS 238320 and a text search for "paint" and "coating", and state and local painting bids on each state, county, school district and housing authority portal. A ranked bid service reads the notices for you and sends only the ones that match your work, states and set-asides.
Do painting contractors need to be bonded for government work?
Yes for federal construction over 150,000 USD. The Miller Act requires a performance bond and a payment bond, usually each at 100% of the contract price, and sealed bids need a bid guarantee. Smaller repaints use other payment protections, so many first federal painting jobs need no bond at all.
Does Davis-Bacon apply to painting contracts?
Yes. Painting a federal building is repair or alteration of real property, which is construction, so contracts over 2,000 USD carry Davis-Bacon prevailing wages for painters and certified weekly payroll. The wage determination attached to the notice sets the rate by county, and it often sits well above a commercial painting rate.
Are government painting contracts profitable?
Government painting contracts can be profitable because payment is reliable, many jobs are set aside for small firms and industrial coating work has few qualified bidders. Margins depend on pricing the wage determination correctly, seeing surface condition at the site visit and staying within driving distance of your crews.
See today's painting contracts ranked for your company
Choose the painting and coatings profile above, or type your own work, state and NAICS codes. Bid Match ranks a dated snapshot of public federal solicitation records against them, so you see the list you would get each morning before you pay anything.
Related reading: government construction contracts, government contracts for veterans, federal construction bid opportunities, government contract alerts, small business government contracting opportunities.