The Ranking
Our top 7 painting companies in New York
New York City painting is mostly apartment work, and it starts with the walls. Prewar co-ops and condos often have plaster that cracks and needs skim coating before paint, brownstones in Brooklyn and Manhattan carry decades of layered trim, and the rowhouses of Queens and the brick houses of Staten Island need exterior work that survives freeze and thaw, summer humidity and salt air near the water. Most companies in this list are small crews, so ask who will actually be on site.
Age matters for safety. Homes built before 1978 may contain lead paint, and federal EPA rules require firms that disturb it in homes and child-occupied buildings to hold Renovation, Repair and Painting certification and to follow lead-safe work practices. Ask any painter whether the firm is certified and what containment it uses.
Check the licence next. New York City requires contractors who do residential home improvement work to hold a home improvement contractor licence from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which you can look up on the city website. In our research only Paintworks & Decorating publishes a licence number on its site, so ask the others for theirs. Co-op and condo boards also tend to ask for a certificate of insurance and a signed alteration agreement before work starts, so allow time for that paperwork.
We started with Google Maps searches for house painters and painting contractors in New York, then widened to Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan neighborhoods. We kept companies with 4.5 stars or better, at least 50 reviews, a real working website, a street address in the five boroughs and a logo, and we dropped lead-generation pages, franchise landing pages, template sites and listings with stuffed names. Companies appear in Google's order, not ranked by us, and no company paid to be included. Ratings were read on November 2, 2026.
