Cost of painting a flat

The price of painting a flat is not counted in square metres of floor

You came for a figure based on the size of the flat, and without seeing it we are not going to give you one: it would come from guessing how much there is to paint, how and with what. Instead, here is how much there really is to paint in a home, the four ways of pricing it and what a quote has to say for you to be able to compare it with another.

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Before the square metres comes the state of your walls. See which of the four cases your home falls into and you will know what you are going to be asked.

The square metres

Where a flat’s square metres really are

In a home it is the walls and ceilings that get painted, and what they measure bears little resemblance to the figure in the property listing. To show it, an invented flat with round numbers: 70 m² in seven rooms, 2.5 m ceilings, and the kitchen and bathroom tiled all the way up.

The ceilings: the easy part

If they are flat, they add up to the same as the floor: here, 70 m². And they are painted in the kitchen and bathroom too, even though the walls are tiled.

The hallway: what nobody tells you

With 5.5 m² of floor it has 38 to paint, almost seven times as much. It is long and narrow, and nearly all of it is wall.

The layout: what changes the figure

With the same 70 m² split into two bedrooms instead of three, or with the kitchen open to the living room, there are fewer partition walls and less wall to paint. That is why the square metres in the listing are no use for quoting: each room has to be measured, one by one.

An example flat

70 m² of floor, 245 m² to paint

Living-dining room 5 × 4 m
20 m² of floor → 65 m² to paint
Main bedroom 4 × 3.5 m
14 m² of floor → 51.5 m² to paint
Second bedroom 3.5 × 3 m
10.5 m² of floor → 43 m² to paint
Small bedroom 3 × 2.5 m
7.5 m² of floor → 35 m² to paint
Hallway and entrance 5.5 × 1 m
5.5 m² of floor → 38 m² to paint
The room with most to paint per square metre of floor: 6.9 times its floor area.
Kitchen 3 × 2.5 m
7.5 m² of floor → 7.5 m² to paint
Tiled all the way up: only its ceiling gets painted.
Bathroom 2.5 × 2 m
5 m² of floor → 5 m² to paint
Tiled all the way up: only its ceiling gets painted.

The whole flat: 175 m² of walls and 70 of ceilings, with nothing taken off for doors or windows.

Ceilings 2.5 m high. Each room’s walls: length plus width, times two, times the height. Its ceiling: length times width.

How it is charged

Four ways to put a price on a flat

Every painter quotes in their own way, and no formula is the right one in itself. What matters is knowing what each one tells you and what it leaves unsaid.

By the square metre

The one you can check

How it works: Walls and ceilings are measured, and each line has its own unit price: so many metres of ceiling and so many of wall, at so much each. The total is the sum, and anyone can work it out again with a tape measure.
What to check: Which metres it means: painted surface, not the floor area of the home. Whether it deducts doors and windows or measures straight round without taking off the openings. And whether it charges the same for ceiling as for wall.

By the room

The easiest to read

How it works: Each room with its own amount: the living room, so much; each bedroom, so much; the hallway, so much. If you decide in the end to leave one unpainted, you know straight away how much the price comes down.
What to check: “A bedroom” is not a measurement. In the example flat, the small one has 35 m² to paint and the main one, 51.5. Ask what surface area has been assumed for each, or whether they were actually measured.

Fixed price

One figure for the whole flat

How it works: A single amount that does not move even if more paint or more hours are needed than planned. If whoever quoted got the measurements wrong, the mistake is theirs.
What to check: That underneath the figure are the rooms, what each one includes, the coats and what is left out. A total with no description cannot be set side by side with another, nor used to make a claim if something is left undone.

By the day

For touch-ups and small jobs

How it works: You pay for each day a painter works, with the materials on top, as they are used. It suits a one-off repair, or a job where nobody can know in advance what is going to turn up.
What to check: An estimate of the number of days before work starts, and the materials with their brand and their invoice. For a whole flat it is the formula that makes comparison hardest: the total is not known until the last day.

Same square metres

What makes a flat dearer without adding square metres

Once the surface is measured and the formula chosen, four things remain that separate the price of two flats that look identical on the plan. All of them can be seen on a visit or in a few photos, and none of them over the phone.

The colour, and how manyRepeating the white is not the same as changing shade
Painting in the same colour as before is the lightest job: it covers with the usual coats. A strong shade covers less well and may need an extra coat, as does lightening a dark wall. And every junction between two different colours, wall to wall or wall to ceiling, is cut in freehand with a brush from one end to the other.
The ceilingsHigh, with mouldings or with plasterwork
At a normal height you can reach with a roller on an extension pole. The high ceilings of many older houses, or the stairwell of a duplex, need scaffolding or a platform to work safely. And a plaster cornice or a ceiling rose in the middle of the living room cannot be done with a roller: they are painted by brush, piece by piece.
Whatever is not wallDoors, skirting boards, radiators and grilles
They are not measured in square metres: doors and radiators go by the unit, and skirting boards by the linear metre. An internal door is two faces plus its edges, and a hallway like the one in the example leads to almost every door in the home. If they are going to be included, the quote has to say how many pieces have been counted.
What does not grow with the square metresGetting there, organising and clearing up
Part of the work does not increase in step with the surface area: travelling with the equipment, carrying the materials up if there is no lift, getting the home ready before starting and leaving it clean at the end. In a small flat that part weighs more on each square metre, which is why a square metre in a studio cannot come out at the same price as one in a large flat.

And before all of this comes the state of the walls: stains that bleed through, mould or gotelé (the raised, spattered wall texture) change the job more than any colour. What each case calls for is in painting a flat. If yours is gotelé, the cost of removing it has its own page, with a square-metre calculator.

Plain talking

What to bear in mind before accepting the price for your flat

That you can read it. This is what a well-written quote for painting a home looks like, with the figures taken out: each item, how it is measured and what it has to say.

Quote · Interior painting of a home

Item	Unit	What it must say
01Protection of floors, furniture and joinery	Per home	That it is included, and what things are covered with.
02Wall repairs: holes, hairline cracks and dents	Per home or per room	What it includes, and how anything that turns up and could not be seen beforehand is charged.
03Undercoat or primer over repaired areas	m²	Where it goes and with which product.
04Ceilings, emulsion, two coats	m²	Their square metres, separate from those of the walls.
05Walls, emulsion, two coats	m²	The square metres, the colour or colours, and whether openings are deducted.
06Internal doors, enamel	Per unit	How many, and whether both faces are included.
07Skirting boards	Linear metres	Whether they are included or left as they are.
08Final clean and removal of waste	Per home	That it is included.

VAT (IVA), in writing

Which rate applies, 10% or 21%, and whether the figure includes it.

The dates

When work starts, when it finishes and which rooms are out of use each day if you are living in the home.

The brands

Which paint will be used on the ceilings, on the walls and in the bathroom and kitchen. Without a brand, “top-quality emulsion” commits nobody to anything.

Questions

More questions before asking for a price

How much does it cost to paint a 70 or 80 m² flat?

What can be said without seeing it is how much there is to paint, not what it costs. In the example flat, 70 m² of floor gives 245 of walls and ceilings before deducting openings, and an 80 m² flat with a different layout may give more or less. With the measurements of each room, what is included and a couple of photos of the state of the walls, the price reaches you as a fixed figure, item by item.

Is it cheaper if everything is white?

It is usually simpler, and that is what brings the price down: with a single colour there is no line to cut in between ceiling and wall, nor corners where two shades meet, and over an existing white it covers easily. Choosing a colour for each room is not a luxury, but it adds hours, and those hours should show in the quote.

Is a square metre of ceiling charged the same as one of wall?

Each painter quotes in their own way, but painting them does not cost the same: a ceiling is painted looking upwards, and whatever drips falls on everything else. A single price for both is an average. It is not a mistake, but if you see one, check that the ceilings have been measured properly: in a flat with flat ceilings they add up to as much as the floor.

Is the VAT on painting a flat 21%?

Not always. Spain’s VAT law applies the reduced 10% rate to renovation and repair work on homes when all of the following are met: the work is ordered by a private individual for their own use, by a comunidad de propietarios (the owners’ community of a building) or by the owner of a home let as a main residence; construction or renovation of the home was completed at least two years earlier; the materials supplied by whoever does the work do not exceed 40% of the taxable base; and payment is made by card, bank transfer, cheque made out to a named payee or deposit into a bank account. If any one of these fails, it is 21%. A flat let seasonally or to tourists does not qualify through the rental route.

Can I buy the paint myself?

It can be agreed. In that case the quote has to say which product and how much of it is needed, and make clear who is responsible if it covers less well than expected or does not stand up to the steam in the bathroom. And it has to be in the home on the first day: if it runs out halfway across a wall, work stops until more arrives.

What if another coat turns out to be needed?

It depends on how it was quoted. With a fixed price, whoever gave the price absorbs it, unless what was agreed changes, for example a stronger colour than the one chosen; by the square metre or by the day, you pay for it. That is why the quote should say how many coats it includes and in what case another would be added.

Send us your flat’s measurements

The floor plan, if you have it, or the length and width of each room. Tell us what is included — ceilings, doors, skirting boards — which colours you want, and add a photo of the wall in the worst state. We send you back a quote with each item on its own line, like the one above.

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