Cost to Paint a Laundry Room: 2026 Price Guide

Quick answer: Painting a laundry room typically costs $250 to $600 for the walls, with most homeowners landing around $350 to $450. Add a ceiling and the total climbs by $75 to $200. Because a laundry room is small and packed with cabinets, a utility sink, and appliances you have to work around, the price per square foot runs higher than a big open bedroom, and many painters apply a minimum job charge that sets the real floor.

That range assumes a pro doing two coats of a quality washable paint, including labor and materials. If you want a number tailored to your exact room and ZIP code, run the numbers through our painting cost calculator or grab a free painting estimate before you call anyone. The figures below show you how those tools arrive at a price, so you can sanity check any quote you get.

Laundry room painting cost overview

Laundry rooms vary from a closet-sized stack space to a full room with cabinets and a folding counter. Here is what each tends to cost when a pro paints the walls with two coats of a durable satin or semi-gloss.

Laundry room size	Wall area	Walls only	Walls + ceiling
Closet stack (3 ft x 5 ft)	120 to 160 sq ft	$180 to $300	$250 to $400
Small room (5 ft x 7 ft)	200 to 250 sq ft	$250 to $450	$350 to $575
Standard room (7 ft x 9 ft)	280 to 340 sq ft	$350 to $600	$475 to $775
Large room with cabinets	350 to 450 sq ft	$450 to $750	$600 to $950

Notice that the smallest space is not the cheapest per square foot. Setup, masking, and the minimum charge do not shrink just because the room does, which is the single most important thing to understand about pricing a tiny space.

What drives the cost of painting a laundry room

A laundry room is one of the most cut-in heavy small rooms in the house. The labor lives in the detail work around everything you cannot simply roll past.

• Appliances to mask or move. A washer and dryer have to be pulled out or carefully masked. Sliding them out, cutting in behind, and sliding them back adds real time that a flat empty wall never does.
• Cabinets and shelving. Upper cabinets, a folding counter, and open shelving all create edges the painter has to cut around by hand. Each linear foot of edge is slow, brush-only work.
• The utility sink and hookups. A slop sink, water valves, dryer vent, and electrical add fiddly cut-ins. Masking around plumbing is fussier than masking a clean corner.
• Humidity and the right paint. Laundry rooms get warm and damp. A washable satin or semi-gloss that resists moisture, scrubbing, and the occasional splash is the correct product, and it costs a little more per gallon than flat wall paint.
• Ceiling condition. Steam can leave a ceiling discolored. If it needs a stain-blocking primer or a fresh coat, that adds to the total.
• Wall condition and coats. Nail holes, anchor holes from old shelving, and scuffs all need patching first. Dark or stained walls may need a third coat or a primer.
• Access. A cramped room means the painter is working around obstacles the whole time, which slows the roller down.
• Minimum job charge. Most pros will not roll up, tarp off, and brush out a single small room for less than $250 to $400. That minimum, not the square footage, often sets your price.

Labor vs materials in a laundry room

On almost any interior repaint, labor is roughly 70 to 85 percent of the bill, and a tight laundry room sits at the top of that band. The paint for a small room rarely costs more than $40 to $80, since one to two gallons covers it. Everything else is time: protecting appliances, taping around cabinets and the sink, patching anchor holes, cutting in by hand, and rolling two coats.

In a room this small, the minimum job charge effectively swallows the materials number. If a painter quotes a $350 minimum and the paint is $60, you are paying about $290 for a few hours of careful labor. That is normal and fair for detail-heavy work. If you want to dig into how pros split those numbers on bigger jobs, our guide on interior painting cost breaks the ratio down room by room.

How painters price a laundry room

Pros reach the same ballpark from a few different angles, then apply a floor.

• Per square foot. Walls usually run $1 to $3 per square foot of wall area, with detail-heavy small rooms toward the top. Our breakdown of how to price painting jobs per square foot shows where that rate comes from.
• Flat per room. Many painters quote a laundry room as a flat $300 to $550 because estimating each tiny surface is not worth the trouble.
• Per hour. At $50 to $90 per hour, a one-painter laundry room is often a half day once you count prep, masking, and two coats with dry time.
• Minimum job charge. This is the one that matters most for small rooms. Whatever the math says, the painter applies a $250 to $400 minimum so the trip is worth taking. The smartest move is to bundle the laundry room with an adjacent hallway or mudroom so that minimum covers more than one space.

Worked example: a standard laundry room

Say you have a 7 ft by 9 ft laundry room with 8 ft ceilings, upper cabinets, a utility sink, and a stacked washer and dryer.

Wall area is the perimeter times the height. Perimeter is (7 + 9) x 2 = 32 linear feet. Times 8 ft of height that is 256 square feet of gross wall. Subtract roughly 40 square feet for the door, a small window, and the cabinet faces and you have about 216 square feet of actual paintable wall.

At $2 per square foot for detail-heavy walls, the math says 216 x $2 = $432. Paint is one gallon plus a quart of trim or two gallons to be safe, call it $70. A painter who quotes by the room might say $425, while one applying a $350 minimum would never go below that. Add the ceiling at $120 and you land near $545 all in. That tracks with the $350 to $600 walls-only range plus a ceiling, and it shows why this little room costs more per square foot than a 300 square foot bedroom.

DIY vs hiring a pro

A laundry room is one of the better DIY wins in the house. The area is small, the walls are short, and a confident weekend painter can knock it out with a gallon of washable satin, a few feet of tape, and a drop cloth. Your hard cost is usually $60 to $120 in paint and supplies, and you skip the minimum charge entirely.

The honest catch is the cut-in work. Taping around cabinets, the sink, and the appliances is the slow part, and a sloppy edge shows. If you are comfortable pulling the washer and dryer out and cutting a clean line, DIY here saves the most relative to its size. If the ceiling is stained from steam and needs a stain-blocking primer, or you would rather not wrestle the appliances, a pro earns the fee. For a project this small, the deciding factor is usually patience, not skill.

Ways to lower your laundry room painting cost

Because the minimum job charge sets the floor on a room this small, the smartest savings come from how you schedule the work rather than from negotiating the rate down.

• Bundle it with an adjacent room. If your laundry room sits off a hallway, mudroom, or kitchen, have all of them painted on one trip. A single minimum then covers several spaces, and the laundry room costs only its marginal labor instead of a fresh $250 to $400 floor.
• Do your own prep. Pull the washer and dryer out, clear the shelves, and patch the obvious anchor holes yourself before the painter arrives. Prep is a big chunk of the labor, and handing over a ready room can shave a meaningful amount off an hourly quote.
• Skip the ceiling if it is clean. A ceiling adds $75 to $200. If yours is not stained from steam, leaving it and painting only the walls keeps the job lean.
• Keep the same color family. Repainting a light wall a similar light shade often covers in two coats. Going from a dark or bold color to white can demand a primer plus two coats, which adds time and paint.
• Buy the right paint once. A quality washable satin costs a few dollars more per gallon but resists the humidity and scrubbing a laundry room dishes out, so you repaint far less often. Cheap flat paint is a false economy in a damp, busy room.

None of these involve cutting corners on the finish. They simply spread the fixed costs across more work or hand the slow prep to you, which is exactly where the savings live on a small detail-heavy room.

How a laundry room compares to other small rooms

It helps to see where a laundry room sits among the other compact spaces in a house. All three of the small utility rooms, the laundry room, the closet, and the mudroom, share the same economic quirk: they cost more per square foot than a large open room because the setup and the minimum charge do not scale down. What separates them is the kind of detail work each demands.

A laundry room is dominated by appliances and plumbing you must work around, plus a humidity-resistant finish. A closet is dominated by shelving and rods and is so small that the minimum charge is nearly the whole bill. A mudroom is dominated by built-in benches and cubbies and needs the toughest finish of the three. Knowing which factor dominates your room tells you where the hours, and therefore the dollars, are going. For a laundry room, budget your time and money for the cut-in work around the cabinets, sink, and appliances rather than for the rolling, which is quick.

Whichever way you go, start with a real number. Run your room through our painting cost calculator or request a free painting estimate so you can compare quotes with confidence. If you are freshening up nearby spaces too, see our companion guides on the cost to paint a mudroom, the cost to paint a bathroom, and the cost to paint a kitchen, since bundling rooms is the single best way to beat the minimum charge.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to paint a small laundry room?

A small laundry room of roughly 200 to 250 square feet of wall costs about $250 to $450 for the walls with two coats, including labor and materials. The exact figure usually depends on the painter's minimum job charge rather than the square footage, since the room is too small to price purely by area.

What kind of paint should I use in a laundry room?

Use a washable satin or semi-gloss in a moisture-resistant interior formula. Laundry rooms get warm and damp, so a finish you can scrub and that shrugs off splashes holds up far better than a flat wall paint. The sheen also makes cut-in lines around cabinets and the sink easier to keep clean.

Do I have to move the washer and dryer to paint?

For the best result, yes, at least pulling them away from the wall so the painter can cut in behind. If you cannot move them, a pro can mask them carefully and paint around them, but the finished wall behind the appliances will be touched up rather than fully coated. Moving them adds a little labor but looks cleaner.

Why does such a small room cost so much per square foot?

Because setup, masking, and the minimum job charge do not shrink with the room. A painter still has to tarp off, tape around cabinets and the sink, patch holes, and apply two coats. That fixed effort spread over a small area pushes the per square foot rate well above what you would pay for a large open room.

Can I paint a laundry room myself?

Yes, laundry rooms are a strong DIY candidate. The walls are short and the area is small, so one gallon of washable satin usually does it for $60 to $120 in supplies. The slow part is cutting in cleanly around cabinets, the sink, and the appliances, so budget patience for the taping rather than worrying about the rolling.