By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Does a painting business need a licence to operate in New Zealand?
No, a painting business in New Zealand does not need a trade licence to operate. According to MBIE’s Occupation Outlook, “There is no licensing for painters or floor finishers.” The LBP Handbook lists painters among the trades not currently licensed through the Licensed Building Practitioners Scheme or any other registration scheme, alongside tilers and plasterboard stoppers.
That does not mean there is nothing to register. If you are a painter working for yourself, Business.govt.nz says, “You don’t need to register yourself or your business with a government agency.” You still need to tell Inland Revenue that you have started working for yourself, and sort out an IRD number and GST registration if your turnover needs it. If you trade as a company instead, Business.govt.nz says, “You must register your company with the Companies Office. This is known as incorporating a company,” and a company then has to file an annual return each year to stay on the Companies Register.
What about restricted building work and asbestos on older repaints?
Painting itself does not fall inside restricted building work, and that matters for painters working on new builds alongside other trades. Building.govt.nz explains that restricted building work is work critical to making a home structurally sound and weathertight, and the licence classes that cover it are design, carpentry, roofing, brick and blocklaying, external plastering, foundations and site, none of which is painting. So a painter spraying a new build, cutting in trims or laying on the final coats for a strata block does not need an LBP licence to do that work, even though the builder, roofer or plasterer on the same site might.
Older repaints raise a different question: asbestos. Scraping back old exterior cladding or texture coatings on a villa or an older commercial building can disturb asbestos-containing material. WorkSafe sets a small cumulative amount of non-friable asbestos that can be removed without a licence, with different licensing rules above that amount. The amount changes from time to time, so check the current figure on WorkSafe’s page rather than relying on what you heard on a job a few years back. Many painters also build extra prep time into older exteriors for handling old paint safely, though none of the sources checked for this article set out a specific licensing rule for paint itself.
This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
What’s the real risk if a painter treats this as a box ticked at setup?
The real risk is not a missing certificate, it is a missing cost. A painting business can be properly registered with Inland Revenue or the Companies Office, properly insured and careful around asbestos, and still lose money on a job if none of that is priced into the quote. Registration, public liability cover, paint supplier account fees and the extra time an older repaint takes to prep and handle safely are all real overheads. If they are not built into the price of every repaint, new build run, strata contract or commercial job, the quoted margin can look healthy on paper and still disappear by the time the job is invoiced.
Picture a painter quoting a block of units for a builder: cutting in skirtings, prepping walls, two coats on every room, masking, primer, sealant and drop sheets on every unit. The quoting was slow and manual, worked out line by line for each job, and with so many small materials on the list it was easy for something like sealant or fixings to slip off the quote and turn up missing on site. The same blind spot catches the business costs sitting behind the paint and the labour: the cost of being properly registered, insured and compliant rarely gets its own line on the quote, so it rarely gets recovered in the price. A quoting template built around a full checklist for the job type, covering everything from paint and primer down to small fixings, closes the materials gap. The bigger gap, the cost of running a compliant painting business, needs the same treatment.
How do you make sure these costs are actually recovered in every quote?
You start from your own job data, not from memory of what a job should cost. Comparing what each repaint, strata contract or new build run actually cost against what was quoted, job by job, shows whether registration, insurance, paint supplier fees and the extra handling time on older exteriors are being recovered or quietly absorbed. That is a data first way of working: the numbers from your own jobs, not a feeling at the end of the month, tell you where the margin is actually going.
This is where AI agents can help. An AI agent is software that does a job the way you would, using your prices, your wording and your rules, instead of a generic template built for every trade. One kind of agent can sit inside your quoting process and check that the cost of running a properly registered and insured painting business, plus any extra time an older repaint needs for safe handling, is actually included before the quote goes out, the same way it would check that primer and masking tape are on the list. Another AI agent can keep your compliance costs and renewal dates together with your job data, so they get reviewed against real job costs instead of being set once and forgotten in a folder.
Where can you check the current rules?
- MBIE Occupation Outlook, Painters and Floor Finishers: confirms there is no licensing for painters or floor finishers.
- LBP Handbook: lists painters among trades not currently licensed through the LBP Scheme.
- Becoming a sole trader, Business.govt.nz: covers what a sole trader needs to tell Inland Revenue and consider before starting.
- Starting a company, Business.govt.nz: covers registering a company with the Companies Office.
- Registering with government agencies, Business.govt.nz: covers the annual return a company must file.
- Restricted building work, Building.govt.nz: explains restricted building work and the licence classes that cover it.
- Asbestos licensing overview, WorkSafe: covers when a licence is and is not required for asbestos removal.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching starts from the owner’s own numbers, not from a list of requirements. For a painting business, Greg Allan’s Trade Business Intelligence looks at what each quote actually recovered against what the job cost, including registration, insurance and the extra handling time behind an older repaint, and finds where that cost stopped being priced in. Greg has long told tradespeople, “Don’t put screws in if you don’t know what’s on the other side of it,” and the same applies to any compliance cost skipped without knowing what sits behind it. The how, working through where it goes wrong and building it into how jobs are quoted, happens inside the Academy, with members who are open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member.
Looking for a business coach who starts from your numbers? Painter Business Coach or every answer for painters.
