How to start a painting business in Salt Lake City, UT
This is not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Read the official pages linked here. Partner offers are optional and labeled.
Strong sun and a winter that ends exterior painting. Dry air is not the same as a humid curing schedule. Newer stucco and older brick should not share one description. In Salt Lake City, the housing decides the visit: brick bungalows and basements in the older neighborhoods, and a valley of newer suburban tracts with HOAs. The weather on the truck is dry heat in summer, a real snow season, strong sun, freeze-thaw, and inversion weeks that keep people inside. Sugar House, The Avenues, and Murray are worth naming only when they are real stops. Sandy and West Jordan are a different drive until you can reach them the same day. Salt Lake City permits is the local counter to ask when the job needs a permit or a city registration. This page names that office. It does not invent a fee. The valley is one weather system and several cities. Sugar House and The Avenues are not a Sandy or West Jordan subdivision. Winter is a heating and freeze business. Summer is irrigation, sun, and cooling. Write both or say which one you sell. A fast-growing valley compares quotes from phones. Hail-chaser copy from the plains and desert-lawn copy from Phoenix both miss.
brick bungalows and basements in the older neighborhoods, and a valley of newer suburban tracts with HOAs dry heat in summer, a real snow season, strong sun, freeze-thaw, and inversion weeks that keep people inside Interior and exterior as different seasons, with the prep named. In Salt Lake City, UT, list Sugar House and West Jordan together only if one crew really covers both.
Start the route in Sugar House, The Avenues, and Murray. Add Sandy and West Jordan when you can reach them the same day. A fast-growing valley compares quotes from phones. Hail-chaser copy from the plains and desert-lawn copy from Phoenix both miss.
The Utah guide has the filing office. This page is the local version: what the first jobs are, which permit counter to call, and how to price a day here.
Some boxes are labeled Partner. ServiceBase has not joined those programs. The links go to each company's own homepage, not a tracking link. If a program later approves us, the address will change and we may earn a commission. You can file, insure, and bank anywhere. Official government links are not partner links. Nothing on this page is a discount code.
$500 in free advertising when you launch
Keep the checklist on your account
The guide stays public. An account saves your state, city, and trade, and lets you mark each filing as you go. The advertising credit is reserved when you register. It can be spent after the free website is live.
Painters often start as sole proprietors and form an LLC when the jobs get larger than a few rooms or when a general contractor wants a company on the certificate. Either is a real start. The LLC filing does not decide whether a city wants a home-improvement registration. Read that separately. Ask an accountant if you are hiring painters as employees and still thinking of them as subcontractors.
We do not have a filing fee for Utah that we are willing to print. The Utah business registration publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
If your customers are in Salt Lake City, the registered-agent address still has to satisfy Utah. Read the filing office's rule. A neighbor's kitchen table is not always an acceptable address.
An employer identification number is the business tax ID. The IRS issues it online at no charge and says you never have to pay a company to get one. If you form an LLC, file with the state first. The IRS says an EIN application can stall when the state filing is not done. A sole proprietor can often start with a Social Security number and get an EIN when a bank or a hire requires it.
Apply on the IRS page if you want the number yourself. LegalZoom, the partner beside this step, can request it while they form the company. That service is optional. The IRS fee is still zero either way.
Check the contractor or home-improvement board for painting, and read any project-cost threshold on that site. Exterior repairs that go past paint can be a different license. Ask the city about a business license either way.
State page: Utah Division of Professional Licensing. Open the contractor pages on this division's site. Read the classification for the work you will do.
Salt Lake City permits is the local counter for work in Salt Lake City. We are naming that office, not linking a fee schedule we have not read. Call them or open the city's own site and ask what a new painter has to register before the first job in The Avenues.
The Utah guide repeats the board link and tells you what we could not verify. Read it before you pay a filing service.
General liability for overspray, floors, and a ladder falling the wrong way. If you spray, say so to the insurer. Commercial auto when the van carries ladders and paint as the business. Workers' compensation before a second painter is on a ladder. A certificate is a normal request from a contractor who hired you for the interior.
Workers' compensation is a state program. Before anyone works with you, including a friend, ask an insurer and the state labor office whether you must carry it. This guide does not quote a headcount, because those rules differ and the state page is the source. The SBA page describes the common policies. It does not sell them. Buy the policy before you work in a house in Salt Lake City.
Deposits on paint and the final check should hit a business account. Material stores will put the company name on the receipt if the card matches. Keep the deposit schedule on the proposal so you are not funding a whole interior on a personal card.
The bank will usually ask for your ID, the EIN or your Social Security number, and the formation papers if you filed an LLC. A checking account and a habit of setting tax money aside are enough at the start.
07Price a day in Salt Lake City
Price interior and exterior separately. Rooms or elevation, occupied or empty, and what prep includes: caulk, patch, sand, primer. Color advice is optional. Prep is the job. Cabinets are their own price.
Climate decides when exterior paint will fail and when you can apply it. Build dry time into the schedule. Do not quote a whole exterior from photos without asking about the surface: stucco, wood, brick, or previously painted siding.
dry heat in summer, a real snow season, strong sun, freeze-thaw, and inversion weeks that keep people inside brick bungalows and basements in the older neighborhoods, and a valley of newer suburban tracts with HOAs That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. Interior and exterior as different seasons, with the prep named. In Salt Lake City, UT, list Sugar House and West Jordan together only if one crew really covers both.
Write the price you want for the common job in Sugar House and the price you want for a far stop in West Jordan. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave West Jordan off the service area.
08Open the profile, the reviews, and the site
Claim the Google Business Profile for Salt Lake City, UT. Set hours you answer. The service area should list Sugar House, The Avenues, and Murray if those are real stops, and it should leave off towns you will not drive.
Ask for a review after a clean job, and ask them to mention the neighborhood and the task. A review that says the work and Sandy helps the next search. A review that says 'great service' does not.
Google Business Profile with photos of your own edges and the neighborhoods you work. Reviews should say interior or exterior and the area. The website splits those services and the form asks for rooms or elevation and timing. ServiceBase turns that into a public page and a list of requests.
When the name and the phone are real, create the free painter site with Salt Lake City already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace Salt Lake City permits.
How do I start a painting business in Salt Lake City?
Pick the service you can finish, search the name at the Utah business registration, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page (Utah Division of Professional Licensing), call Salt Lake City permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names Sugar House and the jobs you want. Interior and exterior as different seasons, with the prep named.
What does a painter license look like for Salt Lake City, UT?
Check the contractor or home-improvement board for painting, and read any project-cost threshold on that site. Exterior repairs that go past paint can be a different license. Ask the city about a business license either way. Start at the Utah Division of Professional Licensing. Then ask Salt Lake City permits what the city adds.
How should I price painter work in Salt Lake City?
Price interior and exterior separately. Rooms or elevation, occupied or empty, and what prep includes: caulk, patch, sand, primer. Color advice is optional. Prep is the job. Cabinets are their own price. dry heat in summer, a real snow season, strong sun, freeze-thaw, and inversion weeks that keep people inside Time the first ten jobs in Sugar House and Murray before you copy a price from another city.
Can I publish a painter site before the LLC is approved?
You can draft it. Put it in public under the name you will actually use, with the phone you answer. If the state requires the license before you advertise the work, wait. The free ServiceBase site does not file the company. Signup can open with painter and Salt Lake City filled in so you are not retyping them.