Painting services, including interior painting services and exterior painting services, are treated as works contract or building completion services under GST. Earlier, different ways of billing paint material and labour or combining painting with other finishing work sometimes produced different effective tax outcomes for similar jobs, which made costing and taxation harder to manage.
After the September 2025 rationalisation, most painting services under SAC 995473 generally fall in the 18% slab with
input tax credit
. This standard rate applies where painting is supplied as part of a contract or package, unless a specific notification grants concessional treatment for a particular public or social sector scheme.
The table below gives the latest applicable GST rate for SAC code 995473.