SURFACEMEASURE

How to Start a Line Striping Business

Seven steps to a parking lot striping business: register, insure, buy the striper and stencils, then measure and bid your first commercial lots.

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A retail parking lot from above: rows of white stall lines between planted islands
The work: a commercial lot, every stall a line to lay.

Starting a Striping Business, in Short

To start a line striping business, register it with your state, get an EIN and check whether your state or city licenses striping as contracting work. Buy general liability and commercial auto, then a walk-behind airless striper, a stencil kit and layout tools. Sell to the people who own and manage commercial parking lots, measure each lot before you bid it, and price restripes by the stall.

Startup
$11,851Airless striper, stencils, layout tools and a year of insurance, on a truck you already run.
Insurance
$4,374 a yearInsureon's paving medians for general liability plus commercial auto.
License
State and localNo national license. Some states license striping as contracting; cities set their own.
Break-even
22 jobsRestripes of a 168-stall lot at the published per-stall price, after paint and crew.

Sell to Commercial Lots From Day One

Striping is commercial work. The customers are the people who own and run parking lots: property managers with a portfolio of plazas, offices and medical buildings, retailers, churches, schools, apartment communities and HOAs. A lot needs its lines put back every time it is sealcoated or repaved, and in between whenever they wear, so a customer you keep comes back.

The other early customer is the contractor who does the work around the lines. A sealcoater who subs out the striping, a paving company finishing a new lot, a sweeping crew whose clients ask who does the lines: each can send you a steady run of jobs before your own name is known.

Learn what the ADA parking requirements ask of a lot before you bid one: the Justice Department says a business that restripes its lot must provide the accessible spaces the 2010 ADA Standards require, so the owner will expect your layout to have them.

Register the Business and Check Licensing

  1. a.

    Register the business

    Form an LLC or corporation with your state; the SBA says an LLC protects you from personal liability in most instances. Asphalt Kingdom puts the state filing at $35 to $500, depending on the state.

  2. b.

    Get an EIN and tax IDs

    The EIN is free from the IRS. A state tax ID depends on the taxes your state charges on the work.

  3. c.

    Check the state contractor board

    Some states license striping as contracting. California's C-32 Parking and Highway Improvement Contractor class covers directional lines, markers and arrows on parking facilities, and a license is required when a project needs a building permit, uses any additional workers, or its labor and materials come to $1,000 or more.

  4. d.

    Check the city and county

    The SBA notes that local governments set their own registration and licensing, and lists construction among the activities commonly regulated locally. Asphalt Kingdom puts a local business license at $50 to $400.

Get Insured Before the First Lot

Expect a commercial customer to ask for a certificate of insurance before you stripe, and often to be named on it. Price the cover before you price the lots: you carry it whether you work that week or not. These are Insureon's medians for paving contractors, the class whose page names parking lots; its workers' comp figure is for construction contractors as a whole.

General liability

Claims from the work: overspray on a parked car, a cone someone trips on. Insureon's average paving policy carries $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate.

$1,162 /yr

Commercial auto

The truck that tows the striper and carries the paint. A personal policy is written for personal driving, so ask your agent before you use it for work.

$3,212 /yr

Tools and equipment

The striper, the stencils and the measuring gear, on the trailer or stolen from it.

$505 /yr

Workers' comp

Once you hire. Your state sets the rules, and a commercial customer may ask to see the certificate. Insureon's figure is for construction contractors as a whole.

$3,738 /yr

Insureon's figures are the median premiums of paving contractors who quoted with it, most with fewer than five employees and five years or less in business. Your insurer decides which class a striping-only firm falls in, and your state, truck, payroll and claims set the price, so get your own quote.

Buy the Striper That Fits Your First Lots

The striper is most of the startup. Start on a walk-behind airless machine with one gun, and add a second gun or a ride-on when the lots get big. Prices are what a retailer showed when we read them on October 17, 2026.

Aerosol cans, for touch-ups

A small lot, a few accessible stalls, a sealcoater's quick restripe. Slow on a full lot.

Rust-Oleum aerosol striping machine
$184.99

A walk-behind airless striper

Where a new striping business starts: one gun, gas engine, paint from the pail, every lot you can walk.

Titan PowrLiner 850
$3,635.10
Graco LineLazer 3400
$6,842

Production machines

Two guns for double lines and bigger pumps for big retail lots, once the route needs them.

Graco LineLazer V 3900
$11,709
Titan PowrLiner 4955
$13,939.40
Graco LineDriver ride-on, added
from $9,494

An aerosol machine is cheap, but Rust-Oleum's data sheet gives 275 to 300 ft of 3 in line a can, so a full lot is a case of cans. An airless striper sprays paint from the pail, and Graco says the Auto-Layout II system on its LineLazer V models cuts layout time in half: it measures as you walk and puts down pre-marks. Buy what you can service locally: a striper that waits a week for a part costs you the jobs on the calendar.

For the whole start, Asphalt Kingdom budgets $5,000 to $45,000+, the striper alone $3,000 to $13,000+, and OneCrew puts most new operators at $5,000 to $15,000. A striping franchise starts far higher: the published Item 7 totals are $250,496 to $321,702 for 1-800-Striper and $183,544 to $319,312 for EverLine, with vehicle costs and the franchise fee in them.

Stencils, Layout Tools and Paint

A stencil kit covers the markings almost every lot has. Add single stencils as customers ask for them, and buy paint by the job, not by the pallet, until you know what your lots use.

Starter stencil kit, 6 stencils

Handicap symbol, arrows, NO PARKING, FIRE LANE, RESERVED, VISITOR

$578

Economy stencil kit, 8 pieces

A cheaper kit in thinner plastic

$385.75

Pro stencil kit

More words and arrows, for a full lot

$890

Single stencils

From a fire lane word to a large handicap symbol

$45.64 to $243

Measuring wheel

10 in wheel

$50

Chalk line reel

100 ft

$6.99

Striping paint, 5 gal pail

Waterborne acrylic

$199.95 to $225

A gallon of traffic paint lays about 320 ft of 4 in line at the 15 mils wet the makers write their coverage for, so a pail paints about 1,600 ft. How to lay out a lot, the film, the dry times and the temperatures are in the parking lot line painting guide, and stall and aisle sizes are on parking space dimensions.

Find Commercial Lots and Measure Them From Satellite

Start with the lots you drive past every day: faded lines, missing arrows, accessible stalls with no symbol. Note the address, find who manages the property, and ask the sealcoaters and paving companies near you who does their lines.

Before you price a lot, measure it. A striping bid comes from the lot: the stalls, the feet of line, the arrows and the accessible stalls. Tracing the paved area on satellite imagery gives you the size before you drive out.

SurfaceMeasure does this from an address. Trace the lot in Parking Lot mode and the result card estimates the stalls and feet of line and prices the restripe at the published per-stall band; a 60,000 sq ft lot, the size of a 300 × 200 ft lot, comes out at about 168 stalls and 3,740 ft of line. Then send the property manager a quote they can accept from their phone, and walk the lot once before you stripe it for what the imagery cannot show: cars parked overnight, worn arrows, cracked or fresh pavement.

Price the Work and Bid It

Most restripes are bid by the stall, with accessible stalls, arrows, stop bars, crosswalks and fire lanes on their own lines and a trip charge for getting there. The published restripe band is $5-$10 a stall, and a new layout costs more because the lot has to be laid out from scratch.

The parking lot striping cost page has every rate, a lot-size table and an estimator for building a price from your own costs. If you also sealcoat, put the restripe on the same bid: the sealcoating and striping cost page works the two as one job.

Startup Cost and Break-Even Estimator

What you spend before the first lot, what one restripe brings in, and how many such jobs pay the start back. Every box starts at a sourced price or the striping pages' own figures. Type over any of them.

Before the first lot

The striper is a Graco LineLazer 3400, the stencils a starter kit of 6 stencils with a measuring wheel and chalk line, and insurance Insureon's paving medians for general liability plus commercial auto. Replace any of them with your own quotes.

One commercial restripe

Stalls and feet of line are SurfaceMeasure's estimate for a square lot that size with 90° stalls. Paint is one coat of 4 in line at 15 mils wet. Crew hours count each person: two people for an eight-hour day is 16.

Startup cost

$11,851

Equipment, first-year insurance and setup.

Jobs to pay it back

22

Restripes of lots like this one.

The lot
~168 stalls~3,740 ft of line
Job brings in
$1,410stalls plus the trip
Paint
$49011.7 gallons
Left after costs
$540paint and crew

Left after costs is before your own pay, fuel, stencil wear, the office and slow weeks. Accessible stalls, arrows and fire lanes are priced on top and are not counted here.

The lot area moves every line here. Trace the lots you want to bid on satellite imagery and get the stalls, the feet of line and a restripe price before you drive out. Card required, cancel anytime.

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Profit, Worked on One Restripe

No survey we could read publishes a margin for striping firms, so here is the arithmetic instead (a worked example, not a forecast): the estimator at its starting inputs, on a 60,000 sq ft lot.

One restripe, one coat, a two-person crew for a day

Stalls~168 at $7.50 a stall
$1,260
Trip chargethe low end of $150-$350
$150
Paint11.7 gal at $42
-$490
Crew16 hours at $23.75
-$380
Left per job
$540

With the default startup of $11,851, 22 restripes like this one pay the start back. The paint is about 35% of what the job brings in and is set by the lot's lines; the crew's day is not, which is why a striper who can fit two lots into a day earns far more than one who fits one.

What is left per job comes before your own pay, fuel, the truck, stencil wear, the office and the weeks it rains. The crew hours are an example, not a published rate: the striping cost page puts a restripe of 100 to 200 stalls at 1 to 2 days, and this uses the short end. The $7.50 is the middle of the restripe band for the stalls alone; that page's whole-lot totals also carry markings, accessible stalls and mobilization. Change any input in the estimator above and the example moves with it.

Starting a Striping Business: FAQ

Mostly the striper. Asphalt Kingdom, which sells stripers, puts a start at $5,000 to $45,000+ with the machine at $3,000 to $13,000+; OneCrew says $5,000 to $15,000 for most new operators. With a truck you already own, a Graco LineLazer 3400, a starter stencil kit, layout tools and a year of general liability and commercial auto come to $11,851 at the prices this page lists. A striping franchise is a different scale: 1-800-Striper's published total is $250,496 to $321,702.

It can be, once the calendar is full. On this page's worked lot, a 168-stall restripe brings in $1,410; the paint costs $490 and a two-person crew day $380, which leaves $540 before overhead and your own pay. The paint is set by the lot, but the crew's day is not, so the margin turns on how many lots you stripe a day, which is why measuring and bidding lots before you drive out matters. No survey we could read publishes a margin for striping firms, so treat any single percentage you see with care.

It depends on the state and the city. California licenses parking lot striping under the C-32 Parking and Highway Improvement Contractor classification, and requires a license when a project's labor and materials come to $1,000 or more, needs a building permit or uses additional workers. Elsewhere, the SBA notes that local governments set their own licensing and that construction is commonly regulated locally, so check your state contractor board, county and city before the first bid.

Bid restripes by the stall and new layouts at a premium, with arrows, accessible stalls and fire lanes priced on their own. The parking lot striping cost page sets out the published rates and how to build your own from your costs, and the estimator above shows how many jobs at your price pay for the start.

An airless line striper, a stencil kit, a measuring wheel and chalk line, cones, a blower, and a truck to tow it. A Titan PowrLiner 850 airless striper was $3,635.10 at one retailer we checked; a starter kit of 6 stencils is $578. A 18 oz aerosol striping machine at $184.99 does touch-ups, not whole lots.

Sources

Each page read October 17, 2026. Retail prices change and premiums are medians, not quotes. Per-stall prices and their sources are on the parking lot striping cost page, and paint coverage on the line painting guide.

The Rest of the Striping Toolkit

What to charge per stall and per footParking Lot Striping Cost Layout, paint and gallonsParking Lot Line Painting Stall and aisle sizesParking Space Dimensions How many stalls a lot holdsParking Lot Layout Calculator Accessible stalls a lot needsADA Parking Requirements Calculator Sealcoat and restripe as one bidSealcoating and Striping Cost

Measure Your First Lots Before You Bid Them

Trace each lot on satellite imagery, get the stalls, the feet of line and a restripe price, and send the property manager a quote they can accept from a phone. Card required, cancel anytime.

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