Interior repaints, an exterior that has chalked and flaked after too many summers, woodwork and railings, or a whole house before it goes on the market or into rental. Send a photo of each room or wall and rough dimensions, and you get a free quote with preparation and painting priced separately.
House painting in the Algarve covers interior walls and ceilings, exterior render and facades, woodwork, doors, shutters and metalwork. The part that decides how long the result lasts is preparation and specification: what is already on the wall, whether it is sound, and whether the coating chosen can cope with sun, salt air and an old wall that needs to breathe. Handyman Algarve quotes painting in the Algarve for free, in English or Portuguese.
The jobs this covers
Interior repaints, room by room or whole house, including filling, sanding and the making good that goes with it.
Exteriors: rendered walls, facades, boundary walls and the whitewashed surfaces that define how a house looks here.
Woodwork: doors, frames, shutters, beams and pergolas, which in this sun need a different maintenance interval from walls.
Metalwork: railings, gates and grilles, where the preparation is rust treatment rather than filling.
Rental turnarounds, where the constraint is the date rather than the scope, and the work is planned around changeovers.
Repainting after a repair, so a patched wall does not stay a patched wall.
Preparing a wall properly, which is most of the job
Preparation is where a paint job is won, and it is also the part that is invisible once the last coat is on, which is why cheap quotes are usually cheap here rather than in the paint. On an interior wall it means removing anything loose, filling cracks and old fixing holes, sanding the filler flat, treating any stain that would bleed through, and priming bare or repaired areas so they do not drink the first coat unevenly. On an exterior it means washing off dust and salt, cutting out and repairing failed render, treating organic growth on the north face, and choosing a primer suited to what is underneath. A wall that has had damp gets the source dealt with first, always, because there is no coating that survives water pushing out from behind it.
Choosing the coating rather than the colour
Most exterior paint failures here are specification failures. An old house with lime based render needs a breathable coating, because a sealed film traps the moisture the wall has always released and lifts in sheets. A modern rendered facade takes a good acrylic masonry paint and is happy for years. Strong colours fade faster than pale ones under this much ultraviolet, and dark ones absorb more heat, which matters on a wall that is already hot. Near the sea, the salt on the surface has to be washed off before anything goes on, or the film is being applied over a layer of crystals. None of this makes the job expensive. It makes the difference between repainting in four years and repainting in ten.
What determines the price?
As of 2026: the surface area, the condition of what is there now, the number of coats the colour change needs, access, and whether the house is occupied. Ceilings and stairwells cost more per square metre than plain walls because of the working position. Woodwork is priced separately from walls, since it is slower per square metre than anything else in a house. Exterior work adds scaffolding or a platform where the wall is high, and that item can rival the painting itself on a three storey facade. Materials are a smaller share than most people expect, which is why buying a better paint is usually the cheapest upgrade available on the quote.
Room dimensions, a photo per wall, and the current colour are enough to quote. See how it works for the process from request to finished job.
We reply within one business day, usually much faster.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost for a painter to paint a whole house?
It is quoted by surface area and by preparation, not by the number of rooms, which is why two houses of the same size can be far apart. Bare walls in good condition take two coats and little else. Walls with old flaking paint, filled cracks, damp history or dark colours to cover need preparation that can outweigh the painting. Handyman Algarve publishes no euro range for painting in the Algarve, because preparation moves the figure too far for one number to be honest. Photos of each room produce a real quote, free.
What is the best time of year to paint the outside of a house?
Spring and early autumn, and the reason is measurable rather than traditional. Exterior paint needs a dry surface, moderate temperatures and time to cure, so the wettest months from October to December are wrong, and midsummer is wrong for the opposite reason: a wall in full sun in July is hot enough that paint skins before it bonds. April, May, late September and early October are the reliable windows here, working around the sun so the wall being painted is in shade.
Who is a house painter and what do they actually do?
A house painter prepares and coats interior and exterior surfaces: filling, sanding, masking, priming, then applying finish coats to walls, ceilings, woodwork and metalwork. In Portugal the same trade normally handles the fine filling and skim repairs that go with it. What they are not is a plasterer or a renderer, so a wall that needs its surface rebuilt gets that done first, by someone else, and painted after.
How long does it take to paint a room?
A standard bedroom with sound walls is usually a day for two coats plus the preparation, and drying between coats is what sets the pace rather than the painting. Add time for filling and sanding, for a ceiling, for woodwork, and for covering a strong or dark colour, which often needs a third coat or a blocking primer. In a house that is lived in, moving and protecting furniture is a real part of the day and is worth agreeing beforehand.
Why does exterior paint fail so quickly here?
Three reasons, usually together. Ultraviolet breaks down the binder in the paint, particularly in strong colours on south and west facing walls. Salt air carries onto walls near the coast and works at the film. And moisture moving out through an old wall lifts a coating that cannot breathe, which is why a cement based masonry paint over a lime rendered old house peels in sheets. The fix is usually the specification, not more coats.
Should old paint be removed or painted over?
Painted over, where it is sound and compatible, and removed where it is not. The test is simple and worth doing yourself: press strong tape onto the wall, pull it off, and see what comes with it. Flakes on the tape mean the surface underneath has failed and painting over it buys a season at most. Any wall that has been damp gets the source fixed first, because paint over an active damp problem fails from behind no matter how good it is.
