QP 9 – Commercial Painting

QP 9

Standard procedure for evaluating the qualifications of commercial painting and coating contractors

QP 9 is a nationally recognized accreditation program that evaluates the practices of commercial painting contractors in key areas of business, setting forth the minimum level of service and quality required for today’s coatings industry. The program is designed to provide facility owners and specification writers a means to determine whether the painting contractor has the ability to perform commercial coating application on structures, such as:

  • Retail stores
  • Shopping centers
  • Office buildings
  • Schools, colleges, universities, and libraries
  • Public and military housing
  • Apartment buildings
  • Warehouses and product storage and distribution centers
  • Medical and dental facilities
  • Sports and recreational facilities

Get the QP 9 Standard

To be accredited to the QP 9 standard, Commercial Contractors must demonstrate competence in several key areas:

  • Management procedures
  • Technical capabilities
  • Job quality procedures
  • Safety, health, and environmental procedures

Technical capabilities

These areas are evaluated through a series of submittals to SSPC describing the Contractor’s business operations. An impartial, on-site audit of a representative active job site and headquarters offices is performed to verify that the programs and practices are in fact implemented and used. The on-site audit criteria can be found in both the QP 9 application and its internal audit checklist. SSPC suggests that the contractor perform an internal audit using the checklist to ensure all areas of evaluation are addressed prior to an audit.

QP 9 background

This procedure, as described by the SSPC-QP 9 standard, encompasses the application of coatings in the commercial or institutional sectors only. Its objective is to determine if a painting contractor has the competence as described above to perform surface preparation and architectural coating application of the required quality as specified by the owner.