Interiors
Bathtub refinishing cost
A bathtub costs $265. Replacing one costs thousands — because in a standard alcove it is trapped behind three tiled walls, and the walls have to come off to get it out. That is why refinishing exists, and why it is worth measuring properly: at $520 for 5 to 10 years it works out around a third of replacement per year of service, which is the opposite of how it usually gets described.
Written and edited by Pablo Ruiz Quintero
Last reviewed 2026-09-22 · Nothing you type leaves your browser
The tub is never the expensive part
It is trapped behind three tiled walls. Getting it out means demolishing them and putting them back, which is why the other three options on this page all amount to the same thing: not touching the wall.
The existing tub is etched, primed and sprayed with a two-part coating. It fixes the surface and nothing underneath it, and it is the only option here that costs hundreds rather than thousands.
Thin, cold to the touch and noisy under the tap. It is what most builders fit and it is perfectly serviceable — the enamel chips if something heavy is dropped in it, and those chips are where rust starts.
It sets the odds of finding damaged subfloor the day it comes out.
A previous coating has to be stripped first, and a second one never bonds as well. Two refinishes is usually where the sums stop working.
The same coating goes on wall tile. It is what turns a refinished tub in a dated bathroom into a bathroom that looks done.
Used only to pick a regional labour rate. It stays in your browser.
Refinish — spray a new surface on
$520
$69 a year over 7.5 · bathroom out for 2 days
Cheapest per year of service, of the four
Which is the measure that settles this and the one nobody publishes. It does not make it the right answer on its own — what it buys and what it leaves untouched matter too.
How each one fails
Because all four do, eventually, and in different ways.
Refinish — spray a new surface on · yours
It peels. Usually starting at the drain or where a suction-cup mat has been, and once it lifts it lifts in sheets. Stripping a failed refinish before doing it again costs more than the first one did.
Acrylic liner over the top
Water gets between the liner and the old tub through the drain seal, and there is nowhere for it to go. It smells, the liner flexes underfoot, and the only fix is taking both out.
Replace the tub
Nothing, for decades — but it is four days without a bathroom and it is where the surprises live, because a tub that has been leaking quietly at the drain has been rotting the floor under it.
Convert to a walk-in shower
Resale, if it is the only tub in the house. Estate agents are consistent about this: a house with no bath at all narrows the buyers, and families with small children rule it out.
Four ways out, two different rankings
What you pay, and what it costs per year of service.
Where this one’s money goes
Refinish — spray a new surface on.
And one rule that comes with it: A rubber mat with suction cups will lift a refinished surface. The cups hold water against the coating and then pull at it every time the mat is moved, and the result is a ring of peeling exactly where the mat sat. Use a mat with a smooth backing, or nothing.
What it costs
National average. Refinish — spray a new surface on, nothing demolished. Not included: the floor, the vanity, and any subfloor repair found on the day.
$69 a year over the 7.5 years this lasts, which is the honest way to compare it against the other three. If the wall ever does come off, retiling the surround is the larger half of that job and the membrane behind the tile is what decides whether it lasts.
Worth knowing
- The tub is never the expensive part. Enamelled steel costs $265; getting it out from behind three tiled walls and putting those walls back is what makes replacement a four-day job. That is the whole reason refinishing and liners exist — both of them are ways of not touching the wall.
- Cost per year of service is the number that settles this and nobody publishes it. Refinishing is $520 for about 7.5 years — $69 a year. Replacing is $5,160 for about 25 — $206. Refinishing wins on that measure, which is the opposite of how it is usually described. What it does not buy is everything else: the floor underneath, the plumbing, or any chance to change the room.
- At 25 years old there is roughly a 45 per cent chance of finding damaged subfloor when this tub comes out — about $780 to put right, which works out as $351 of expected cost to carry in the budget. A tub that has been weeping at the drain or the overflow has been doing it quietly for years, into a floor nobody can see. It is the commonest thing found on the day the tub comes out, and it is the reason a fixed-price tub replacement quote usually is not one. It is also the one thing refinishing and liners guarantee you will never find out about.
- Etch, prime, spray, cure. The bathroom is out of use for a day or two and the extractor runs the whole time — the stripping agents and the coatings both carry real exposure hazards, which is why this is not a job to do in a bathroom with the window shut.
On this page — 5 sections
The tub is never the expensive part
The short version
- A tub costs $265 to $940. A tub replacement costs thousands, and the difference is the wall.
- Refinishing is $520 and lasts 5 to 10 years. It is a coating with a clock, not a repair.
- Per year of service it is the cheapest of the four — about a third of replacing.
- And it guarantees you never see the subfloor, which on an old tub is the thing most worth seeing.
The arithmetic that confuses everybody looks like this. A perfectly good steel bathtub is about $265. Replacing a bathtub is four to seven thousand. Where does the rest of it go?
Into the wall. An American bathtub sits in an alcove — walls on three sides — and those walls are tiled down onto the rim of the tub. The tub cannot come out until the tile does, and the tile cannot go back until the new tub is in. So a tub replacement is really a demolition job, a plumbing job and a tiling job with a $265 fixture in the middle of it.
Which explains the whole shape of this decision. Every cheaper option on this page is the same idea expressed differently: a way of not touching the wall.
| Option | Lasts | Days out | Wall comes off | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refinish — spray a new surface on | 5–10 yr | 2 | no | The existing tub is etched, primed and sprayed with a two-part coating. It fixes the surface and nothing underneath it, and it is the only option here that costs hundreds rather than thousands. |
| Acrylic liner over the top | 10–20 yr | 1 | no | A shell vacuum-formed to the shape of your tub and glued into it, usually sold with matching wall panels as a one-day package. Nothing is demolished and the bathroom is back the same evening. |
| Replace the tub | 20–30 yr | 4 | yes | Out with the old one and the surround around it, in with a new tub, new valve, new waterproofing and a new wall finish. It is the only option that lets you see the subfloor, which is worth more than it sounds. |
| Convert to a walk-in shower | 20–30 yr | 5 | yes | The same demolition as replacing, plus moving the drain — a tub drains at one end and a shower drains in the middle, so the waste has to be relocated. The reason people do it is that stepping over a tub wall stops being easy at some point. |
MaterialsEstimator, Bathtub price survey — refinishing, liners, replacement and shower conversion · checked 2026-09-22
The ranking that reverses
Compare these four by price and the order is obvious: refinish, liner, replace, convert. Compare them by cost per year of service — total divided by how long it lasts — and the order changes, which is the most useful thing on this page.
~$70
Refinishing, per year
$520 over 5–10 years
~$210
Replacing, per year
Thousands, over 20–30
~$240
A liner, per year
Cheaper to buy than replacing, dearer to own
~$250
Converting, per year
The same demolition plus the drain
Two things fall out of that, and neither is what you would expect.
Refinishing is not the cheap patch. It is the cheapest way to own a bathtub — provided you are willing to do it again every seven years or so, and provided nothing is wrong that a coating cannot reach.
A liner costs less than replacing and costs more to own. It sits in the awkward middle: several times the price of a coating, most of the price of a proper replacement, and it still leaves the old tub, the old plumbing and the old floor exactly where they were. It exists because it goes in during one day and the bathroom works that evening, which for some households is worth the premium on its own.
What refinishing actually is, and the rule that comes with it
Refinishing, reglazing and resurfacing are three names for one process, which is part of why the prices quoted for it swing so widely. What happens is this: the tub is cleaned hard, the surface is etched so a coating can key to it, chips are filled, a primer goes on and then two or three coats of a two-part polymer are sprayed and left to cure.
It is genuinely good when it is done well. It is also a surface treatment, and that word is doing a lot of work: it covers chips, it will not fix rust, and it knows nothing at all about what is happening under the tub.
| What refinishing fixes | What it does not | |
|---|---|---|
| A stained, dull surface | Yes | — |
| Chips in the enamel | Filled first, then covered | — |
| A colour from 1978 | Yes | — |
| Rust through the enamel | — | It continues underneath |
| A tub that flexes or creaks | — | That is the bedding, not the surface |
| A leaking drain or overflow | — | And the leak keeps going |
| Rotten subfloor | — | You will not even know |
| A bathroom that does not work | — | Same room, better tub |
What a good refinishing job includes
- A proper clean and degrease first. Body oils and soap film are why coatings fail in the first year, and they are invisible.
- Etching, so the coating has something to key to. A job that skips this looks identical on day one.
- Chips filled and faired before priming, so they do not telegraph through the finish.
- The old caulk line cut out and replaced afterwards, not sprayed over.
- The drain and overflow trims removed rather than masked, because a sprayed edge at a trim is where peeling starts.
- Serious ventilation throughout — this is a job with a federal hazard alert attached to it.
- A stated cure time before the tub is used, and it is usually longer than people want to hear.
- A written warranty that says what is covered and, more usefully, what voids it.
US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Hazard Alert — Methylene chloride and isocyanate exposure in bathtub refinishing · checked 2026-09-22
Converting to a shower: the drain, and the resale question
Taking the tub out and putting a walk-in shower in its place is the most common bathroom change there is, and there are two things about it that are not obvious from the outside.
The first is plumbing. A tub drains at one end and a shower drains in the middle. Converting one to the other means opening the floor to move the waste, and in a concrete slab that is a different and larger job again. In a timber floor it is a morning’s work from below. In a concrete slab it means cutting a channel in the slab, running the waste, and patching the concrete — a different trade and roughly double the cost.
The second is not a construction question at all, and it is worth saying plainly because people find it out at the wrong moment.
The other thing worth knowing before committing: since the wall is coming off anyway, the surround is a free decision. Panels are fast and waterproof by design. Tile looks like it was always there and needs a waterproof membrane behind it — cement board is stable when wet and is not waterproof, and that single misunderstanding is behind most of the failed showers in the country.
What goes wrong
01Comparing the price of refinishing against the price of a tub
A tub is $265 and a tub replacement is thousands, because the tub is trapped behind three tiled walls. The comparison that matters is against the whole job.
Instead — Compare complete jobs, and compare them per year of service — refinishing at about $70 a year against replacement at about $210 is a very different picture from $500 against $5,000.
02Using a suction-cup mat on a refinished tub
The cups hold water against the coating and pull at it every time the mat moves. It is the commonest cause of early failure and almost nobody is warned.
Instead — A mat with a smooth backing, lifted out after every bath. If grip is genuinely needed, that is an argument for replacing rather than coating.
03Refinishing a tub with rust
Rust means the enamel has already failed through to the metal. The corrosion continues under the new coating and comes back through it, usually within two years.
Instead — A tub with rust at the drain is at the end of its life. Spend the money on replacing it rather than on postponing the decision by eighteen months.
04Refinishing over a previous refinish without stripping
A coating will not bond properly to an old coating. It looks right for a season and then lifts in sheets, taking both layers with it.
Instead — Strip first — about $310 — or accept that this is the point where replacement starts making more sense than a third attempt.
05Taking a fixed-price replacement quote at face value
Nobody can see the subfloor until the tub is out, and on anything over twenty years old there is a real chance it has been quietly wet for years. A tub that has been weeping at the drain or the overflow has been doing it quietly for years, into a floor nobody can see. It is the commonest thing found on the day the tub comes out, and it is the reason a fixed-price tub replacement quote usually is not one.
Instead — Ask what happens if the subfloor is damaged and get the rate in writing. Carry the expected cost — probability times repair — as a budget line.
06Choosing a liner because it is cheaper than replacing
It is cheaper to buy and more expensive to own, and it leaves the old tub, the old plumbing and the old floor exactly where they were. Water that gets behind it has nowhere to go.
Instead — Choose a liner for the reason it is actually good — one day, no demolition, bathroom working that evening. If the reason is money, refinishing is far cheaper and replacing is better value.
07Removing the only bath in the house
It narrows the buyers, and families with young children tend to exclude the house entirely. It is the one change on this page that is difficult to reverse.
Instead — If there is a second tub, proceed. If not, make the trade knowingly — and consider whether a shower over a tub solves the actual problem.
08Tiling a surround onto cement board and calling it waterproof
Cement board is stable when wet, which is not the same thing at all. Water passes straight through it into the wall, and the failure appears years later in the room on the other side.
Instead — A bonded waterproof membrane over the board, or a sheet system. It is a small part of the cost and it is the entire reason the wall survives.
- 01Find out what it is made ofTap it. Cast iron is dull and dead, steel rings, acrylic and fibreglass sound hollow and flex slightly underfoot. Fibreglass with worn gel coat is the one material that does not refinish.
- 02Look for a previous refinishA coating that has been applied before shows as a slightly soft edge at the drain flange, or as peeling anywhere. It has to be stripped before another goes on, and the second never bonds as well.
- 03Decide whether you need to see the floorA tub that has been weeping at the drain has been rotting the subfloor quietly for years. Refinishing and liners both guarantee you will never find out; replacing is the only one that opens it up.
- 04Work out cost per year, not costRefinishing at five hundred for seven years and replacing at five thousand for twenty-five are not the comparison they look like. Divide both.
- 05Ask what each one leaves untouchedThe cheap options leave the surround, the plumbing, the layout and the floor exactly as they are. Sometimes that is the point and sometimes it is the problem.
- 06If converting to a shower, check the drain and the resaleA tub drains at one end and a shower drains in the middle, so the waste moves. And if it is the only bath in the house, that narrows who will buy it.
- 07Budget the surprise separatelyOn anything that involves demolition, carry the expected subfloor repair as a line rather than hoping. It is the commonest find on the day.
Retiling the three walls is the larger half of a tub replacement, and the membrane behind the tile is what decides whether it lasts. That page works out tile, thinset and grout from the trowel the tile actually needs, and it prices the waterproofing separately because it is separate.
If the surround is coming off- Refinishing
- Etching, priming and spraying a two-part coating onto the tub you already have. It resurfaces and repairs nothing underneath, and it has a life of five to ten years rather than a lifetime.
- Reglazing
- The same thing as refinishing, and also the same thing as resurfacing. Three words for one process, which is part of why the prices quoted for it vary so much.
- Liner
- An acrylic shell vacuum-formed to the shape of your tub and glued into it, usually sold with matching wall panels as a one-day package.
- Alcove
- A tub with walls on three sides, which is the standard American arrangement and the reason replacing one means demolishing tile.
- Surround
- The wall finish around the tub — tile, acrylic panels or solid surface. It is the larger half of a tub replacement and it is what the cheap options exist to avoid.
- Gel coat
- The thin coloured outer layer on a fibreglass tub. Once it wears through to the fibreglass beneath, a refinishing coating has nothing sound to key to.
- Waterproof membrane
- The layer behind tile that actually keeps water out of the wall. Cement board is stable when wet and is not waterproof, which is the detail most failed tub surrounds were missing.
- Overflow
- The drain near the top of the tub that stops it filling over the rim. Its gasket is one of the two places an old tub quietly leaks into the floor.
- Subfloor
- The structural deck under the finished floor. It is what rots when a tub has been weeping for years, and the day the tub comes out is the day anybody finds out.
- Mortar bed
- A bed of mortar a new tub is set into, so the base is supported across its whole area rather than flexing on its feet. Skipping it is why some new tubs creak.
- Isocyanate
- The hardener in the two-part coatings used for refinishing. It is why the bathroom is ventilated hard and out of use for a day or two, and why this is not a job for a sealed room.
- Cost per year of service
- Total price divided by the years it lasts. It is the only way to compare a five-hundred dollar coating with a six-thousand dollar replacement honestly, and it reverses the usual ranking.
Common questions
- How much does it cost to refinish a bathtub?
- About $340 to $780 for the tub, typically around $520, and another $440 or so if the surround tiles are done at the same time. It takes a day, the bathroom is out of use for one or two, and it lasts five to ten years. Refinishing, reglazing and resurfacing are three words for the same process, which is part of why quoted prices vary so widely.
- Is refinishing a bathtub worth it, or should I replace it?
- Per year of service, refinishing wins easily — roughly $70 a year against about $210 for a replacement — which is the opposite of how it is usually described. What replacing buys is everything refinishing leaves alone: the surround, the plumbing, the layout, and the chance to see the subfloor underneath. If the tub is sound and the bathroom works, refinishing is the rational choice. If either of those is untrue, the coating is money spent on a problem it cannot reach.
- How long does a refinished bathtub last?
- Five to ten years in normal use. Manufacturers say ten to fifteen and that is achievable in a guest bathroom nobody uses. The things that shorten it are abrasive cleaners, standing water at the drain, and above all a rubber mat with suction cups — the cups hold water against the coating and then pull at it every time the mat is moved, and the result is a ring of peeling exactly where the mat sat.
- Why does replacing a bathtub cost so much when tubs are cheap?
- Because the tub is not the job. Enamelled steel costs $265 and cast iron about $940 — but in a standard alcove it is trapped behind three tiled walls. Getting it out means demolishing them, and putting it back means a new surround, which on tile runs $1,450 to $4,800 on its own. The tub is around a tenth of the total.
- Can any bathtub be refinished?
- Cast iron, steel and acrylic all take a coating well. Fibreglass with gel coat is the exception: these get replaced. A tub that has already been refinished can be done again, but the old coating has to be stripped first — about $310 — and the second bond is never as good as the first.
- What is a bathtub liner and is it a good idea?
- An acrylic shell moulded to the shape of your tub and glued into it, usually with matching wall panels, fitted in a day. It lasts longer than a coating and it costs several times as much. Its failure mode is specific and worth knowing: water gets between the liner and the old tub through the drain seal, and there is nowhere for it to go. it smells, the liner flexes underfoot, and the only fix is taking both out. Ask how the drain is sealed, because that is the way in.
- How much does it cost to convert a tub to a walk-in shower?
- More than replacing the tub, because it is the same demolition plus moving the drain: a tub drains at one end and a shower drains in the middle. In a timber floor that is about $760; in a concrete slab it means cutting and patching concrete and costs roughly double. Budget $5,000 to $10,000 all in for a tiled conversion.
- Should I remove my only bathtub?
- Think hard about it. Estate agents are consistent on this point: a house with no bath at all narrows the field of buyers, and families with small children tend to rule those houses out entirely. If there is a second bathroom with a tub in it, the question disappears. If there is not, a walk-in shower is a decision about how you live now weighed against who can buy the house later.
- What will they find when the old tub comes out?
- Damaged subfloor, more often than not on anything over twenty years old. A tub that has been weeping at the drain or the overflow has been doing it quietly for years, into a floor nobody can see. It is the commonest thing found on the day the tub comes out, and it is the reason a fixed-price tub replacement quote usually is not one. Repair runs $380 to $1,900, and it is the reason a fixed-price tub replacement quote is usually not really fixed. Carry it as an expected cost rather than hoping.
- How long is the bathroom out of use?
- 2 days for refinishing — the coating has to cure and the room needs ventilating hard while it does. 1 for a liner, which is its main selling point. 4 for a replacement and 5 for a shower conversion, and in both of those cases the room is a building site rather than simply out of action.
- Can I refinish a bathtub myself?
- There are kits, and the results are usually visible from the doorway. More to the point, the stripping agents and the coatings both carry real exposure hazards — this is a job with a federal hazard alert attached to it, because people have died doing it in bathrooms with the window shut. If you do it, the extraction matters more than the technique.
- Does refinishing fix chips and rust?
- It covers chips in enamel, and a competent job fills them first so they do not telegraph through. It does not fix rust — rust means the enamel has failed through to the steel underneath, and the corrosion continues under the new coating. A tub with rust at the drain is a tub at the end of its life, whatever is sprayed on it.
Send this to whoever is paying
The link carries your measurements, so whoever opens it sees the same numbers you are looking at — and you can come back to it yourself tomorrow with the delivery note in front of you.
Plain links, no tracking scripts. Nothing here reports back that you shared it.
About the author
Pablo Ruiz Quintero — Editor
Editor of MaterialsEstimator. Decides which documents count as a source, what every default value is, and where the line sits between what the reader parses and what the engines compute.
More about how this site is edited