The Best Painter's Tapes for DIY Home Projects (2024)

Don’t let the name fool you: Though this painter’s tape is designed to work on delicate surfaces, our tests found it worked hard, making it a top pick. In our Lab tests, we found the lightly adhesive paper tape to be easy to manipulate, from tearing it off the roll and sticking it to the wall, all the way through the final removal, making it good for both simple lines and more complex designs. Once it was on the wall, it held its place on both papered and primed pieces of drywall — and it is able to stay in place for up to 60 days before painting. After removal, the tape left behind clean, sharp lines.

The tape comes in 0.94, 1.41 and 1.88 inch widths and is designed to work on finished wood, fresh paint, wallpaper, veneer, laminate, vinyl and primed drywall, which can cover a lot of ground inside a home. However, for unfinished or unprimed surfaces, you’ll likely be better off with a stronger adhesive.

For harder surfaces, you’ll need a tape with enough adhesive that it’ll stay put, but not too much adhesive that it’ll tear off bits of your wall during removal. Frogtape Multi-Surface finds that middle ground to work on cured paint, unfinished wood, metal, glass, stone and carpet.

While this tape was somewhat thick and sticky, making it harder to manipulate, in GH Institute tests, we found that to be an asset, allowing it to stick to more durable surfaces. It was still fairly easy to apply and remove, and it left behind crisp edges.

It can remain on surfaces for 21 days, giving you ample time to complete your project, however if you are working in direct sunlight, that timeframe reduces to just seven days. The tape is available in 0.94, 1.41 and 1.88 inch widths.

Amazon's Choice and a number one best seller, Scotch Blue Original Multi-Surface painter's tape has earned its share of fans, and with good reason. This medium adhesive crepe paper tape works on a variety of common household surfaces including walls, trim, tile and glass.

This tape comes in widths up to 2.83 inches — about an inch more than most other options — and money-saving multi-packs for large projects. GH Institute tests found this tape to be easy to tear off the roll, stick to the wall, and remove, however engineers noticed feathered edges and some bleeding, as well as peeling on delicate surfaces.

Shurtape’s medium adhesive tape feels thick and sticky, but our tests found it to be surprisingly gentle on walls, showing only minor peeling after removal. The tape left clean, clear paint edges with minimal bleeding, and it was easy to tear and stick.

It’s made for use indoors and outdoors on painted walls, glass, vinyl, metal, and wood, and can stay in place for up to 14 days, even when exposed to the sun. It is not, however, gentle enough for use on wallpaper, unpainted wallboard, ceiling tile or uncured coatings. It comes in 0.70, 0.94, 1.41 and 1.88 inch widths.

IPG ProMask Blue with Bloc-It is thin and easy to handle, but with enough adhesive to work on tougher surfaces including unfinished wood, wallboard and lacquer-coated surfaces. Our Lab tests found this crepe paper tape to produce clear, clean paint edges, with barely noticeable bleeding, and it left behind near-perfect surface conditions, showing a little peeling upon removal.

The real selling point, however, is that this tape can stay on sun-soaked surfaces for up to 14 days without risking damage to your fresh paint or surfaces, making it good for windows and outdoor jobs. It is available in 0.70, 0.94, 1.41 and 1.88 inch widths.

Highly durable surfaces like brick, stone and concrete are going to require more adhesive to stick. Scotch Rough Surface’s high adhesive is formulated to cling to durable surfaces, while still being easy to use. It's a crepe paper tape, available in 0.70, 0.94, 1.44 and 1.81 inch widths.

Reviewers report this tape adhering nicely to slightly textured surfaces and giving them the clean lines they hope for with minimal bleeding. However, this tape is not meant for standard interior surfaces like painted drywall, plaster walls and wood trim, and may damage those surfaces upon removal.

This gentle tape is among the easiest to tear, stick and remove, making it a good option for delicate surfaces like wallpaper. In Lab tests, the gentle adhesion left walls in tact after use, however with some mixed results: The tape sometimes peeled off the wall prematurely, and when it was fully peeled, it revealed a slightly feathered paint edge rather than the clean line you’ll typically be looking for.

It is formulated for interior use on lightly textured drywall, wallpaper, finished or engineered hardwood, cabinets and veneers, and comes in 0.70, 0.94, 1.41 and 1.88 inch widths.