Abstract To study the reflectance and polarization properties of coating materials in more detail, we measured the reflectance factor, degree of linear polarization (DoLP) and the polarized reflectance factor of two types of coating materials (glossy yellow and rough green painted coating) in the wavelength range of 400 to 1000nm over the hemispherical directions using the Goniospectrometer System. The measured data sets were analyzed with the basic polarized reflectance theory. The analyses indicated that both the reflectance factor and the degree of linear polarization of different coating were related to the wavelength, but the polarized reflectance factor was spectrally neutral, and all of them showed the obvious anisotropic characteristics. Besides, the reflectance factor and DoLP of coatings had negative correlation at selected wavelength and the type of coating had a great influence on the polarization and reflectance properties. The polarization characteristics of the glossy coating was far greater than rough coating. Our study not only deepens the understanding of the reflectance property of coating materials but also has a great potential for target detection and identification applications.