The objective of this study is to demonstrate the significant improvement in the photoelectrochemical (PEC) hydrogen generation by a photoanode owing to the increased surface area of the substrate. In this work, multilayered tungsten oxide (WO3) films have been successfully synthesized onto the large-area sheet (9 x 9cm2) and mesh (1 x 20cm2) -type stainless steel (SS) substrates using screen printing and brush painting methods, respectively. All the WO3 films are porous and nanocrystalline (3080nm) in nature with a monoclinic crystal structure as revealed from X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy studies. The PEC water splitting study is performed under simulated 1 SUN illumination (AM1.5G) in a typical two-electrode cell configuration with WO3 photoanode and Pt wire immersed in 0.5M H2SO4 electrolyte. The photocurrent as well as hydrogen generation rate for WO3 photoanodes coated on the plane SS sheet substrate is relatively low and showed minimal change with increasing film thickness. On the other hand, the photocurrent as well as the hydrogen generation is enhanced by a 34 fold degree for the WO3 photoanodes coated on SS mesh. We attribute such efficient water splitting to the increment in the filling factor of the WO3 material due to the large effective surface area of the SS mesh as compared to the SS sheet substrate. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.