We have calculated the exact ground-state phase diagrams of the spin-3/2 Ising model using the method that was proposed and applied to the spin-1 Ising model by Dublenych (2005 Phys. Rev. B 71 012411). The calculated, exact ground-state phase diagrams on the diatomic and triangular lattices with the nearest-neighbor (NN) interaction have been presented in this paper. We have obtained seven and 15 topologically different ground-state phase diagrams for J > 0 and J < 0, respectively, on the diatomic lattice and have found the conditions for the existence of uniform and intermediate or non-uniform phases. We have also constructed the exact ground-state phase diagrams of the model on the triangular lattice and found 20 and 59 fundamental phase diagrams for J > 0 and J < 0, respectively, the conditions for the existence of uniform and intermediate phases have also been found.