Freelance contract checklist: before you sign

• Confirm your legal name and the client’s legal name.
• Check the effective date and project term.
• Read the independent-contractor wording alongside how the relationship actually works.

The IRS weighs the whole relationship, including behavioral control, financial control and type of relationship. No single factor or contract label settles federal tax status.

IRS: Independent contractor or employee? — https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/independent-contractor-self-employed-or-employee

• List deliverable formats, quantities and revision rounds.
• Check milestones and deadlines.
• Agree how scope changes are approved and priced in writing.

Question wording such as “all work reasonably required” when there is no change-order process.

• Confirm the fee and currency.
• Write down deposits and milestone payments.
• Check invoice triggers and actual payment dates.
• Read late-fee or interest terms and ask whether they apply.
• Confirm who pays expenses and what needs advance approval.
• Clarify responsibility for taxes with your tax adviser.

Ask what “payment within a reasonable time after satisfaction” means in actual dates.

• Check what happens if either party cancels.
• Record payment for work completed and approved milestones.
• Plan the return of system access and materials.

Ask what you would be paid if the client cancels halfway through the project.

• Identify when ownership transfers and whether payment is a condition.
• Exclude preexisting tools, methods and intellectual property you retain.
• Check permission to show work in a portfolio.

“Work made for hire” has specific requirements: employee work within the scope of employment, or specified categories of specially commissioned work under a signed written agreement. Do not assume the phrase covers every freelance deliverable.

US Copyright Office: Circular 30, Works Made for Hire — https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf

• Define confidential information and exclusions for public or preexisting knowledge.
• Check how long confidentiality lasts.
• Identify every non-solicit or non-compete restriction for legal review.

A broad ban on working in your field deserves questions; this checklist cannot determine enforceability.

• Identify who indemnifies whom and for what.
• Ask about a liability cap proportionate to the project.
• Check consequential-damage wording.
• Confirm required insurance types and limits are feasible.

• Identify governing law and venue.
• Check arbitration versus court procedures.
• Read who pays legal fees.
• Save specific questions, agreed edits and the final signed version.