US freelance payment laws: where a written contract is now required, and what it buys you

Since 28 August 2024, a New York business that hires a freelancer for $800 of work has been legally required to put the arrangement in writing, and can be made to pay double if it pays late. Illinois got there a month earlier, at a lower threshold. California followed on 1 January 2025 at a lower one still. The City of Los Angeles had its own ordinance a year before any of them.

This page lays the four out from the statutes, with the figures and the sources, so you can check them. It describes what the texts say; it is not advice about your situation; every one of these laws is specific to a place; and North is not legal counsel.

The four, side by side

| | New York State | Illinois | California | City of Los Angeles | |---|---|---|---|---| | Law | Freelance Isn't Free Act, General Business Law Article 44-A | Freelance Worker Protection Act, 820 ILCS 193 | Freelance Worker Protection Act, SB 988 | Freelance Worker Protections Ordinance | | In force | 28 August 2024 | 1 July 2024 | 1 January 2025 | 1 July 2023 | | Threshold | $800, alone or aggregated over the preceding 120 days | five hundred dollars, alone or aggregated over 120 days | $250, alone or aggregated over the preceding 120 days | $600, per our August 2026 verification | | Payment when the contract is silent | within 30 days of completing the services | within 30 days of completing the services | within 30 days of completing the services | see note below | | Late payment | double damages, injunctive relief, attorneys' fees and costs | double the underpayment, plus costs and attorney's fees | up to twice the amount unpaid, plus fees and costs | see note below | | No written contract | $250 statutory damages | five hundred dollars in statutory damages per violation | one thousand dollars more where the hiring party refused to provide one | see note below | | Contract retention | six years | two years | four years | four years |

Sources: New York, the statute at sections 1410, 1411, 1412 and 1414 on the State Senate's site, and the Department of Labor's page for the effective date; Illinois, the statute text and the Department of Labor's summary; California, the bill text of SB 988. All read on 29 August 2026. The Los Angeles row is the exception: the city's pages could not be reached today, so its figures are carried from our verification of 8 August 2026 against the ordinance's rules and a law-firm summary, and the cells we could not re-read are marked rather than filled in.

New York, in detail

The threshold sits in section 1410: a freelance worker is anyone hired as an independent contractor to provide services in exchange for an amount equal to or greater than eight hundred dollars, either by itself or when aggregated with all contracts for services between the same hiring party and freelance worker during the immediately preceding one hundred twenty days. A freelance worker here means a natural person or an organisation of no more than one person, so a two-person studio is outside it. Government bodies are excluded as hiring parties.

Section 1412 requires the contract to be reduced to writing and to include, at minimum: the name and mailing address of both parties; an itemisation of all services to be provided, their value, and the rate and method of compensation; the date on which the hiring party must pay or the mechanism by which that date will be determined; and the date by which the freelancer must submit a list of services rendered to meet any internal processing deadlines. The hiring party must keep the contract for no less than six years and produce it to the Attorney General on request.

Section 1411 sets the payment clock: on or before the date the contract names, or, if the contract does not specify a date or a mechanism, no later than thirty days after the completion of the freelance worker's services. The same section adds a sentence worth memorising: once work has begun, the hiring party shall not require as a condition of timely payment that the freelance worker accept less compensation than the amount of the contracted compensation. The "we'll pay you now if you knock ten per cent off" conversation is, in New York, unlawful.

Section 1414 is the remedies. Prevailing on a missing-contract claim brings statutory damages of $250. Prevailing on a late-payment claim brings double damages, injunctive relief and other remedies, plus reasonable attorneys' fees and costs. Retaliation carries statutory damages equal to the value of the underlying contract. The limitation period is two years for the contract claim and six years for payment and retaliation claims. The Attorney General can separately seek civil penalties of one thousand dollars for a first violation, rising to three thousand, and up to twenty-five thousand for a pattern of violations.

Illinois, California and Los Angeles, briefly

Illinois's Freelance Worker Protection Act applies to contracts taking effect after 1 July 2024, at five hundred dollars in a 120-day period. The required contract contents are the same list as New York's in substance: names and contact details, an itemisation of the services, the rate and method of compensation, the date compensation is due, and the dates of the services. Payment is due by the contract date or, if none, within 30 days of completion. The statute provides double the underpayment plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees, five hundred dollars in statutory damages where no written contract was provided, and a two-year retention rule.

California's SB 988 is operative from 1 January 2025 at two hundred and fifty dollars, alone or aggregated over the preceding 120 days, with the same contract contents and the same 30-day default. Remedies: a further one thousand dollars where the hiring party refused a written contract, up to twice the amount unpaid for late payment, damages equal to the value of the contract or the work for other violations, and reasonable attorney's fees and costs. Retention is four years. Individuals hiring for their own personal or household benefit are excluded, which takes most wedding and portrait work outside it.

The City of Los Angeles ordinance took effect on 1 July 2023 at a $600 threshold with a four-year record-retention rule, per our verification of 8 August 2026. We tried the city's own pages today and could not load them, so the payment-clock and remedy cells in the table are left blank rather than reconstructed from memory.

Minnesota, and anywhere else you have read about

Minnesota is listed alongside these four in a number of secondary articles. We went looking for the statute in August 2026 and could not confirm it. Until somebody reads a Minnesota law that says this, it is not on the table above, and we would treat any article that lists it without a citation as unverified on the other four as well.

The pattern is spreading, and this page will be out of date in a direction that favours you. Check your own state before assuming either way.

What to do with it

If you are inside one of these places, the written contract has become the cheapest insurance available to you, because the statute does the enforcement work your own drafting never could: a client's accounts department will move an invoice a great deal faster when the alternative is paying it twice, plus your lawyer's fees. Send the contract on every job, including the small friendly one, with the payment date written in.

If you are outside them, the reason to send one is unchanged and older than any of these laws. It is the only way two people find out, before the money is spent, that they meant different things.

And in every jurisdiction the ranking holds: money in your account outranks any clause. A statute that doubles the damages does not shorten the time it takes to collect them. Deposit first, then the contract, in that order.