Freelancer Statistics 2026: Headcount, Pay, Late Invoices
Ask how many freelancers work in the United States and you can get 33 million, 64 million, or 72.9 million, all from credible sources. The gap is not sloppiness: each counts a different thing, and the definition behind a figure matters more than the figure. Here are the freelance numbers worth knowing, each sourced inline with the year noted.
The three headline counts, and what each one measures
72.9 million Americans worked independently in 2025, counting full-time, part-time and occasional independents together (MBO Partners State of Independence, 2025, fielded in April 2025). It is the broadest widely cited count, and most of it is not full-time work.
64 million Americans performed freelance work in 2023, or 38% of the US workforce (Upwork Freelance Forward, 2023, a representative survey of 3,000 professionals). It counts anyone who did any paid freelance work in the previous 12 months, far above any count of primary-income independents.
20% of US adults performed gig activities in the prior month, and only 21% of them treated it as their main job (Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, 2024 survey published 2025). The Fed defines gig activity broadly, including selling or renting items: 9% of adults did short-term tasks such as driving or odd jobs, 4% of them through an app.
Tax records find twice as many self-employed as household surveys
33 million people, 17.3% of workers, engaged in some form of self-employment in 2019 according to IRS business tax records (US Census Bureau working paper CES 25-60, published September 2025).
15.3 million was the comparable household-survey figure: the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 6.0 million incorporated and 9.3 million unincorporated self-employed workers in March 2019, cited in that same Census paper. Administrative records find more than twice as many people as the survey, the clearest illustration of why freelance headcounts disagree.
9.5% of workers combined a wage job with self-employment in 2019, more than the 7.8% who earned everything from self-employment (Census Bureau, 2025). Most self-employment is a second income, which payroll-based surveys are structurally poor at seeing.
Full-time, part-time and occasional are three different populations
27.7 million full-time independents, defined as working independently more than 15 hours a week, were counted in 2024, up 6.5% from 26 million in 2023 (MBO Partners 2024 State of Independence, 2024).
36.5 million occasional independents, defined as earning money independently at least monthly but irregularly, were counted the same year, alongside 8.5 million part-time independents working 15 hours a week or fewer.
Those three summed to 72.7 million in 2024, up from 72.1 million in 2023 and 38.2 million in 2020. Nearly all the growth has come from occasional work, not from people going independent full-time.
What freelancers earn
$1.27 trillion in annual earnings was contributed to the US economy by freelancers in 2023, up 78% from an estimated $715 billion in 2014 (Upwork Freelance Forward, 2023).
5.6 million independents earned more than $100,000 in 2025, up 19% from 4.7 million in 2024 and nearly double the 3 million in 2020 (MBO Partners, 2025). When that research began in 2011, it was 1.9 million. MBO puts the typical US worker salary near $66,000, and 59% of independents say they earn more working independently.
$22 against $24 per hour were the average rates reported by women and men freelancers, or 92 cents on the dollar (Payoneer Freelancer Insights Report, 2023). In the same research, 38% had raised their rates over the prior year against 15% who cut them.
Getting paid is a second job
91% of New York freelancers surveyed had experienced late or overdue payment at least once in their career, and 54% had waited three months or longer (Authors Guild and Freelancers Union survey, 2022).
62% had lost wages outright to a client who refused to pay. Among those, 51% lost more than $1,000 and 22% lost more than $5,000 (same survey, 2022).
29.3 days was the average wait for a US small business invoice to be paid in the June 2026 quarter, with invoices settled 8.5 days past their due date (Xero Small Business Insights, 2026). In the March 2026 quarter they ran 9.0 days late. Xero measures small businesses broadly, not freelancers alone.
How solo operators use AI
74% of independents use AI, and 61% say it saves time and increases output (MBO Partners, 2025).
76% of freelancers use AI tools and 64% report increased productivity, with 40% teaching themselves without formal training (Fiverr International Freelancer Day survey of 3,500 freelancers, 2025).
2.2 times: freelancers were that much more likely than other professionals to use generative AI regularly in 2023, at 20% against 9% (Upwork Freelance Forward, 2023). The same study put 47% of freelancers, nearly 30 million people, in knowledge services such as programming, marketing and consulting.
The admin lands on one desk
A freelancer has no admin staff: client email, scheduling back-and-forth, and the follow-up on a three-week-old invoice all land on the person doing the billable work, which is why the payment numbers above are really a time story. Carly is an AI assistant for that load: it handles email, calendar and the follow-through between them, and it connects to thousands of apps, so the nudge on a late invoice goes out on its own.
FAQ
How many freelancers are there in the US? It depends on the definition. MBO Partners counted 72.9 million independents in 2025 including occasional work, Upwork 64 million people who did any freelance work in 2023, and Census Bureau tax records 33 million in some form of self-employment in 2019.
How much do freelancers earn? Freelancers contributed $1.27 trillion in annual earnings to the US economy in 2023 (Upwork, 2023), and 5.6 million independents cleared $100,000 in 2025, up from 4.7 million in 2024 (MBO Partners, 2025). Payoneer’s 2023 research put average hourly rates at $22 for women and $24 for men.
What percentage of the workforce is freelance? Upwork put freelancers at 38% of the US workforce in 2023, on a definition counting any freelance work in the past year. Census Bureau tax records put self-employment at 17.3% of workers in 2019, and the Federal Reserve found 20% of adults doing gig activity in a given month, only 21% of whom called it their main job.
How much time do freelancers spend on admin? No primary survey pins this to a single credible number, and most circulated figures trace to vendor blogs rather than research. What is measured is the payment side: 91% of freelancers in one survey had been paid late at least once and 54% waited three months or longer (Authors Guild and Freelancers Union, 2022), against an average 29.3-day wait to be paid (Xero, 2026).
Related: Best AI tools for freelancers · Best AI tools for solopreneurs · Small Business AI Statistics · Time Management Statistics
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