15 Freelancing Statistics

In the fourth quarter of 2023, 9.1 million unincorporated self-employed workers accounted for 5.7 percent of all nonagricultural workers.

This is the core unincorporated self-employed population, the closest official proxy for freelancers and sole proprietors. It is a stable, if slowly declining, share of the workforce.

Nonemployer businesses, which have no paid employees and are mostly self-employed individuals, make up the majority of all U.S. business establishments.

Solo operations outnumber firms with payroll. Freelancing is not a fringe arrangement; it is the most common form of U.S. business.

Professional, scientific, and technical services held the most nonemployer establishments of any sector in 2022, with 4,013,209 establishments and $229.4 billion in receipts.

Knowledge-work freelancing is the largest single category by establishment count. This is where consultants, designers, and developers concentrate.

The real estate, rental, and leasing sector brought in 20.0 percent of total nonemployer receipts, $344.7 billion, despite being just 10.6 percent of nonemployer establishments.

Receipts per solo business vary widely by sector. A high share of receipts on a small share of firms signals far higher average revenue per operator.

Nonemployer establishment counts grew 4.9 percent in 2021 and 4.7 percent in 2022, among the fastest rates in nearly two decades.

Solo businesses surged after 2020. The pool of freelancers a new operator competes against has been expanding quickly.

From 2012 to 2023, the number of U.S. nonemployer businesses grew faster than employer businesses in nearly every year.

Solo work is growing faster than payroll employment. The independent share of all businesses has risen steadily over a decade.

The Nonemployer Statistics program counts businesses subject to federal income tax with receipts of $1,000 or more, or $1 or more in the construction sector.

The threshold is low, so the count captures part-time and side income too. That is worth remembering when reading the headline establishment totals.

In the first quarter of 2024, 22.9 percent of people at work teleworked or worked at home for pay, up from 19.6 percent a year earlier.

Remote work normalized the home office that most freelancers already used. It also widened the pool of clients comfortable hiring remote contractors.

Among workers with an advanced degree, 43.6 percent teleworked in early 2024, versus 8.5 percent of those whose highest credential was a high school diploma.

Remote-friendly work skews toward high-credential roles. That is the same segment where independent knowledge-work freelancing is most viable.

The U.S. self-employment rate, including incorporated and unincorporated, fell from 12.1 percent of employment in 1994 to 10.1 percent in 2015.

Self-employment has trended down over decades despite recent post-pandemic gains. The long arc runs against, not with, a freelance boom.

Of the 15.0 million self-employed workers in 2015, about 6 in 10 were unincorporated and the remaining 5.5 million were incorporated.

Many established solo operators incorporate for tax and liability reasons. The split matters when comparing freelance income across legal structures.

Total employer compensation costs for private-industry workers averaged $46.15 per hour worked in December 2025, with benefits adding 29.9 percent on top of wages.

A freelancer covers their own benefits, so the salaried all-in rate is the right comparison point when setting a billing rate, not the headline wage.

Legally required benefits such as Social Security and unemployment insurance averaged $2.19 per hour worked, 8.3 percent of private-industry employer costs, in December 2025.

An employee splits payroll taxes with an employer; a freelancer pays both sides as self-employment tax. That gap belongs in any rate calculation.

The United States had 36.2 million small businesses in 2026, 99.9 percent of all U.S. firms.

Nearly every business is small, and a large share of those are solo. Freelancers operate inside the same regulatory and tax environment as small employers.

About 78.7 percent of new private-sector establishments survive their first full year, and only 34.7 percent of those born in March 2013 were still operating a decade later.

Independent businesses face the same survival curve as any establishment. Consistent income over years, not one good contract, is what sustains a freelance practice.