Freelance and small business statistics
Numbers for freelancers, small business owners and the people who work with them. Each figure links to the group that published it and carries a date.
Freelance statistics
Freelance statistics for 2026: US and global headcount, pay, late invoices, written-contract laws and outlook, from primary sources. Updated monthly.
Read all 160 statistics- 11.9 million people were independent contractors on their main job in July 2023, 7.4% of total U.S. employment.
- A record 74.9 million Americans earn income independently in 2026.
- U.S. nonemployer firms nearly doubled from 15.4 million in 1997 to 29.8 million in 2022, and now make up 82.3% of small businesses.
- 80.3% of independent contractors prefer their work arrangement, and 8.3% would prefer a traditional job.
Freelance and self-employment
How many people work for themselves, what they earn and how they get paid.
- Gig economy statisticsWorkers, Pay, RulesOne in five U.S. adults did some gig activity in the prior month. 20% of adults performed gig activities, most of them not on an app.
- Self employed business owner income statisticsPayThe 2025 annual average was 9.16 million unincorporated self-employed workers outside farming and 680,000 in farming.
- Solopreneur statisticsFirms, Sales, Hours, AINonemployer establishments grew 18.0% between 2019 and 2024, a gain of 4,881,868.
Contracts and disputes
Contract disputes, signatures and how companies manage their agreements.
- Contract dispute statisticsCourts, ADR, Small ClaimsFederal courts received 30,492 contract filings out of 359,059 civil filings in the 12 months to June 2026.
- Contract management statisticsCost, ROI, MarketAverage contract value erosion is 8.6%, with the best performers at a little over 3% and the worst above 20%.
- E-signature statisticsUse, Market, FraudDocusign reports more than 1.8 million customers and more than a billion users worldwide.
Legal industry
Lawyers, law firms and how legal work is changing.
- Law firm marketing statisticsBudgets, SEO, ReviewsOnly 33% of 500 law firms answered a secret shopper email in 2024, down from 40% in 2019.
- Lawyer statisticsHeadcount, Pay, Bar Exam, OutlookThe US had 1,374,720 resident active lawyers in 2025.
- Legal ai statisticsAdoption, Funding, Errors69% of legal professionals now use general-purpose AI tools for work, up from 31% a year earlier.
Creative and design
Creators, designers and the money in their work.
- Creator economy statisticsPay, Payouts, Brand DealsGoldman Sachs Research expects the creator economy to roughly double to $480 billion by 2027 from $250 billion in 2023.
- Web design statisticsPay, Pricing, Speed, AccessWeb developers and digital designers held 220,100 US jobs in 2025, and BLS projects 5% growth through 2035.
How these pages are sourced
- 01
Primary sources
Each number comes from the group that produced it: a regulator, a survey team or a company. We do not copy figures from other roundups.
- 02
Dated and linked
Every figure carries the date of its data and a link to the source, so you can check it.
- 03
Updated monthly
Pages are checked each month and older figures are replaced when newer ones come out.
Quoting a figure? Link to the page or to the original study. Each page ends with a ready-made citation. ContractMaker is a document tool and does not provide legal advice.
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