Florida Independent Contractor Agreement Template
Florida is one of the few states that writes the classification test as a scored checklist, then hands the burden of proving it to the worker.
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Introduction
An Independent Contractor Agreement is a contract between a business and a self-employed worker covering scope, payment, ownership of the work product, and how the engagement ends. Whether the worker is genuinely a contractor is settled by a legal test rather than by the title on the document, and Florida applies a different test under each of its three main employment acts. Workers' compensation is the one Florida reduced to a checklist: Fla. Stat. 440.02(18)(d)1.a. lists six criteria and requires at least four of them to be met, with a seven-condition fallback in sub-subparagraph b. for engagements that cannot reach four. Reemployment assistance coverage is decided by ordinary common-law employment rules under Fla. Stat. 443.1216(1)(a)2., and minimum wage runs on federal definitions, because Fla. Const. art. X, sec. 24(b) gives employer, employee, and wage the meanings established under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Two features of the Florida scheme change how the document should be drafted. The worker, not the hiring business, carries the burden of proving contractor status for workers' compensation. And construction is carved out of the checklist entirely, because Fla. Stat. 440.02(18)(c)3. makes an independent contractor working in the construction industry an employee for that chapter no matter how the six criteria come out.
Key Things to Know
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Florida decides the question act by act, and the three answers are reached in three different ways. Workers' compensation applies the statutory criteria in Fla. Stat. 440.02(18). Reemployment assistance applies the usual common-law rules under Fla. Stat. 443.1216(1)(a)2., which sweeps in an individual who is an employee under those rules and gives no ABC test and no statutory presumption. Minimum wage borrows the federal definitions outright under Fla. Const. art. X, sec. 24(b) and Fla. Stat. 448.110(3), which limits the state minimum wage to individuals entitled to receive the federal minimum wage.
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The workers' compensation definition sits at Fla. Stat. 440.02(18), and older material citing 440.02(15) is quoting a superseded numbering, because subsection (15) now defines Disability. Under (18)(d)1.a., at least four of six criteria must be met: a separate business with the contractor's own work facility, truck, equipment, materials, or similar accommodations; holding or having applied for a federal employer identification number; compensation paid to a business rather than to an individual; one or more bank accounts in the name of the business entity; the ability to work for other entities at the contractor's own election without completing an employment application or process; and compensation on a competitive-bid basis or on completion of a task or set of tasks defined by a contractual agreement.
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There is a second route when four criteria are out of reach. Sub-subparagraph b. supplies a seven-condition fallback that looks instead at whether the worker performs for a specific amount of money and controls the means of performance, incurs the principal expenses, is responsible for satisfactory completion, is paid per job or by commission, may realize a profit or suffer a loss, has continuing business liabilities or obligations, and depends for success on the relationship of receipts to expenditures. It is a different question, not a softer version of the same one.
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Florida reverses the usual burden. The statute provides that an individual claiming to be an independent contractor has the burden of proving that he or she is an independent contractor for purposes of ch. 440. In most states the hiring business has to prove the classification; in a Florida workers' compensation dispute the person asserting contractor status is the one who has to establish it.
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Construction is outside the checklist. Fla. Stat. 440.02(18)(c)3. includes within employee an independent contractor working or performing services in the construction industry, and (c)4. does the same for a sole proprietor, partner, or partnership engaged in construction. No contract wording buys out of that. The only route to non-coverage for a construction worker is a current exemption filed under Fla. Stat. 440.05, so the practical drafting step is to require proof of coverage or of a filed exemption before work starts.
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One of the six criteria can be defeated by your own boilerplate. Criterion (VI) counts competitive-bid or per-task compensation toward contractor status unless the contractual agreement expressly states that an employment relationship exists. A form that was adapted from an employment template, or that carries a stray recital about employment, can cancel a criterion the engagement otherwise satisfies.
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For several categories the writing is not optional, it is the condition of the exclusion. Bands, orchestras, musical and theatrical performers, and disk jockeys are outside employee status only where a written contract evidencing an independent contractor relationship is entered into before the entertainment begins. A motor vehicle owner-operator needs a written contract with a motor carrier under which the owner-operator assumes the responsibility of an employer for performance, with the required equipment identified. A real estate licensee is excluded only where that person agrees, in writing, to perform for remuneration solely by way of commission.
Key decisions before you file
Before you file a Independent Contractor Agreement in Florida, a few decisions shape the document: which option to choose and what each one means. The Independent Contractor Agreement guide walks through them.
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Florida Requirements for Independent Contractor Agreement
For workers' compensation, employee does not include an independent contractor who is not engaged in the construction industry, and at least four of six criteria must be met to reach that definition: a separate business with the contractor's own work facility, truck, equipment, materials, or similar accommodations; holding or having applied for a federal employer identification number; compensation paid to a business rather than to an individual; one or more bank accounts in the name of the business entity; the ability to perform work for other entities at the contractor's own election without an employment application or process; and compensation on a competitive-bid basis or on completion of a task or set of tasks defined by a contractual agreement.
Where fewer than four of the six criteria are satisfied, the statute supplies a separate seven-condition route that examines whether the worker performs for a specific amount of money and controls the means of performance, incurs the principal expenses, is responsible for satisfactory completion, is paid per job or by commission, may realize a profit or suffer a loss, has continuing business liabilities or obligations, and depends for success on the relationship of receipts to expenditures.
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the subparagraph, an individual claiming to be an independent contractor has the burden of proving that he or she is an independent contractor for purposes of ch. 440. The allocation is unusual, since most classification regimes put the burden on the hiring party, and it makes contemporaneous documentation of the six criteria valuable to the worker as well as to the business.
Employee includes an independent contractor working or performing services in the construction industry, and also a sole proprietor who engages in the construction industry and a partner or partnership engaged in it. The six-criterion test is unavailable for that work, so an independent contractor agreement cannot take construction services outside workers' compensation coverage. Non-coverage requires a current exemption filed under Fla. Stat. 440.05.
Compensation received on a competitive-bid basis or on completion of a task or set of tasks defined by a contractual agreement counts toward independent contractor status unless that contractual agreement expressly states that an employment relationship exists. Employment recitals carried over from another template can therefore remove a criterion the engagement otherwise satisfies, which makes a wording review of the final document worthwhile.
Several exclusions from workers' compensation employee status depend on a writing. Bands, orchestras, musical and theatrical performers, and disk jockeys are excluded only if a written contract evidencing an independent contractor relationship is entered into before the commencement of the entertainment. An owner-operator must transport property under a written contract with a motor carrier by which the owner-operator assumes the responsibility of an employer for performance, with the required equipment identified. A real estate licensee must agree, in writing, to perform for remuneration solely by way of commission.
Employment subject to the Reemployment Assistance Program Law includes service performed by an individual who, under the usual common-law rules applicable in determining the employer-employee relationship, is an employee. Chapter 443 sets out no ABC test and no statutory presumption of employment, and the workers' compensation criteria in Fla. Stat. 440.02(18) do not travel to it. Cantor v. Cochran, 184 So. 2d 173 (Fla. 1966), supplies the agency factor list Florida courts apply.
The constitutional minimum wage amendment provides that the terms employer, employee, and wage carry the meanings established under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and its implementing regulations, and Fla. Stat. 448.110(3) states that only those individuals entitled to receive the federal minimum wage are eligible for the state minimum wage. Florida therefore has no separate state wage and hour classification test, and the federal standard decides who is an employee for pay claims.
The workers' compensation definition of employee, including the independent contractor criteria, is at Fla. Stat. 440.02(18). Subsection (15) now defines Disability. Forms, articles, and checklists that cite 440.02(15) for the independent contractor test are reproducing text from before the renumbering, which is a useful signal that the source has not been checked against the current statute.
Frequently Asked Questions
Florida wrote its workers' compensation test as a scored checklist rather than leaving it to case law. Fla. Stat. 440.02(18)(d)1.a. lists six criteria and requires at least four to be met, with a seven-condition fallback where four cannot be reached. Because the criteria are concrete, the agreement can be drafted to line up with them, and the facts that matter can be recorded rather than argued about later.
A separate business with the worker's own work facility, truck, equipment, materials, or similar accommodations. Holding or having applied for a federal employer identification number. Compensation paid to a business rather than to an individual. One or more bank accounts in the name of the business entity. The ability to work for other entities at the worker's own election, without completing an employment application or process. And compensation on a competitive-bid basis or on completion of a task or set of tasks defined by a contractual agreement. At least four must be met.
The analysis moves to the seven-condition fallback in Fla. Stat. 440.02(18)(d)1.b. That route asks whether the worker performs for a specific amount of money and controls the means of performance, incurs the principal expenses, is responsible for satisfactory completion, is paid per job or by commission, may realize a profit or suffer a loss, has continuing business liabilities or obligations, and depends for success on the relationship of receipts to expenditures. It is a separate inquiry rather than a partial credit version of the six criteria.
The worker does, for workers' compensation purposes. The statute provides that an individual claiming to be an independent contractor has the burden of proving that he or she is an independent contractor for purposes of ch. 440. That is the opposite of the arrangement in many states, where the hiring business must justify the classification, and it is a reason to record the underlying facts in the agreement while both sides still agree on them.
Not for workers' compensation purposes on the strength of the contract. Fla. Stat. 440.02(18)(c)3. includes within employee an independent contractor working or performing services in the construction industry, and (c)4. does the same for sole proprietors, partners, and partnerships engaged in construction. The six-criterion checklist does not apply to that work. The route to non-coverage is a current exemption filed under Fla. Stat. 440.05, so a hiring business should ask for proof of coverage or of a filed exemption before the work begins.
Fla. Stat. 440.02(18). A good deal of secondary material still cites 440.02(15), which was the number before the definitions were renumbered. Subsection (15) now defines Disability, so a citation to it is a sign that the source is quoting superseded text. When checking a form or an article against the statute, read the current (18) rather than trusting the older cite.
No. Reemployment assistance coverage under Fla. Stat. 443.1216(1)(a)2. reaches an individual who, under the usual common-law rules applicable in determining the employer-employee relationship, is an employee. There is no ABC test and no statutory presumption of employment in ch. 443, and the workers' compensation criteria in 440.02(18) do not carry over. The Florida Supreme Court's decision in Cantor v. Cochran, 184 So. 2d 173 (Fla. 1966), supplies the agency factor list courts use for that inquiry.
No. Fla. Const. art. X, sec. 24(b) provides that employer, employee, and wage carry the meanings established under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and its implementing regulations, and Fla. Stat. 448.110(3) limits the state minimum wage to individuals entitled to receive the federal minimum wage. So a Florida minimum wage claim is resolved under the federal standard, and the workers' compensation criteria do nothing for it.
Several exclusions from workers' compensation coverage are conditioned on one. Musical and theatrical performers, bands, orchestras, and disk jockeys are outside employee status only if a written contract evidencing an independent contractor relationship is entered into before the entertainment begins. A motor vehicle owner-operator needs a written contract with a motor carrier that assigns the responsibility of an employer for performance and identifies the required equipment. A real estate licensee must agree in writing to perform for remuneration solely by way of commission.
It can. Criterion (VI) of the six treats competitive-bid or per-task compensation as pointing toward contractor status unless the contractual agreement expressly states that an employment relationship exists. A recital carried over from an employment form, or a stray reference to employment, can cancel a criterion the engagement otherwise meets. Reviewing the document for language of that kind is worthwhile, and attorney review is an option where the engagement is significant.