Wyoming Independent Contractor Agreement Template

An individual who performs service for wages is an employee unless it is shown that the individual is free from control or direction over the details of the performance of services by contract and by fact, represents his services to the public as a self-employed individual or an independent contractor, and may substitute another individual to perform his services. Subdivisions (ii), (iii), and (iv) were repealed by session laws of 1991 and 1995, which is why the usual outside the usual course and independently established trade prongs are absent.

Independent contractor means an individual who performs services for another individual or entity and is free from control or direction over the details of the performance of services by contract and by fact, represents his services to the public as a self-employed individual or an independent contractor, and may substitute another person to perform his services. Subparagraph (B) was repealed in 1998. The Wyoming Department of Workforce Services publishes a single three condition test covering both unemployment insurance and workers' compensation.

In Circle C Resources v. Kobielusz, 2014 WY 35, the Wyoming Supreme Court held that the substitution element requires the worker to have the ability to select his or her substitute, following Rustler Lodge v. Industrial Commission. A contract under which the hiring party designates or arranges backup or replacement coverage defeats the element. Draft the substitution right so that the contractor selects the substitute and bears responsibility for that person's work.

Kobielusz holds that Wyo. Stat. 27-14-102(a)(xxiii) establishes a three part test, each element of which must be satisfied in order for an individual to qualify as an independent contractor. A single failed element ends the inquiry regardless of the strength of the remaining ones, so the analysis should be run element by element rather than as an overall impression of independence.

Kobielusz holds that nothing in the statute precludes consideration of common law factors within the control element, expressly naming the method of payment, the right to terminate the relationship without liability, and the furnishing of tools and equipment. Because the element must be satisfied by contract and by fact, a clause that reserves broad direction over the details of performance can defeat it even where the hiring party never exercises that authority.

Effective July 1, 2026, contributions to a portable benefit account for an independent contractor may not be used as a factor in determining that person's classification. This removes a disincentive that previously discouraged hiring parties from offering benefit contributions to contractors, and it means such contributions can be documented in the agreement without weakening the contractor position.

Where contributions to a portable benefit account are funded by withholding from the contractor's compensation, the withholding must be expressly agreed to by the independent contractor in writing, and the written agreement for withholding funds or contributing employer funds must be clear, unambiguous, and prominently displayed in a work contract or separate agreement. Place the term in its own headed section rather than inside general boilerplate.

A leased owner-operator is outside the workers' compensation definition of employee only where the service is performed pursuant to a contract providing that the owner-operator shall not be treated as an employee for purposes of the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, the Social Security Act, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, and income tax withholding at source. The exclusion fails without that contract language, so it must be drafted in rather than assumed.

Neither a franchisee nor a franchisee's employee is deemed to be an employee of the franchisor for any purpose under the title unless otherwise agreed to in writing by the franchisor and the franchisee. The default therefore protects the franchisor, and a written assumption of the employer role is what reverses it, which makes franchise documentation worth reviewing alongside the contractor agreements themselves.

The minimum wage act defines employ as to suffer or to permit to work and employee as any individual employed by an employer, subject to eight enumerated exclusions, but neither it nor the enforcing division sets an employee or contractor test, and the Department of Workforce Services three condition test is framed as applying to unemployment insurance and workers' compensation. The state minimum wage remains $5.15 an hour, so most wage exposure runs through the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and its economic realities analysis.