Freelance Statistics 2026: 64M in the US, $1.5T Earned
The freelance economy in 2026 is large, professionalized, and increasingly AI-driven. Around 64 million Americans freelanced in 2023, and skilled US independents alone generated $1.5 trillion in earnings in 2024. More than 28 million people work through digital labour platforms in the EU, and demand for AI-related freelance skills grew 109% year over year. This report compiles 10 sourced data points from Upwork, MBO Partners, the World Bank, the European Parliament, and IPSE to give a citation-ready picture of where freelancing actually stands. Whether you freelance across borders or hire independent talent, these numbers are the evidence base for the decisions ahead.
Freelancing stopped being a side story years ago. It is now a structural feature of the global labor market, with tens of millions of full-time independents, trillions of dollars in annual earnings, and new regulation reshaping how platforms classify the people who work for them.
This post covers US freelancer counts and earnings, the global gig workforce, the EU platform-work picture, AI's effect on freelance demand, and what independent workers actually earn. Every number links to its source. Where a headline-friendly figure diverges from the careful one, both are reported.
1. 64 million Americans freelanced in 2023, 38% of the workforce
According to Upwork's Freelance Forward study, 64 million Americans performed freelance work in 2023, equal to 38% of the entire US workforce. That was an all-time high at the time and an increase of 4 million people from 2022.
The figure counts anyone who did freelance work in the prior 12 months, from full-time independents to occasional side-hustlers. The study was conducted by Edelman Data & Intelligence and surveyed 3,000 US working adults (1,142 freelancers and 1,858 non-freelancers) between late October and early November 2023, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7%.
The headline number captures breadth, not just intensity. Most of these 64 million are not full-time freelancers; the category blends people who freelance as their primary income with those who do occasional project work alongside a job.
For anyone working independently across multiple countries, this scale matters: freelancing is now mainstream enough that visa, tax, and compliance systems are starting to reckon with it.
Source: Upwork - Freelance Forward 2023 (2023)
2. Skilled US independents generated $1.5 trillion in earnings in 2024
Upwork's Future Workforce Index, released in April 2025, found that more than one in four (28%) US skilled knowledge workers now freelance or work independently, generating a collective $1.5 trillion in earnings in 2024. That represents more than 20 million people.
This is a narrower, higher-value slice than the 64 million headcount. It focuses on skilled knowledge workers - roles in management, professional, and related occupations - rather than the full freelance population. The $1.5 trillion figure was extrapolated using Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational data.
The survey covered 3,000 US-based skilled knowledge workers between December 2024 and February 2025, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8% at 95% confidence. An additional 502 C-level executives at publicly traded companies were surveyed about hiring trends.
For context, Upwork's earlier Freelance Forward work pegged the broader freelance contribution at $1.27 trillion in 2023. The trend line is clearly upward, and the value is concentrating in skilled, knowledge-based work.
Source: Upwork - Future Workforce Index (2025)
3. 72.7 million Americans worked independently in 2024
MBO Partners, which has tracked independent work for 14 years, found 72.7 million Americans worked independently in 2024, up slightly from 72.1 million in 2023. After several years of rapid growth, the increase was essentially flat.
The composition is the interesting part. Full-Time Independents grew 6.5% to 27.7 million, while Part-Time Independents fell 10% to 8.5 million and Occasional Independents dipped to 36.5 million. In other words, the population stabilized in size but tilted toward people doing independent work as their main job.
That 72.7 million represents roughly 43% of the US workforce by MBO's definition, which is broader than Upwork's freelance framing and includes consultants, contractors, and gig workers. The 2024 total compares with just 38.2 million independents in 2020, underscoring how much the category expanded post-pandemic before leveling off.
The shift from occasional to full-time independence signals maturation: freelancing is increasingly a career, not a stopgap.
Source: MBO Partners - 2024 State of Independence in America Report (2024)
4. Up to 12% of the global labor market does online gig work
The World Bank's 2023 report Working Without Borders estimated that online gig work accounts for up to 12% of the global labor market, a far larger share than most realize. Survey-based estimates put the number of online gig workers somewhere between roughly 154 million and 435 million worldwide.
The wide range reflects how the workers are counted: the lower bound captures main gig workers, while the upper bound includes people who do gig work as a secondary or marginal activity. Either way, the scale is enormous.
The World Bank also mapped 545 online gig work platforms operating across 186 countries, with about three-quarters of them being regional or local rather than global. Demand is rising fastest in developing economies: job-posting growth hit 130% in Sub-Saharan Africa versus 14% in North America.
For globally mobile freelancers, this confirms that online work is genuinely borderless. Clients and talent increasingly sit in different countries, which is exactly where compliance complexity begins.
Source: World Bank - Working Without Borders: The Promise and Peril of Online Gig Work (2023)
5. 28.3 million people worked through EU digital platforms in 2022
According to figures cited by the European Parliament, more than 28.3 million people worked through digital labour platforms in the EU in 2022, a number expected to reach 43 million by 2025.
Digital labour platforms include ride-hailing, delivery, and online freelance marketplaces. The category has grown quickly, and the projected jump to 43 million within three years reflects how central platform work has become to the European economy.
This data underpinned the EU's decision to regulate the sector. The sheer number of people involved - and the questions about their employment status - pushed platform work onto the legislative agenda at the EU level rather than leaving it to individual member states.
For freelancers working with EU-based clients or platforms, this is the backdrop to a major regulatory shift covered in the next statistic.
Source: European Parliament - Gig economy: how the EU improves platform workers' rights (2024)
6. 93% of EU platform workers are self-employed, and about 5 million may be misclassified
Of the people working through EU digital labour platforms, 26.3 million (around 93%) are classified as self-employed, but roughly 5 million of those may be misclassified, according to figures behind the EU Platform Work Directive.
The European Parliament and Council adopted Directive (EU) 2024/2831 on 23 October 2024, and it entered into force on 1 December 2024. Its central mechanism is a rebuttable legal presumption of employment: when signs of control and direction appear, the relationship is presumed to be employment, and the platform must prove otherwise.
Member states have until 2 December 2026 to bring national law in line with the directive. The change could reclassify millions of nominally self-employed platform workers as employees, with knock-on effects for benefits, taxes, and social security.
Genuine independent freelancers are largely outside the directive's intended target, but the misclassification debate shows how blurry the line between freelancer and employee has become.
Source: European Parliament - Gig economy: how the EU improves platform workers' rights (2024)
7. Demand for AI freelance skills grew 109% year over year
Upwork's In-Demand Skills 2026 report, released in February 2026, found that skills explicitly referencing AI grew 109% year over year, more than doubling on the platform.
The growth is concentrated in specific categories. AI video generation and editing surged 329%, AI integration rose 178%, AI data annotation and labeling climbed 154%, and AI chatbot development grew 71%. The data covers freelancer earnings across six work categories from 1 January to 31 December 2025, with demand originating in the United States.
What stands out is that AI is amplifying demand for human freelancers rather than replacing them. Traditional high-volume skills - full-stack development, virtual assistance, data analytics, and graphic design - stayed consistently strong year over year. AI is being layered into existing workflows, not swapped in for the people running them.
For freelancers, the implication is direct: AI fluency is becoming a baseline competitive requirement, not a niche specialty.
Source: Upwork - In-Demand Skills 2026 (2026)
8. 54% of freelancers report advanced AI proficiency, versus 38% of full-time employees
Upwork's Future Workforce Index found that 54% of freelancers report advanced AI proficiency, compared with 38% of full-time employees. Freelancers are outpacing traditional employees in adopting AI tools.
The gap extends beyond AI. Seventy-one percent of freelancers report high proficiency in problem-solving versus 49% overall, with similar leads in critical thinking (67% versus 43%) and adaptability (53% versus 41%). On Upwork's own marketplace, gross services volume for AI-related work grew 60% year over year in 2024.
This pattern makes economic sense. Freelancers carry their own training costs and live or die by staying current, so they have a sharp incentive to adopt productivity-boosting tools faster than salaried staff. Nearly nine in ten skilled freelancers in the survey had learned a new skill in just the prior six months.
For clients, it reframes freelancers as an early-adopter talent pool, not a cheaper alternative to employees.
Source: Upwork - Future Workforce Index (2025)
9. Full-time freelancers report a median income of $85,000, above salaried peers
Upwork's Future Workforce Index found that people who earn exclusively through freelance work report a median income of $85,000, surpassing the $80,000 median for their full-time employee counterparts.
The result challenges the assumption that freelancing means trading income for flexibility. Among skilled knowledge workers, full-time independents in the survey out-earned comparable salaried workers at the median. That tracks with the demand data: as clients pay premiums for scarce, AI-fluent, project-ready talent, top freelancers can command rates that match or beat staff salaries.
The momentum runs in freelancers' favor too. The same survey found 36% of full-time employees were considering freelancing for better opportunities, while only 10% of freelancers wanted to return to traditional employment. Among skilled Gen Z workers, 53% were already freelancing.
The takeaway: for skilled professionals, freelancing is increasingly an upgrade in both autonomy and earnings, not a compromise.
Source: Upwork - Future Workforce Index (2025)
10. The UK has 2.07 million freelancers contributing to a £366 billion solo self-employed sector
According to IPSE's Self-Employed Landscape 2024, the UK had 2,071,000 freelancers in 2024, making up 49% of the country's solo self-employed population. That solo self-employed sector contributed £366 billion to the UK economy in 2024, up from £331 billion in 2023.
IPSE defines freelancers as the skilled, professional segment of solo self-employment - the SOC1-3 occupational groups covering managers, professionals, and associate professionals. They represent nearly half of all solo self-employed people in the UK and the higher-value end of that population.
The data also captured a rise in side hustles, which grew 20% year over year to 460,000, with 21% of them run by working mothers. The broader solo self-employed population held roughly steady at 4.2 million, while economic output rose about 11% on higher turnover.
The UK figures mirror the US pattern: a stable headcount, rising economic contribution, and value concentrating in skilled professional work.
Source: IPSE - The Self-Employed Landscape 2024 (2024)
What these numbers tell us
Taken together, the data shows a freelance economy that has stopped exploding and started maturing. Headcounts in the US (72.7 million independents) and UK (2.07 million freelancers) have plateaued, but earnings keep climbing - $1.5 trillion from skilled US independents alone, and an £366 billion solo self-employed sector in the UK. Growth is now about value per worker, not just more workers.
The second clear signal is professionalization. Full-time independence is growing while occasional freelancing shrinks, freelancers out-earn salaried peers at the median, and they lead on AI adoption. Freelancing is increasingly a deliberate career for skilled people, not a fallback.
The third theme is regulation catching up. With 28.3 million EU platform workers and millions potentially misclassified, governments are rewriting the rules. The EU Platform Work Directive is the leading edge of a wave that will reshape how independent work is classified, taxed, and protected through 2026 and beyond.
The freelance economy is no longer growing mainly by adding people - it is growing by adding value, skill, and regulatory weight, with skilled cross-border independents at the center of the shift.
How Nomad helps you navigate this landscape
For the millions of freelancers who now work across borders, the freedom in these numbers comes with a compliance cost. Working from multiple countries means juggling Schengen day limits, 183-day tax-residency thresholds, and visa rules that were not written with location-independent freelancers in mind. The misclassification and tax questions raised by the data above land directly on the individual freelancer.
Nomad (the visa compliance app for digital nomads) is built for exactly this. It tracks your days across every country automatically, calculates your Schengen 90/180 and 183-day tax-residency status in real time, and alerts you 7, 3, and 1 day before any overstay. Passport details stay on your device for privacy, and the in-app AI assistant answers visa questions in plain English.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many freelancers are there in the US in 2026?
Around 64 million Americans freelanced in 2023, equal to 38% of the workforce, according to Upwork's Freelance Forward study. Using a broader definition of independent work, MBO Partners counted 72.7 million Americans working independently in 2024 - roughly 43% of the US workforce. The numbers differ because they measure different things: Upwork counts anyone doing freelance work, while MBO includes consultants, contractors, and gig workers. Both show the freelance and independent workforce has plateaued at a high level after rapid post-pandemic growth.
How much money do freelancers contribute to the economy?
Skilled US independent workers generated a collective $1.5 trillion in earnings in 2024, per Upwork's Future Workforce Index, up from a broader $1.27 trillion freelance contribution in 2023. In the UK, the solo self-employed sector contributed £366 billion to the economy in 2024, with freelancers making up 49% of that population. Globally, the World Bank estimates online gig work accounts for up to 12% of the labor market. Freelance economic output is large and growing even as worker headcounts level off.
Is AI replacing freelancers or helping them?
The data points to AI amplifying freelance demand rather than replacing it. Upwork's In-Demand Skills 2026 report found that skills referencing AI grew 109% year over year, while traditional skills like development, virtual assistance, and graphic design stayed consistently strong. Freelancers also lead on AI adoption, with 54% reporting advanced AI proficiency versus 38% of full-time employees. AI is being layered into existing freelance workflows, and AI fluency is becoming a baseline competitive requirement rather than a threat.
Do freelancers earn more than employees?
Among skilled knowledge workers, full-time freelancers report a median income of $85,000, above the $80,000 median for comparable full-time employees, according to Upwork's Future Workforce Index. The premium reflects strong demand for scarce, AI-fluent, project-ready talent. Sentiment data supports the trend: 36% of full-time employees were considering freelancing for better opportunities, while only 10% of freelancers wanted to return to traditional employment. For skilled professionals, freelancing increasingly offers both autonomy and competitive earnings.
Where do these freelance statistics come from?
The figures in this post come primarily from Tier-1 and primary sources: Upwork's Freelance Forward, Future Workforce Index, and In-Demand Skills reports (with survey methodology by Edelman Data & Intelligence); MBO Partners' State of Independence in America report; the World Bank's Working Without Borders study; the European Parliament and the EU Platform Work Directive; and IPSE's Self-Employed Landscape. Each statistic links to its source. Where definitions differ between sources, both the figure and the source's scope are reported so the numbers are not confused.
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- Remote Work Statistics 2026
- Cross-Border Remote Worker Statistics 2026
- How Remote Workers Pay Taxes Across Borders
- Can You Legally Work Remotely on a Tourist Visa?
About Nomad
Nomad is the visa compliance app for digital nomads. Built by nomads for nomads, it tracks your days across every country automatically, alerts you before overstays, and keeps passport details on your device for privacy. The in-app AI assistant answers visa questions in plain English. Available on iOS.
Important: This content is informational and does not constitute legal, tax, or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax regulations, and entry requirements change frequently and vary by individual circumstances. Always verify current requirements with official government sources or a qualified professional before making travel decisions. Nomad tracks your days and surfaces compliance information, but final responsibility for compliance rests with the traveler.