More States Are Passing Portable Benefits Laws for Freelancers: What Voluntary Actually Means

A freelancer who trades employee benefits for the freedom to set their own schedule has never had an easy way to get retirement or health contributions from the clients they work with. A wave of state laws passed since 2023 is trying to fix that, without touching the independent-contractor status that makes freelancing what it is.

What a portable benefits law actually does

Utah passed the first voluntary portable benefits law in 2023, letting a business contribute to an independent contractor’s benefit account, covering things like retirement, health, disability, or life insurance, without that contribution being treated as evidence the worker should be reclassified as an employee. Alabama and Tennessee followed with similar laws in April 2025. West Virginia became the fourth state in July 2026, when Governor Patrick Morrisey signed House Bill 4009, the Voluntary Portable Benefits Plan Act.

Four states have now enacted a portable benefits law since Utah’s first one in 2023. Source: state legislative records; Fisher Phillips, Phelps.

Several more states are working through the same idea. Wyoming, Georgia, Idaho, and Kansas have all advanced similar voluntary portable-benefits bills through their legislatures in 2026, with Georgia’s version moving in February. The account travels with the worker, not with any single client relationship, which is the point: a contractor working for five different businesses in a year can accumulate contributions from any of them into the same account.

The word “voluntary” is doing the real work

Nothing in any of these laws requires a business to contribute to a contractor’s benefits account. Each one simply removes the legal risk that made businesses hesitant to offer benefits-like contributions in the first place, by confirming that doing so does not, on its own, turn a contractor into an employee. Whether any given client actually chooses to contribute is entirely up to that client.

That distinction matters for expectations. Passing one of these laws does not mean freelancers in that state suddenly gain access to retirement or health contributions. It means a client who wants to offer them now has a clear legal path to do it, where none reliably existed before.

What to actually ask a client about this

If you freelance in a state with one of these laws on the books, and a client mentions contributing to a portable benefits account, ask exactly what it covers, how contributions are calculated, and whether the account is tied to a specific platform or provider. The mechanics vary from state to state and program to program, and a contribution to an account you can’t easily move or access is worth less than one you fully control.

None of this changes how you invoice for the work itself. A BillyPaid invoice for each engagement keeps your own income record straight regardless of whether a given client happens to offer portable benefits on top of your rate.