Self-Employed Invoicing 2026: 72% Have Unpaid Invoices [Data]

Key Takeaways

72% of self-employed 1099 workers who invoice their own clients say they have at least one unpaid invoice outstanding, and 59% are owed $50,000 or more for completed work (Independent Economy Council, 416 US 1099 workers).
72.9 million Americans worked independently in 2025, and the number of full-time independents has roughly doubled since 2020, from 13.6 million to 27.6 million (MBO Partners, 2025 State of Independence in America).
Only 40% of self-employed workers use dedicated invoicing software; 38% still build every invoice from scratch in Word or Google Docs, and 21% use a downloaded template (Independent Economy Council).
29% of all freelance invoices are paid one or more days late, based on an analysis of more than 100,000 freelancers over three years (Bonsai).
85% of freelancers say clients pay them late at least some of the time, and 21% say it happens more than half the time (Remote, State of Freelance Work 2025).
63% of freelancers wait more than 30 days to get paid, per an industry compilation of freelance payment data (Jobbers.io).

72% of self-employed 1099 workers who invoice their own clients directly say they have at least one outstanding, unpaid invoice, and 59% are owed $50,000 or more for work they have already delivered, according to the Independent Economy Council’s survey of 416 US 1099 professionals. That is the reality behind the self-employment boom: more Americans than ever are working for themselves, but a huge share of them are still chasing money for work they finished months ago. This data study covers how many self-employed workers there actually are, how they build and send invoices, and how often those invoices get paid on time in 2026.

How many self-employed and independent workers are there in the US?

72.9 million Americans worked independently in 2025, up from 72.7 million in 2024, according to MBO Partners’ 2025 State of Independence in America report, the 15th consecutive year the firm has run this study. The growth is concentrated at the serious end of the spectrum: the number of full-time independent workers, people who treat self-employment as their primary source of income rather than a side project, has roughly doubled since 2020, climbing from 13.6 million to 27.6 million in 2025. A record 5.6 million independent professionals now earn more than $100,000 a year, up 19% from 4.7 million in 2024 and up 86% from 3 million in 2020.

Figure 1: Full-time independent workers in the US, 2020 versus 2025. Source: MBO Partners, 2025 State of Independence in America Report.

Separately, Upwork’s Future Workforce Index 2026, based on a survey of 2,400 US-based skilled workers fielded in March and April 2026, found that 39% of US workers did some freelance work over the past year, up about four percentage points from the year before. Upwork estimates freelancers collectively generated $1.5 trillion in earnings, a scale that makes how these workers actually get paid a real economic question, not just a personal-finance one. Every one of those independent workers eventually has to turn work into an invoice, and that is where the story gets less encouraging.

How do self-employed workers actually create their invoices?

Most self-employed workers who invoice their own clients are not using dedicated software to do it. Just 40% of the 1099 workers surveyed by the Independent Economy Council use dedicated invoicing software, while 38% still build every invoice from scratch in Word or Google Docs, and 21% rely on a downloaded fillable template. That means roughly three in five self-employed invoicers are assembling each invoice by hand, a process that leaves more room for missing details, inconsistent numbering, and invoices that simply look less professional to a client deciding what to pay first.

Figure 2: How self-employed 1099 workers who invoice clients directly create their invoices. Source: Independent Economy Council, Getting Paid in the Independent Economy (416 US 1099 workers, October 2021).

The mix varies a lot by how many invoices someone sends. A self-employed worker with one or two ongoing clients might send only a handful of invoices a month and get away with a manual process; someone running a full client roster sends far more, and manual invoicing starts costing real hours instead of minutes. Either way, the format an invoice arrives in shapes how quickly it gets paid, which is the next question.

How many self-employed workers are sitting on unpaid invoices right now?

72% of self-employed 1099 workers who invoice their own clients have at least one outstanding invoice that has gone unpaid, according to the Independent Economy Council’s survey. The amounts involved are not small: 59% of respondents say they are owed $50,000 or more for work they have already completed. For someone running a one-person business, that is not a rounding error on the books, it is often the difference between covering this month’s expenses and falling behind on them.

Figure 3: Share of self-employed 1099 workers carrying at least one unpaid invoice. Source: Independent Economy Council, Getting Paid in the Independent Economy (416 US 1099 workers, October 2021).

That figure predates 2026, but the more recent survey data below shows the underlying pattern, clients paying self-employed workers late, has not gone away in the years since. See BillyPaid’s Late Payment Statistics 2026 for how the picture looks across small businesses generally, not just the self-employed.

How often do freelancers actually get paid late?

29% of all freelance invoices are paid one or more days late, based on Bonsai’s invoice-level analysis of more than 100,000 freelancers tracked over a three-year period. Zoomed out to the freelancer level rather than the invoice level, the picture looks worse: 85% of freelancers say they experience late payment at least some of the time, and 21% say it happens more than half the time, according to Remote’s State of Freelance Work 2025 report. That gap between the two numbers makes sense once you consider that late payment is not evenly distributed. Some clients pay reliably every time; others are chronically late, and freelancers working with those clients absorb most of the pain.

Figure 4: Share of freelancers who say client payments are late at least sometimes versus more than half the time. Source: Remote, The State of Freelance Work 2025.

Bonsai’s data also splits late payment by gender: female freelancers see late payment on 31% of their invoices, compared with 24% for male freelancers, a seven-point gap the report does not fully explain but flags as consistent across its three-year dataset. Whatever the cause, the effect compounds for anyone already invoicing manually and chasing payment without a system for it.

Does invoice size or payment method change the odds of getting paid late?

Yes, and the size of the effect is bigger than most self-employed workers probably assume. Invoices over $20,000 are three times more likely to be paid late than smaller invoices, according to Bonsai’s analysis, likely because larger invoices trigger more internal approval steps on the client’s side. Payment method matters just as much: invoices set up to be paid in cryptocurrency see roughly three times more late payments than those paid by ordinary bank transfer, per the same dataset.

Figure 5: How much more likely an invoice is to be paid late, by invoice size and payment method, versus the baseline. Source: Bonsai, analysis of 100,000+ freelancer invoices over three years.

The practical read is that the two levers a self-employed worker actually controls, how an invoice is priced and how it can be paid, both move the odds of getting paid on time. Breaking a large project into smaller milestone invoices and offering a fast, familiar payment method both work in the same direction: away from the client’s slowest possible payment path.

How long do self-employed workers actually wait to get paid?

63% of freelancers wait more than 30 days to get paid, according to an industry compilation of freelance payment data from Jobbers.io. That figure lines up with what happens once a payment does go late: Bonsai’s analysis found that 90% of late invoices are eventually paid within a month of their due date, meaning the wait is long but the money does mostly arrive, just far later than standard 30-day terms assume.

Figure 6: Share of freelancers who wait more than 30 days to get paid. Source: Jobbers.io, Global Freelance Client Payment Delay Report (2026).

For someone running payroll or paying quarterly estimated taxes out of the same account they invoice into, a 30-plus-day wait is not an abstraction, it is a cash flow gap that has to be planned around every single month.

Self-Employed Invoicing at a Glance

Metric	Figure	Source
Self-employed workers with an unpaid invoice	72%	Independent Economy Council
Use dedicated invoicing software	40%	Independent Economy Council
Freelance invoices paid one or more days late	29%	Bonsai
Wait more than 30 days to get paid	63%	Jobbers.io

Table 1: Key self-employed invoicing figures at a glance. Sources as cited above.

The Bottom Line

The self-employed workforce keeps growing, 72.9 million Americans worked independently in 2025, but the tools most of them use to get paid have not kept pace. Roughly three in five self-employed invoicers are still building invoices by hand in a word processor or a downloaded template, and 72% are carrying at least one invoice that has gone unpaid. The data on what actually speeds up payment is consistent: smaller, itemized invoices sent through a system that tracks due dates and supports fast, familiar payment methods get paid faster than large invoices manually assembled and emailed as a static PDF. A BillyPaid invoice is generated with due dates, payment tracking, and a payable link built in from the start, so getting paid does not depend on the client remembering an invoice sitting in their inbox.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of self-employed workers have unpaid invoices? 72% of self-employed 1099 workers who directly invoice their own clients say they have at least one outstanding, unpaid invoice, and 59% are owed $50,000 or more for work they have already completed, according to the Independent Economy Council’s survey of 416 US 1099 workers.

How many self-employed and independent workers are there in the US? 72.9 million Americans worked independently in 2025, up from 72.7 million in 2024, according to MBO Partners’ 2025 State of Independence in America report. The number of full-time independent workers has roughly doubled since 2020, from 13.6 million to 27.6 million in 2025.

Do most self-employed workers use invoicing software? No, not most. 40% of self-employed 1099 workers who invoice clients directly use dedicated invoicing software, while 38% still build every invoice from scratch in Word or Google Docs and 21% use a downloaded fillable template, per the Independent Economy Council.

How often do freelancers get paid late? 29% of all freelance invoices are paid one or more days late, based on Bonsai’s invoice-level analysis of more than 100,000 freelancers over a three-year period. More broadly, 85% of freelancers say they experience late payment at least some of the time, and 21% say it happens more than half the time, according to Remote’s State of Freelance Work 2025 report.