Free freelance contract — what to include, and where the free templates let you down
A free contract template is better than no contract. But most of them are US-shaped and quietly unenforceable in the EU. Here's the clause list that matters, and the three places templates go wrong.
Free freelance contract — what to include, and where the free templates let you down
Searching for a free freelance contract gets you thousands of results. Most are fine as a starting point and wrong in the same three ways — because they were written for the US market and copied around ever since.
Here's what a workable EU freelance contract contains, and where to be careful.
The clause list
Nine clauses cover the overwhelming majority of freelance engagements:
- The parties — full legal names, addresses, and company/VAT numbers. Not
"Jane" and "the Client".
- Scope of work — what you will deliver, specifically enough that both
sides would describe it the same way six months later.
- Fee and payment terms — amount, currency, invoicing rhythm, and the
number of days to pay.
- Late payment — statutory interest plus the recovery fee. In the EU you're
entitled to both; templates usually omit them.
- Term and termination — how it starts, how it ends, notice period on both
sides.
- Intellectual property — who owns what, and when ownership transfers.
- Confidentiality — usually mutual, usually surviving the contract.
- Liability cap — normally the fees paid under the contract. Uncapped
liability on a €2,000 project is a bad trade.
- Governing law and jurisdiction — which country's law applies and which
courts decide.
If a free template is missing 4, 8 or 9, it isn't finished.
Where free templates go wrong
1. "The client owns all IP" — which doesn't work everywhere
This clause appears in almost every template. In France and Germany it's partially void as written.
Under French law, moral rights (droit moral) can't be assigned at all, and a transfer of economic rights has to list the rights, the scope, the territory and the duration explicitly. Under German copyright law (UrhG §29) copyright itself cannot be transferred — you grant exclusive rights of use (ausschließliche Nutzungsrechte) instead.
A blanket "all IP transfers to the client" sentence is unenforceable in both. It usually still gets signed, and then nobody knows who owns the work.
2. Payment terms longer than the law allows
EU rules cap B2B payment terms. Many templates carry 60 or 90 days by default, which exceeds the statutory maximum in several countries — 30 days is the default in the Netherlands and Germany, 60 in France and Belgium, and going past it needs specific justification.
A term that's unenforceable doesn't help you: you end up arguing about the clause instead of collecting the money.
3. No language ruling out an employment relationship
If you work mainly for one client, on their schedule, with their equipment, a tax authority can reclassify the relationship as employment. That's expensive for both sides.
The Netherlands (Wet DBA) and Germany (Scheinselbständigkeit) both test for this. A short clause confirming independence — you control your hours, you can use substitutes, you carry your own insurance — costs nothing and is missing from most templates.
Is a free contract legally binding?
Yes. A contract doesn't need a lawyer's letterhead, a notary, or a fee. Offer, acceptance and mutual obligation are enough, and in most cases it doesn't even need to be written down — though "verbal contract" is a synonym for "we will disagree later".
Two practical caveats:
- Sign it. An unsigned draft is evidence of a negotiation, not an agreement.
Both parties signing, with timestamps, is what turns it into a contract you can rely on. See how to sign a PDF online for free.
- Match it to the country. The clause list above is generic; the statutory
detail inside clauses 4, 6 and 9 changes per jurisdiction.
When to pay a lawyer
Get a lawyer for: equity or revenue-share arrangements, anything with personal data processing at scale, regulated sectors, contracts worth more than a few months of income, and any agreement you'll reuse hundreds of times.
For a normal project engagement, a solid template plus jurisdiction-correct clauses is what most freelancers actually use.
Where Eurobillr fits
Eurobillr drafts the contract for you rather than handing you a blank template: pick the type and the country, describe the work, and it produces a contract with the right statutory citations for that jurisdiction — including the IP handling above, which it will not get wrong for France or Germany.
You choose what each side is called — service provider and client, contractor and company, landlord and tenant, disclosing and receiving party, or your own wording — and the contract uses those names throughout. It's available in English, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Arabic, and you can send it for e-signature from the same screen.
It is a drafting assistant, not legal advice. For anything unusual, have a lawyer read it.
