Contracting a freelancer in China without an entity

No, not for defined project work. The line between a project and a job is set by Chinese labor rules, and Contractor or employee in China: the three tests goes through them. This is chapter 3 of the handbook on hiring a freelancer in China.

The clause map

Every article number was read in an official text or official copy on October 18, 2026. This is a map, not a template: the services agreement checklist turns it into a list you can work through.

Here is the map applied to one job: packaging for a new product, designed by a freelancer in Shanghai. The contract type is a contract for work. The deliverables are three concepts, then one final design as print-ready files, each accepted in writing within five working days. There are three milestones, one per stage, each paid on acceptance. The IP clause assigns the economic rights in the final design and in every concept you pay for. The data clause covers the freelancer’s own payment details and nothing else, because the job involves no one else’s data. Governing law and disputes are chosen together, with a forum whose decision could be enforced where the freelancer lives. (The job is our example, not a template.)

Two rows tend to get less attention than they deserve. The first is language. If the contract is in English and Chinese and says both are equally authentic, the Civil Code presumes the words in each mean the same; where they differ, they are read in light of the contract’s other terms, its nature and purpose, and good faith (article 466). If you want the English to prevail, say so in both texts.

The second is independence. Calling the freelancer independent in the contract helps less than you might think. The facts decide. A person who follows your work rules, works under your management and does work that is part of your business can be in a labor relationship under the 2005 notice, whatever the paper says. Do you need an employee in China, or a freelancer? tests a role in a few questions.

Which contract type fits your job

You won’t find a “freelance agreement” in the Chinese Civil Code. What it has is a set of named contracts, each with default rules, and the type you pick decides which defaults fill the gaps in your text.

For most freelance jobs, the closest fit is a contract for work (承揽合同), in chapter 17 of the Civil Code’s contracts book. The freelancer makes something to your requirements and hands it over, and you pay for the result, whether that is a design, a factory visit or a translated manual. The article that defines it lists processing, making to order, testing and inspection among the work it covers.

Two of its defaults matter before you sign. The freelancer must keep your work confidential as you require, and may not keep copies or technical materials without your permission (article 785). And you can end the contract at any time before the work is finished, but you compensate the freelancer for the loss (article 787).

Software and engineering jobs may fit a different type. A technology development contract (技术开发合同), in the technology contracts chapter, covers research and development of a new technology, product or process, and it has to be in writing (article 851). Its patent default runs the other way from what many buyers expect: for an invention developed on commission, the right to apply for the patent belongs to the developer unless the contract says otherwise (article 859). Who owns the work you commission from a freelancer in China goes through these defaults.

The third type is entrustment (委托合同): the freelancer handles your affairs for you (article 919). It suits a narrow errand, like collecting documents from an office in Guangzhou. Don’t use it for anything that lets a freelancer sign contracts or pay suppliers in your name. Either side can also end it at any time (article 933). How to hire a freelance sourcing agent in China explains why signing and paying should stay with you. The category pages show the kinds of job each type usually covers.

The two clauses your home template gets wrong

Two rows of the map need more than a table cell.

Intellectual property

A template written for another country may assume that work you pay for is yours by default. China’s Copyright Law has no such default for a commissioned work. It gives the copyright to the person who made it unless the contract says otherwise.

Article 27 adds that a transfer of the economic rights needs a written contract. And the rights you can transfer are the economic ones listed in article 10: reproduction, distribution, adaptation, translation and the rest. The four personal rights at the top of that list (publication, attribution, modification and integrity) are not among them, so a clause that “assigns all rights, including moral rights” can’t do everything it says.

Patents work much the same way, with an extra step. For an invention made on commission, the right to apply belongs to the person who made it unless agreed otherwise (Patent Law article 8). A transfer needs a written contract and registration with the patent office, takes effect on registration, and a transfer from a Chinese individual to a foreign party goes through additional formalities (article 10). If a job could produce something patentable, the contract should say who applies, and you should take advice before the work starts.

Personal data

The freelancer’s own details are personal information: their name, contact details and the identity or bank details used to pay them. So is anything they collect for you, such as interview notes or a list of customers. Where that information goes from China to you abroad, the Personal Information Protection Law asks the sender to tell the person who the overseas recipient is, how to reach it, why and how the data is processed, which kinds of data are involved and how the person can exercise their rights, and to get that person’s separate consent (article 39).

The 2024 cross-border data rules (CAC Order No. 16, article 5) exempt some transfers from the security assessment, the standard contract and certification: those needed to conclude or perform a contract the person is party to, cross-border human resources management under lawful rules, and transfers by an ordinary processor of fewer than 100,000 people’s data in a year (sensitive data excluded). Those exemptions remove the filing, but the notice and the separate consent still apply. A home template that says nothing about data leaves both out. The fix is a short notice-and-consent clause, in both languages, that lists what goes abroad and why.

Governing law, disputes and what enforcement really takes

If you skipped ahead to this part, the short version is at the end of it.

Start with the law of the contract, which you can choose. Under article 41 of the law on foreign-related civil relations, the parties to a contract may choose the law that applies to it. If they don’t, the law of the habitual residence of the party whose performance best shows the contract’s character applies, or another law with the closest connection. For a freelancer doing the work in China, that may well be Chinese law. Either way, Chinese mandatory rules apply directly (article 4). The practical rule is to pick the law and the forum together, because the law you choose matters only if a court or tribunal applies it and its decision can be enforced.

Where a dispute would be heard is the harder question. A case in a Chinese court runs in Chinese, with any translation at the party’s expense, and a foreign company that needs a lawyer must use a PRC lawyer (Civil Procedure Law articles 273 and 274). A judgment from your own courts has to be recognized by a Chinese intermediate court first, under a treaty or on reciprocity (articles 298 and 299). It does happen: in Guiding Case No. 235, published by the Supreme People’s Court in February 2026, the Shanghai Maritime Court recognized English High Court and Court of Appeal judgments on de jure reciprocity, in a ruling of March 17, 2022.

Arbitration is the other route. Where a contract for foreign-related economic or trade work has an arbitration clause, the parties can’t take the dispute to a Chinese court instead (Civil Procedure Law article 288), unless the clause is invalid (Arbitration Law article 5). The Arbitration Law was revised in 2025, and the new text has applied since March 1, 2026, so a guide written before then may cite old article numbers. Under it, a valid arbitration agreement states the wish to arbitrate, the matters covered and the chosen institution (article 27), and the parties can agree the seat in writing (article 81). An award made in another New York Convention state can be recognized in China (article 304): China acceded to the Convention on January 22, 1987, with effect from April 22, 1987, and applies it to awards made in other contracting states and to disputes Chinese law treats as commercial. Between the mainland and Hong Kong, arbitral awards have been enforced under an arrangement signed in June 1999, and court judgments now have their own arrangement.

And then there’s the size of the job. For one worth a few thousand dollars, the cost of pursuing a claim in another country, in another language, can be more than the job. A better clause won’t change that. What limits the risk is paying one milestone at a time, so that what you have at stake at any moment is one milestone’s fee.

Signing from abroad

An electronic signature can carry the same weight as ink in China, if it meets the law’s conditions. The Civil Code treats data messages that show their content and can be retrieved, such as email, as written form (article 469), and the Electronic Signature Law gives a reliable electronic signature the same effect as a handwritten signature or seal (article 14). Reliable means the signing data belongs to the signer and is under their sole control, and any later change to the signature or the document can be detected (article 13). Keep the signed PDF, and the message thread where both of you agreed to it.

How the contracts run through ChinaTalentDesk

On ChinaTalentDesk you sign one contract, and local pay and tax are handled. Every contract assigns the intellectual property in the deliverables to you. Every contract also includes confidentiality terms, as How it works sets out.

Next in the handbook: once the contract is signed, chapter 4, how to pay a freelancer in China from abroad, covers paying in RMB.

The step before this one is choosing the person: chapter 2, how to vet a freelancer in China before you hire, which follows where to find freelancers in China.

Write the deliverables and acceptance criteria into the brief, and the contract follows from them. Start a brief.