Drafting General Terms and Conditions for Self-Employed Professionals

General terms and conditions for freelancers are the standard agreements that a self-employed professional uses for assignments for clients. They regulate topics that recur across multiple assignments, such as payment, additional work, liability, cancellation, complaints, confidentiality, and intellectual property.

General terms and conditions are not the same as a quotation or contract for services. The quotation or order confirmation describes the specific work, price, and schedule. The general terms and conditions supplement that contract with standard rules that apply more frequently.

MKB Juristen drafts general terms and conditions for self-employed professionals that align with your services, client type, and way of working. We ensure that the terms and conditions are practically usable for quotations, order confirmations, and new assignments.

General terms and conditions are important as soon as you regularly carry out assignments for clients. This applies not only to large projects, but also to smaller projects, advice, design, coaching, IT, photography, marketing, training, or online services.

Without general terms and conditions, you rely primarily on the law and on separate agreements in emails or quotations. This can cause problems regarding late payment, disputes over additional work, liability, cancellation, complaints, or the use of the work you have created.

The content depends on your services. In many cases, we assess or arrange, among other things:

• applicability of the terms and conditions and rejection of customer terms and conditions;
• quotations, validity, agreement and conclusion of the assignment;
• description of activities and limits of the assignment;
• prices, VAT, invoicing, payment terms and collection;
• advances, installment payments and suspension in case of non-payment;
• additional work, rush work, extra correction rounds or changes;
• cancellation, rescheduling and no-show;
• delivery, acceptance, feedback and complaints;
• liability and limitation of consequential damages;
• intellectual property, usage rights and source files;
• confidentiality and confidential information;
• force majeure, use of third parties and dependencies on tools or platforms;
• termination, applicable law and disputes.

General terms and conditions do not apply automatically. You must declare them applicable before or at the time of concluding the agreement and give the customer a reasonable opportunity to read them. In practice, this means sending the terms and conditions with your quotation, attaching them as an appendix to the order confirmation, or using a clear download link.

Merely referring to them on the invoice is usually too late. Filing with the Chamber of Commerce is also not sufficient in itself. The client must know that your terms and conditions apply when entering into the agreement.

Do you work exclusively for business clients? Then you have more contractual freedom than if you also work for consumers. With business clients, agreements regarding liability, payment, complaints, and suspension can often be formulated more broadly.

Do you also work for consumers, for example as a coach, trainer, photographer, designer, online course provider, or service provider? If so, you must take consumer protection into account. Provisions regarding cancellation, withdrawal, complaints, payment, and liability must then be formulated with extra care.

For self-employed professionals, payment agreements are often one of the most important parts of general terms and conditions. You can regulate when invoicing takes place, which payment term applies, when an advance payment is required, and what happens in the event of late payment.

Additional work must also be clearly regulated. Extra requests, rush work, additional correction rounds, or changed client wishes should not automatically be included in the original price. Furthermore, for training, coaching, photography, or on-location appointments, a clear cancellation and rescheduling policy is important.

As a self-employed professional, you can be held personally and professionally liable for errors or damage. Therefore, a carefully considered liability arrangement is important. This can, for example, align with the invoice amount, the fee for the assignment, or the coverage of professional or business liability insurance.

A limitation of liability must be reasonable and appropriate. For consumers or specific professional services, not everything can simply be excluded. We therefore tailor the provision to your services, risks, and insurance.

Many self-employed professionals create work that may be subject to intellectual property rights, such as texts, designs, photos, videos, software, formats, reports, or training materials. Without clear agreements, disputes can arise regarding who is permitted to use, modify, or resell the work.

General terms and conditions can regulate whether rights remain with the self-employed professional, which usage rights the client receives, when rights transfer, whether source files are delivered, and whether work may be displayed in a portfolio. This is particularly important for creative freelancers, developers, marketers, photographers, trainers, and consultants.

A free example or template can help you see which topics are important, but is rarely immediately suitable for your own business. Terms and conditions must align with your services, customer type, rates, risks, insurance, and way of working.

Furthermore, it is not advisable to copy terms and conditions from another entrepreneur. That text may not suit your situation and may be protected by copyright. Therefore, a template must always be adapted and legally reviewed if you wish to rely on it.

Do you already have general terms and conditions? If so, we can check whether they are still suitable for your services and clients. We examine, among other things, applicability, payment, additional work, cancellation, liability, intellectual property, complaints, confidentiality, consumer regulations, and the relationship to quotations or order confirmations.

We also assess whether you use the terms and conditions correctly. Well-written text is of little use if the terms and conditions are only sent after acceptance or are not included in your quotation process.

After a brief intake, we discuss your freelance practice, services, client type, quotation process, and key risks. We then draft custom general terms and conditions for freelancers or review your existing terms.

You will receive terms and conditions that align with your way of working, with attention to payment, additional work, cancellation, liability, intellectual property, complaints, confidentiality, and correct use in quotations and order confirmations.