Any Hire

Upwork describes Any Hire as the way to "legally hire, onboard, and pay talent found outside of Upwork", across states, regions and countries where the client has no business entity. It is managed from one dashboard: onboarding, contracts, reviewing work, payments and reports.

Who it is for. Talent the client found independently. The person may also have an Upwork profile; what matters is where the client found them. A client who found someone on the Upwork marketplace must go through the conversion process and pay the conversion fee before moving the relationship to Any Hire. Paying a marketplace find through Any Hire without converting violates the Terms of Service, and Upwork tells freelancers not to accept such a contract.

What it does. Optional classification services decide whether the person should be an independent contractor or an employee under the laws that apply. A client who accepts Upwork's classification recommendation gets up to $50,000 in indemnification against misclassification liability to the extent the recommendation caused it. For an employee, Upwork arranges an Employer of Record that handles paychecks, taxes, benefits and other legal duties of employment. Contract types include a single payment, milestones, hourly work and a fixed rate paid weekly. Clients with BYO or Upwork Payroll contracts may be able to move them to Any Hire.

What it means for freelancers. Any Hire is not a job feed and is not reached through proposals. It is how an outside client pays you through Upwork, closer to a direct contract than to marketplace work, and the conversion rule is what keeps it from becoming a way around fee avoidance rules.