A written agreement settles what the work is, what it costs, who owns it and how either side ends it. Six steps show what to put in writing.
Most problems with a remote assistant trace back to a question nobody wrote down: what counts as the work, how hours are billed, what the assistant can share, who owns the documents she produces and how either side ends the arrangement. A written agreement answers those questions before the work starts, in plain language, so they are not settled by guesswork three months in.
This guide is practical, not legal advice. Contract law varies by state, and the rules on contractor status come from the IRS and the Department of Labor, not from a template. Treat the steps below as the working draft you bring to an attorney or a CPA, and use the IRS guidance in step six before you sign.
A virtual assistant contract is a plain written agreement between your business and the person who will handle your inbox, calendar, research or bookkeeping support from a home office. It does not need legal language. It needs to answer the everyday questions above clearly enough that both sides can point to the page when a disagreement comes up.
If you are asking what should be included in an independent contractor agreement, the answer for an assistant is six things. Scope of work and expected hours. Rates, invoicing and payment terms. Confidentiality and data handling rules. Ownership of the work product. Notice and termination terms. A clear statement of the worker's status as a contractor or an employee. A virtual assistant agreement that covers those six points will hold up in everyday use, and your attorney can tighten the language for your state.
You can start from a virtual assistant contract template or a general independent contractor agreement template, and both are easy to find. The template is not the hard part. The hard part is filling each clause with the specifics of your business, because a vague clause protects nobody. Work through the six steps in order and you will know how to write an independent contractor agreement that reflects how the engagement will actually run.
List the recurring tasks by name: inbox triage, calendar management, travel booking, invoice entry, CRM updates, weekly reporting. Then list the kinds of projects you may add later, such as event planning or a research brief, and state that new work outside the list is agreed in writing before it starts. A scope clause written this way protects you from paying for work you never asked for and protects the assistant from scope creep.
State the expected hours as a range per week or per month, the time zone you work in and the hours during which you expect replies. Say how time is tracked, whether in a shared timesheet or a time tracking tool, and how often you will review it. If a task is urgent after hours, say how it is billed.
Tip: Attach the task list as an exhibit instead of burying it in the clause. You can update an exhibit when the role changes without rewriting the whole agreement.
Write the rate as a number with a unit: dollars per hour, a monthly retainer for a fixed block of hours or a flat fee per project. State what is billed in addition to the rate, such as software bought on your behalf, and what is never billed, such as the assistant's own equipment. If the retainer covers a block of hours, say whether unused hours roll over and how extra hours are billed.
Set the invoice cycle, the payment method and the number of days you have to pay, for example net 15 from the invoice date by ACH. Collect a Form W-9 before the first invoice, because the IRS asks you to keep it on file for four years, and for tax years beginning after 2025 you file a Form 1099-NEC by January 31 for a contractor you paid $2,000 or more. Your CPA can confirm the threshold and your state's rules.
An assistant with your inbox sees client names, pricing and contracts. The confidentiality clause defines that information as confidential, limits its use to the work you assigned, forbids sharing it outside the engagement and survives the end of the contract for a stated period. Name the categories so there is no argument later: customer data, financial records, credentials and unreleased plans.
Data rules are the practical side of the same clause. State that logins are shared through a password manager, that the assistant uses two-factor authentication where it is offered and that access is removed on the last day. Our guide on Securely sharing logins with an assistant walks through the vault setup. Add that files stay in your accounts, not on a personal drive, and that any security incident is reported to you the same day.
Tip: If you handle health, financial or legal records for clients, ask your attorney whether a separate data processing agreement is required in addition to the confidentiality clause.
Many owners assume that paying for a document means owning it. Under U.S. copyright law that assumption is often wrong for a contractor. The Copyright Office explains that a work is made for hire in two situations: when an employee creates it within the scope of employment, or when a commissioned work falls into one of nine specific categories and the parties agree in a signed writing that it is a work made for hire. A spreadsheet or a slide deck from a contractor usually does not fit either path on its own.
The fix is an assignment clause: the assistant assigns to your business all rights in the work created under the agreement, on creation, and agrees to sign any paper needed to confirm it. Pair it with a line that the assistant keeps her own templates and general know-how, so the clause is fair. Have your attorney confirm the wording, since assignment language differs by state.
A fair termination clause lets either side end the engagement with written notice, states the notice period and says what is paid during it. Many agreements use two weeks to 30 days. Add a shorter path for cause, such as a breach of confidentiality or non-payment, that takes effect immediately. Then describe the handoff: files returned, credentials revoked and a final invoice for hours worked.
For comparison, Assist does not ask you to sign a long-term contract. Its FAQ states that you give 30 days' notice to end the engagement, you are billed for those final 30 days and there are no termination fees or penalties. If you hire through an agency, read its published terms the same way you would read your own clause.
Watch out: Keep the notice period the same for both sides. One-sided terms are the first thing an assistant's own attorney will flag.
Calling someone a contractor in a contract does not make it so. The IRS weighs three categories of evidence: behavioral control, meaning whether you control what the worker does and how she does it, financial control, meaning whether you control the business side such as expenses and tools, and the type of relationship, including written contracts, benefits and whether the work is a key part of your business. No single factor decides the question. Read the IRS contractor or employee test and write down the facts you relied on.
Draft the clause to match reality: the assistant sets her own schedule within agreed hours, uses her own equipment, may work for other clients and handles her own taxes, and your business does not provide benefits. If the facts point the other way, talk to a CPA or an employment attorney before you sign. The Department of Labor calls misclassification a serious problem, and the IRS may hold a business liable for employment taxes when there is no reasonable basis for contractor treatment. If the status is unclear, Form SS-8 asks the IRS to decide, though that can take at least six months.
The most common independent contractor agreement mistakes are ordinary shortcuts owners take when they want the work to start on Monday. Each one takes ten minutes to fix in the draft and far longer after a dispute.
A virtual assistant contract remote work makes necessary has two more traps. The first is skipping the data clause because the assistant seems trustworthy, which leaves credentials in email threads and files on personal devices. The second is forgetting that your assistant may live in a different state, where contract and employment rules can differ from yours. Name the governing state and ask your attorney whether the assistant's state changes anything. If you are hiring for the first time, our post on Mistakes to avoid when hiring covers the selection side.
Through Assist: With Assist Virtual Partners you do not draft a contract with the assistant yourself. The terms are the ones published on our FAQ: a flat $40 an hour with no startup fees, no minimums, free interviews, a free rematch if the fit is wrong and 30 days' notice to end. You still define scope and share logins safely. Get started with Assist to interview candidates from the roster.
Whichever path you take, keep the signed copy, the W-9 and every invoice together, and update the task exhibit whenever the role changes. A contract that matches how the work is actually done is the one that protects you.
You sign the agency's terms rather than a contract with the individual assistant. Read those terms as carefully as you would your own draft: the rate, any minimums or setup fees, how billing works, how notice is given and what happens if the assistant is not the right fit. Assist publishes its terms on its FAQ, including the flat $40 hourly rate, no minimums and 30 days' notice to end.
Often, but the label in the contract does not decide it. The IRS looks at behavioral control, financial control and the type of relationship, and the Department of Labor applies its own test under the Fair Labor Standards Act. An assistant who sets her own schedule, uses her own equipment and serves other clients usually fits contractor status. If you control hours and methods closely, confirm the status with a CPA or an attorney.
No. In everyday use the two words mean the same written document, and the one that matters is the signed version. Some owners keep a separate independent contractor non disclosure agreement for confidentiality, though a confidentiality clause inside the main agreement is simpler to manage. Whatever you call it, make sure it covers scope, pay, confidentiality, ownership, notice and status.
