Contractor outside the US? What to have ready

Tellbrief · October 31, 2026

For education only. Not legal advice. Tellbrief is not a law firm.

A contractor in another country can build a lot of your business. A lawyer may want to know where they work, what they make for you and what you’ve both signed.

Records to have ready

• The contractor’s full name or business name, and the country where they live and work.
• Any agreement, statement of work or proposal, plus the emails that set the terms.
• Their invoices, and how you pay them: bank transfer, a payments service or a freelance platform.
• Any tax form they’ve given you.
• A list of what they make for you: code, designs, content or data.

Send them only if your lawyer asks. For the first call, it’s enough to know where each one is.

Write down how the work happens

Note their hours and who sets them, the tools and accounts they use, whether they work for other clients and how long you expect the work to last. Note whether you pay per project or per hour, and in which currency.

Tax paperwork

The IRS form for foreign individuals is Form W-8 BEN, the “Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting (Individuals)”. The IRS tells them:

“Submit Form W-8 BEN when requested by the withholding agent or payer whether or not you are claiming a reduced rate of, or exemption from, withholding.”¹IRS, About Form W-8 BEN

Ask your lawyer or accountant what you need to collect from your contractor, and keep a copy of anything they send.

Who owns what they make

List what the contractor has made for you, and what, if anything, your agreement says about who owns it. Your lawyer may ask which country’s law the agreement names. See who owns what your business built.

Accounts and access

List the systems the contractor can reach: code repositories, cloud accounts, customer data and shared drives. Note whether any customer or personal data is stored or viewed outside the US.

Questions a lawyer may ask you

Have a short answer ready for each. “I don’t know yet” is a fine answer.

• Where does the contractor live and work?
• Do they work for other clients, and who sets their hours?
• How are they paid, and through what?
• What have they made for you, and what did they sign?
• Can they see customer or personal data?
• How long will the work last?

A made-up example

We’re a U.S. startup with two founders. A developer in Portugal has built most of our app over the past year. We pay her monthly by bank transfer against her invoices, and she works about 35 hours a week, only on our project. We have her proposal but no signed contract. An investor has asked whether we own the code. What should we put in place?

Questions worth asking your lawyer

• What should our agreement with the contractor say?
• How do we make sure the company owns what they build?
• What tax forms do we need from them?
• Does working with them this way raise any issue where they live?

Tellbrief adds questions like these to your brief when your answers point to them.

For education only. This article is general information for founders, not legal advice, and reading it doesn’t make you anyone’s client. Tellbrief is not a law firm. For advice about your situation, talk to a licensed lawyer.