Freelance Work: Don’t Overlook This Often Ignored Requirement

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Understanding Occasional Self-Employment

Occasional self-employment is a unique contractual category that distinguishes itself from dependent work, standard self-employment, and parasubordinate relationships (e.g., co.co.co.).

To mitigate the risk of occasional work lacking essential welfare and insurance protections, the Law Decree 30 September 2003 No.
269 (converted by Law 24 November 2003 No.
326) mandates, under Article 44, that as of January 1, 2004, if the annual income from such work exceeds €5,000, the worker must register with INPS’s separate management system.

What Must the Worker Do?

If the €5,000 threshold is exceeded, the worker is required to:

• Notify their clients promptly of the income surpassing €5,000 and repeat this for new clients during the same year.
• Register with INPS’s separate management system once throughout their lifetime.

Post-registration, there’s no need to repeat this process annually, even if future earnings fall below €5,000.

Responsibilities of the Client

Upon exceeding the €5,000 income threshold, clients must:

• Withhold the applicable welfare and insurance contributions from payments made to the worker.
• Pay both their own and the worker’s withheld contributions to INPS using model F24.

These obligations apply across all clients engaging with the worker within the same calendar year of the income exceeding €5,000.

Commonly Overlooked Compliance Requirement

Additionally, clients must submit a monthly “UniEmens” report electronically to INPS by the end of the month following the reporting month once the income threshold is crossed.
This ensures that INPS is informed about contribution calculations made via model F24.

Essential Elements of UniEmens

The UniEmens must include specific details such as:

• Community Code, identifying the locality where the work was conducted.
• Contract Type (code “09” for occasional self-employment).
• Activity Code and relevant financial figures.

Determining Income Threshold Compliance

Annual income exceeding €5,000 is calculated from all earnings of a single worker during the entire calendar year (January 1 – December 31).
Importantly, the compliance requirements do not automatically carry over to the subsequent year unless thresholds are not met.

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