DueBuddyLate Payment Statistics for Freelancers
If you've been paid late, you're not doing anything wrong. Late payment is the norm in freelance work, not the exception. Here are the numbers, with sources.
The headline figures
- 85% of freelancers have been paid late at some point (Freelancers Union / Remote, 2025).
- 29% of invoices are paid after their due date (Bonsai, based on 100,000+ freelancers).
- 21% of freelancers say clients pay late more than half the time (Clockify Freelancer Study, 2025).
- 55% of US business-to-business sales are overdue (Kaplan Group).
These aren't the same measurement. The 85% figure is "ever been paid late," the 29% is "share of invoices paid late," and the 55% is a broader B2B figure that includes companies, not just freelancers. But they point the same direction: late payment is systemic.
The scale of it
There are roughly 4.3 million self-employed people in the UK (Statista, 2024) and about 16.6 million in the US (BLS, December 2025). If even a fraction of them chase invoices by hand, that's a lot of hours spent on awkward emails that a schedule could send instead.
What the numbers don't tell you
Statistics tell you late payment is common. They don't tell you your specific client is about to pay late, or that a given invoice will be among the 29%. What changes your outcome isn't knowing the stat. It's what happens on day one, day three, and day seven after the due date.
A polite reminder sent on schedule is the single most reliable way to move a late invoice, and it's the thing most freelancers skip because it's uncomfortable. See how to write an overdue invoice email and the get paid faster checklist.
Stop being part of the statistic
You can't make every client pay on time. You can make sure no invoice goes quiet because you didn't follow up. DueBuddy sends the reminders for you, on schedule, from your name.
Chasing invoices shouldn't feel like a confrontation.
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