I'm working remotely for a US company as an independent contractor. I'm in Latin America, non-US citizen. I've worked for almost 2 months part-time. They said they will be making me full time after 2 months.
Besides a fixed work schedule, should I expect something else from a full-time job?
As I understand, an independent contractor cannot have:
This is not the case for an employer-employee relationship.
In the US, "full-time" means "consistently 40 hours (or more) per week". That's what it means. It's entirely separate from whether you are a contractor or a standard employee. There are a few laws on the books about giving certain minimum benefits to employees who work full-time rather than part-time, but those don't apply to independent contractors, and many of them may not apply to foreign employees working remotely. "Full-time" and "employee" both make you more likely to have a fixed or semi-fixed schedule with specific hours, but it is possible to have full-time employees with highly flexible hours (as long as it's 40 or more hours per week) and part-time contractors that work at very specific times.
If they're offering to bring you in full-time, that means that they like your work, and they want to buy more of it. The offer itself may come bundled with other things (in particular, additional supervision is pretty likely), but that's what it means on the face of it.
What is the difference between Full-Time and Independent Contractor?
Ask the company what differences there will be. Everyone here is just guessing on incomplete information.
You also have some faulty information.
A contractor can have fixed hours, many do if they're on call or service type jobs. Eg you could be doing helpdesk between certain hours.
Supervision is a matter of perspective, I supervise my remote workers quietly in the background because I have deeper access to the systems they work on.
Contractors do report on tasks.
The question asked was,
Besides a fixed work schedule, should I expect something else from a full-time job?
There are many differences between working as a direct employee versus working as a contractor - although, in terms of your day-to-day experience, you may not often notice or even be aware of the differences - and some of them may apply (or not) depending on your circumstances. Many of them can be significant when tax time comes, or if you need to deal with unusual circumstances (injury from an accident, becoming unemployed, dealing with a sick immediate relative, etc).
In terms of work management or supervision, there likely won't be much of a difference. Regardless of whether you're an employee or a contractor, the company still has rights to "supervise" your work - assign tasks, monitor quality, specify processes and procedures, etc. The same goes for hours worked (specifying whether they expect you to be "full time" for 40 hours a week, or part time, allowing overtime, etc).
Your standing with the government from a tax perspective is one of the most obvious and commonly referenced differences. If you're an employee, your employer will make income tax contributions on your behalf and report them on a W2. If you're a contractor, that won't happen, and depending on the type of contractual relationship, the burden of determining and paying taxes basically lies with you, or your staffing agency, if there is one. But in short, you do not appear on the company's direct payroll, from a tax perspective.
The other major difference is in terms of benefits provided to employees but not to contractors. Some of these benefits are required by law in the US, although the details of what is required vary from state to state and based on company size. Typically though, direct employees receive benefits such as:
In addition, direct employees typically receive other benefits that aren't required by law, including:
Generally, employers use contractors when they don't want to foot the bill for these benefits or incur the overhead. Or, they use contractors under the perception that there's more flexibility, since contractors can generally be found or let go "more easily" than full time employees.
As an additional note, my answer focuses on the differences between contracting and direct employment in the broad sense - if you're interested in specifics relevant to your exact employer and your exact citizenship or other personal standing, it's probably best to seek those answers from your employer or from an immigration attorney, tax professional, or other official source.
This QA has become very confusing.
the OP is not a US person and lives overseas from the US
the OP is a (remote, obviously) freelancer for US company X
It could be that:
This can be answered in a few words: in the situation of 1 & 2 above never, ever, ever do this.
It is just inconceivable that an overseas remote freelancer would become a salaried employee.
You lose half your money (withholding tax and more) and there are no benefits whatsoever. You would never, ever do this.
This is so basic that it would be pointless discussing it further; google 10,000 discussions about it.
It could be that:
No problem here. Work as many hours as you wish.
Note that there is no correlation between "being on salary" and "40 hours a week".
It is utterly normal and commonplace that remote overseas freelancers work 40 hours a week.
(If you happen to change from 20 hrs a week to 40 hrs a week, there is no situation whatsoever in which you would then change from freelance to salaried, in the situation of 1 & 2.)
It could be that the OP believes: "If I change to 40 hours a week, I have to change from freelance to salaried." That is utterly, totally incorrect. It is completely normal and commonplace to have remote-overseas freelancers who work full-time.
