Contractor of Record
Independent contractors give you specialized skills on your terms. The risk is in how they're engaged. Workwell's Contractor of Record (COR) services take over the contracts, classification reviews, and payments for your independent contractors, so they stay independent, and your team stops carrying the risk alone.
We review each contractor and engagement before work starts, then review again whenever the scope, schedule, or level of control changes.
You get a named Account Manager and Compliance Lead. Your contractors get a dedicated Contractor Care Consultant.
Workwell delivers EOR, CEOR, and COR through one group, enabling clients to move workers between models as relationships evolve, without changing vendors, contracts, or systems.
A Contractor of Record (COR) is a third party that engages, manages, and pays independent contractors on your behalf. The contractor stays self-employed. The COR reviews classification, keeps each engagement compliant with local rules, and manages the full contractor lifecycle, from intake to offboarding, wherever your contractors work. You choose the contractor and define the work.
Companies turn to a COR because misclassification is expensive. If a contractor is found to be an employee under local labor or tax rules, such as ABC tests in U.S. states or IR35 in the UK, your company can owe back taxes, benefits, and penalties. A COR checks every engagement before it starts and keeps checking as the work changes, so problems get caught early instead of during an audit.
An Employer of Record employs the worker. A Contractor of Record does not. With an EOR or a Contingent Employer of Record (CEOR), the worker becomes an employee of the EOR or CEOR provider, on the provider’s W-2 in the U.S. The provider runs payroll, provides benefits, and covers the employer obligations, including tax withholding, employer taxes, and workers’ compensation. With a COR, the worker stays an independent contractor who invoices for their work and handles their own taxes. If the relationship looks like employment, you need an EOR. If the contractor is truly independent, a COR is the right fit.
Share the contractor, scope, rate, location, and timeline. Requests route through approval workflows you set by department, business unit, or role.
We check the engagement and the contractor against the classification rules where the contractor works. Once approved, we issue the contract electronically and send you a compliance certificate.
Contractors submit time and work records for your approval. We validate invoices, pay contractors electronically, and keep every document in one place.
Everything it takes to engage a contractor compliantly, from the first review to the final invoice:
What Happens If a Contractor Shouldn’t Be a Contractor?
Some engagements don’t pass classification review. Others change over time until they look like employment. Either way, you don’t have to end the relationship or start over with a new vendor. In the event the independent contractor review does not pass the expert assessment, we can directly employ the worker through our Contingent Employer of Record (CEOR) services, and they keep doing the same work for you.
Many of these terms describe overlapping services. Our guide breaks down the differences in plain language and helps you land on the right one for your program.
Contractor programs break down when no one owns them. With Workwell, someone always does.
An Employer of Record employs the worker and provides payroll and benefits. A Contractor of Record does not employ the worker. The contractor stays self-employed, and the COR holds the contract, verifies classification, and pays approved invoices.
Agent of Record is a lighter form of Contractor of Record. Both keep contractors independent. With a Contractor of Record, Workwell is the contracting party, so the contract and classification review sit with us. With an Agent of Record, you contract with the contractor directly, and Workwell manages onboarding, compliance, and payments on your behalf.
Yes. Workwell provides Contractor of Record services for contractors in all 50 states and in 150+ countries, including countries where you have no legal entity. Many COR services focus only on international contractors, but U.S. companies face some of the strictest classification rules too, including federal tests and state ABC tests.
No. A Contractor of Record keeps contractors independent. If an engagement doesn't pass classification review, or changes until it looks like employment, we convert the worker to employment through our Contingent Employer of Record (CEOR) services.
A COR reduces misclassification risk, but classification still depends on how the work is done. We review every engagement before it starts and reassess it when scope, duration, or control changes. If it no longer holds up as a contractor relationship, we move the worker to CEOR.
We review each contractor and engagement first. Those that pass move onto new agreements with Workwell as the contracting party, and the work continues without interruption. Any that don't pass can convert to employment through CEOR.
Talk to the Workwell North America team. We'll review your current contractor population, flag what needs to change, and show you what a COR program looks like for you.
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