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The project, invoiced

Freelance Invoice Template

Built for project billing: name the deliverable, describe it in a phrase, price the line. A deposit row subtracts whatever was paid up front, so the sheet reads the way freelance money actually flows \u2014 half down, balance on delivery. The Terms field and the payment note put your Net-15 and your late policy in writing, which is most of what freelancers mean by \u201ccontracts.\u201d

Three formats

Deliverables, priced and totaled.

Excel — balance computes

Deliverable rows with typed amounts, a deposit line that subtracts itself, and the balance due in blue.
Freelance invoice with deliverable rows, a deposit line, and a balance due box
PDF

Printable PDF

The blank version for print — deliverable lines, deposit row, balance box.
Download PDF

Word (.docx)

A brandable table for the portfolio-grade invoice — logo, fonts, done.
Worth knowing

Look like a business, get paid like one.

Late payment is the freelancer’s tax, and most of it is self-inflicted upstream: no deposit, no stated terms, no invoice number, a bill that arrives as a paragraph in an email. This sheet exists to make the professional version effortless — numbered, dated, termed, deposit-credited. Clients pay businesses faster than they pay people, and the difference is mostly paperwork.

Keep every sent invoice in one folder, named by number. At tax time that folder is your revenue ledger; mid-year it’s your accounts-receivable list — scan for balances without receipts against them. Freelancers rarely lose money to refusal; they lose it to forgetting to chase.

Selling hours instead
Hourly Invoice Template
Dated sessions, hours times rate, totals computed.
Open →
The shoot-and-deliver version
Photography Invoice
Session plus prints with usage rights stated.
Open →
Money landed
Invoice Receipt Template
Close the loop with a proof-of-payment.
Open →

Frequently asked questions

Should I take deposits, and how do they show up here?
Yes — a deposit filters out the clients who were never going to pay, funds the work, and marks the start date. Convention is a third to half up front. Bill the deposit on its own copy of this invoice when the project starts, and on the final invoice enter it in the Less-deposit row so the client sees the full price, the credit, and the balance in one view.
Do I charge sales tax as a freelancer?
It depends on your state and on what you deliver — many states don't tax pure services, some tax delivered digital goods, and rules shift. The sheet ships with the tax machinery of its siblings deliberately absent; add a tax line item if your situation needs one, and get the answer from your state's revenue site or your accountant, not from a template.
What stops a client from just… not paying this?
Nothing on the paper — leverage does. Deliver final files on final payment (watermarked or low-res proofs until then), keep the deposit habit, and put the late policy in the Terms field before the work starts. An invoice documents the agreement; the sequencing of delivery is what enforces it.
One invoice per project, or monthly?
Match the money's shape: milestone-priced projects bill per milestone with this sheet; ongoing retainer-ish work bills monthly — and if that monthly work is hourly, the hourly invoice next door is the better tool. The worst pattern is the six-week silent gap ending in one startling number.
Updated through September 2026