The Department of Labor’s comment period for the proposed independent contractor rule closed at 11:59 p.m. ET on April 28 after a 60-day window that drew thousands of submissions from independent workers, trade groups, and industry coalitions. The rule would rescind the 2024 totality-of-circumstances framework and reinstate a streamlined two-factor economic reality test similar to the 2021 standard.
With the comment window now closed, the agency moves to the response-to-comments phase. For freelancers, gig drivers, and 1099 consultants, the practical question is no longer whether to weigh in, but how soon a final rule could land and how it changes day-to-day classification risk.
What Closes With The Comment Period
The DOL collected public input on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published in the Federal Register on February 27, 2026, with the central change being a renewed focus on two core factors: control over the work, and the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss based on initiative or investment. Skill, the permanency of the relationship, and integration into the firm’s production process remain part of the analysis but are explicitly secondary.
The DOL has estimated the proposal will save small businesses about $2.31 billion over 10 years, or roughly $329 million annualized, by reducing classification disputes. Industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber, the Coalition for Workforce Innovation, and several gig-platform associations, filed comments supporting the change, while AFL-CIO-aligned organizations and worker-advocacy groups pushed to retain the 2024 multi-factor approach.
Why This Matters For Self-Employed Workers
The two-factor test in the proposed rule tilts toward classifying more workers as contractors, particularly platform-based couriers, riders, and project freelancers who exercise meaningful control over scheduling and accept profit-and-loss risk. That is the framing many independent workers prefer, because misclassification rulings can wipe out the freedom and tax structure that made the work attractive in the first place.
The flip side is that workers who never wanted contractor status, and who depend on a single platform for nearly all their income, lose ground if the final rule looks like the proposal. Federal classification under the FLSA also drives wage-and-hour eligibility, so a contractor finding closes the door to overtime and minimum-wage claims at the federal level.
What Self-Employed Workers Should Do Next
Review your client roster and ask whether your relationships actually look like the proposed two-factor test in practice. Document the levers you control: your own pricing, your tools and equipment, your right to take on competing clients, and your hours.
Tighten written contracts to spell out scope, deliverables, and your authority to decline or subcontract work, because the strongest defense against a misclassification headache is a paper trail that matches reality. If most of your income comes from one platform or client, diversify your revenue mix this quarter so that a future enforcement action does not freeze your cash flow.
What To Watch Next
A final rule typically takes several months after the comment window, so a likely landing zone is late summer or fall 2026, with possible delays if the volume of comments is unusually high. Court challenges from labor groups and several Democratic state attorneys general are widely expected the moment a final rule publishes.
Independent workers should also track related state-level activity, including the SBA Office of Advocacy roundtable on the rule held on April 9, where small-business voices were incorporated into the federal record. Watch for parallel motion in California, New York, and Washington, where state classification standards may stay tougher even if the federal floor moves.
Photo by Vitaly Gariev: Unsplash
