We understand that building a freelance business on Upwork is important to you, and that you may be frustrated when we decline your application.
As remote working becomes more popular, the marketplace becomes more competitive. We receive over 10,000 applications daily, and we try to keep a balance between freelancers and projects available. Because we want you to find jobs and succeed, if our marketplace doesn't currently have opportunities for your combination of skills and experience, we won’t accept your application at that time.
Don’t worry, though –– you can update your profile and reapply if you have other relevant skills or experience to add that you may have left off your first application. Plus, the opportunities for people with your skills may change, so you’re welcome to reapply again later. You can also find ways to improve your profile here.
You can also look at job postings to see what kind of projects are trending. Learning or improving skills that are in high demand is one way to become more competitive. You may also have skills that you didn’t realize were marketable on Upwork and that you could add to your profile.
The first step is to make sure that your profile is as complete as possible. Creating a 100% complete profile and following the best practices outlined here is a great place to start.
First, you must be at least 18 years old to join Upwork. If that's not the issue, we recommend that you check to see if you left anything out of your profile. Was it 100% complete? Next, check to see if you made any errors in the text, or if any videos or photos were poor quality or didn’t upload. If you believe you did everything you could to present a great profile, there could still be reasons why we had to decline.
We wish we could offer every qualified freelancer a spot, but the Upwork marketplace is highly competitive, with more than 10,000 freelancer registrations daily. To help ensure that the freelancers we do accept have the best chance at finding opportunities on our platform, we can only accept a small percentage of those who want to join.
Admission is highly competitive, as we receive more than 10,000 freelancer registrations daily. Market demand also influences our decisions, since some skills may be more in demand from clients than others at any given time. If you feel that the profile that you submitted could more accurately represent your skills and experience, you're free to update and resubmit your profile.
Someone from our team will review your profile and reach back out within 24 hours.