Free Employment Contract Template (At-Will, US)

What's in an employment contract

A US employment contract — sometimes called an employment agreement, employee contract, or simple employment contract — covers fifteen sections. The template walks through each in order:

1. Parties and effective date. Full legal name of the employer entity, the state of formation, and the employee's full name.
2. Position and duties. Title, manager, exempt/non-exempt classification, and a one-paragraph duties summary referencing the full position description in Schedule A.
3. Term and at-will employment. Standard at-will language — either party may terminate at any time, for any reason or no reason, with or without notice — and a clause naming the only person who can modify it.
4. Compensation. Base salary, bonus eligibility (with “not earned until paid” language), equity references (governed by separate plan documents), benefits.
5. Work location. Primary location and remote/hybrid policy.
6. Confidentiality. Definition of Confidential Information, the duration of the obligation, and the standard four exclusions (publicly known, prior knowledge, independently developed, compelled by law).
7. DTSA whistleblower notice. Required by 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b) to preserve the company's right to seek exemplary damages in a future trade-secret case.
8. IP and work for hire. Present-tense assignment of all work product to the company, work-for-hire framing under the US Copyright Act, and a power-of-attorney clause for executing perfection documents.
9. Non-solicitation. Twelve-month non-solicit covering employees, contractors, and customers the employee had material contact with.
10. Return of company property. Triggers on termination for any reason.
11. Termination. What the employee is entitled to on departure (accrued salary, expenses, vested benefits) and a clear statement that severance is discretionary.
12. Dispute resolution and governing law. Choice-of-law clause, a good-faith discussion period, and an injunctive-relief carve-out for confidentiality, IP, and non-solicit breaches.
13. Company policies and handbook. Acknowledgement that policies exist and that they do not modify the at-will relationship.
14. Integration and amendment. Standard integration clause — this agreement supersedes prior communications.
15. Miscellaneous. Severability, no-waiver, counterparts, and electronic signatures.

Two schedules close the document: Schedule A is the full position description, and Schedule B is the written notice required for IP-assignment carve-outs in California (Labor Code §2870) and parallel-statute states.

At-will employment — what it means and the language to use

At-will employment is the US default. Either party can terminate the employment relationship at any time, for any reason or no reason, with or without notice. The reason cannot be illegal — discrimination, retaliation, and other protected categories still apply — but in the absence of an illegal motive, no notice or cause is required.

The risk in employment contracts is accidentally creating an implied contract that overrides the at-will default. Severance language, progressive-discipline policies, and even loose language about “permanent” employment have all been used in court to argue that the relationship was not at-will. The template uses standard “magic” at-will language repeated in two sections (the term clause and the integration clause) to make the at-will intent unambiguous.

If a written employment contract intends to depart from at-will — for example, a fixed-term contract, an executive employment agreement with for-cause termination, or a contract requiring notice — the at-will language has to be removed. The template is not the right starting point for those engagements; an executive employment agreement is its own document.

Compensation, equity, and benefits — reference, don't embed

The template treats compensation as four lines: base salary, bonus, equity, and benefits. The reason is durability. Base salary is stated inline because it is hard-coded for the employee. Everything else points to a separate document — the bonus plan, the equity plan, the benefits plan — which the company can update without amending the contract.

Bonus language follows the “not earned until paid” convention: the employee is eligible, the bonus is discretionary, and an employee who is not employed on the payment date is not entitled to a bonus. This is standard US practice and head-off the “my bonus was earned the day I was let go” argument that comes up in litigation.

Equity is governed by a separate grant agreement and the company's equity incentive plan. The template's equity paragraph names the grant size, the vesting schedule, and a “the Plan controls in the event of any conflict” clause. Embedding the full equity terms in the employment contract is a common mistake — it ages out, conflicts with the plan documents, and creates two sources of truth.

Benefits language is the most defensible: subject to applicable plan documents, which the company may modify or terminate. The plan documents themselves are the contract; the employment contract just acknowledges eligibility.

IP and work-for-hire — California §2870 and the Stanford v. Roche fix

The template's IP-assignment language uses the present-tense “hereby assigns” formulation, not the future-tense “agrees to assign.” The Supreme Court ruled in Stanford v. Roche (563 U.S. 776, 2011) that future-tense language can lose to a competing present-tense assignment from a third party — a real risk when employees collaborate with universities or other companies. The template's “hereby assigns” language transfers the IP at the moment of conception and forecloses that risk.

California Labor Code §2870 limits the assignment. An invention developed entirely on the employee's own time, without using company equipment or information, is not assigned to the company unless it relates to the company's business or results from the employee's work. Section 2870 also requires the company to provide the employee with a written notice of the carve-out — failure to provide the notice can void the assignment provisions of the contract entirely.

The template handles this in two places. Section 7 (Inventions and Work Product) names the assignment and references Schedule B. Schedule B contains the written notice itself, in the statutory language, with an acknowledgement line. Several other states — Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Utah, and Washington — have parallel statutes that the same Schedule B notice satisfies in substance. Employees in other states are not covered by §2870 specifically, but having the notice in the contract is consistent practice across a US workforce.

Non-compete vs. non-solicit — the template omits non-compete

Non-compete clauses restrict where an employee can work after they leave. They are different from non-solicit clauses, which restrict only the soliciting of customers and employees. The template includes non-solicit and deliberately omits non-compete.

The reason is enforceability. As of this page's April 2026 update, non-competes are banned for most employees in several states and restricted by income threshold, role, notice rules, or other conditions in many others. The FTC's 2024 nationwide non-compete ban was vacated in August 2024, and the FTC says the rule is not in effect, but the agency can still challenge non-competes case by case under Section 5 of the FTC Act. Because the state-by-state landscape changes frequently, a generic employment contract template should not ship with a default non-compete.

When to add a non-compete: senior executives with material access to trade secrets or strategic plans, sales leadership in jurisdictions where non-compete is enforceable, and acquisition-related agreements where the buyer requires it as part of the deal terms. In all three cases the non-compete should be drafted by counsel for the specific jurisdiction and role — not pulled from a template.

Common pitfalls

1. Accidentally creating a for-cause termination right. Severance language, progressive-discipline policies, or loose “for performance reasons” phrases can be read as overriding at-will. Keep severance discretionary in the contract; if a severance plan exists, it lives outside the contract.
2. Missing the integration clause. Without an integration clause, prior offer letters, emails, and oral promises can be argued to be part of the agreement. The template includes one.
3. Vague duties. “Other duties as assigned” is fine, but a contract should reference a position description (Schedule A) so the employee can tell what success looks like.
4. “Agrees to assign” instead of “hereby assigns.” The Stanford v. Roche fix above. Future-tense language loses to a present-tense competing assignment.
5. Missing California §2870 notice. Voids the IP-assignment portion of the contract for California employees. The template ships the notice in Schedule B.
6. Copy-pasted non-compete. Unenforceable in many jurisdictions and a red flag in talent negotiations. Use non-solicit by default.
7. No survival clause for confidentiality and IP. These obligations have to survive termination explicitly, or the employee can argue they ended on the last day.
8. Embedded equity terms. Equity is governed by a separate plan and grant agreement. Reference them, don't restate them.
9. No e-signature clause. Modern contracts are signed via DocuSign or similar. The template's miscellaneous section names electronic signatures as valid and binding.

Offer letter vs. employment contract

An offer letter is a short letter — usually one page — that confirms the offer, names the position, base salary, start date, and at-will nature of employment, and asks the candidate to countersign. It is often used as the contract for individual contributors at most US companies.

An employment contract is the longer agreement that this template provides. It covers the same ground as an offer letter and adds confidentiality, IP, non-solicit, termination, and dispute resolution. The right choice depends on the role: offer letters are sufficient for most non-managerial hires, employment contracts are appropriate for senior individual contributors, managers, and anyone with material access to confidential information or IP.

Simple employment contract — when a 3-page version is enough

A simple employment contract suits short-term, low-stakes hires where confidentiality and IP exposure are minimal. The simple version is the offer-letter pattern: parties, position, start date, base salary, at-will language, signatures. Two pages, sometimes three.

The template on this page is the longer version. If you need the simple form, take the template's Sections 1–5 and 15 (signatures), drop everything else, and you have a working short contract. We plan to ship a separate three-page Word version of the simple form in a future release.

How to fill out the employment contract

1. Cover block at the top. Fill the agreement ID, effective date, position, employer entity, employee name, base salary, and governing-law state.
2. Section 2 — duties. Write a one-paragraph duties summary. Detail goes in Schedule A.
3. Section 4 — compensation. Set the base salary, pay frequency, bonus terms, equity terms, and benefits language.
4. Section 5 — work location. Name the primary location and the remote/hybrid policy.
5. Section 8 — non-solicit. The default is 12 months. Adjust if the role and jurisdiction warrant a different period.
6. Section 11 — governing law. Set the state of governing law. For multi-state companies, use the state of the primary work location.
7. Schedule A. Paste in the full position description. Title, reporting line, and four to eight principal duties is typical.
8. Schedule B. Leave as drafted. The notice text is the statutory language and should not be edited.

What is inside the template

The download is a zip containing two files:

• employment-contract-blank.docx — the full template with [BRACKETED PLACEHOLDERS] for parties, position, compensation, dates, and signatures.
• employment-contract-example.docx — the same template filled with a realistic example: Acme Corporation hiring Morgan Chen as a Senior Software Engineer at $210K base plus 8K options vesting over four years, governed by California law.

Both files render in Cambria on US letter-size pages with 1.5-inch margins. They open cleanly in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Apple Pages, and LibreOffice. A short footer on every page repeats the disclaimer that this is a template, not legal advice.