#freelance-talk

I work as a US-based contractor with several European clients and I’ve never been asked for a passport number. Typically, I get asked for bank SWIFT / IBAN details (which are codes that allow you to make international bank transfers for payments), but no one’s ever asked about passport numbers. I would be curious why they’re asking for that.

Contracts otherwise are pretty much the same as my US contracts.

Thank you for the info on banking, Rachel! I'm curious about the Passport Q too and will make sure to do more due diligence before I move forward. Appreciate it!

Never been asked that, personally. Is the company reputable and can you verify the person you're talking to actually works there?

Questioning it further for sure. A friend passed on the info to me, so I trusted the contact, etc. and process so far (only sent along my portfolio for now and did a quick chat on what they were looking for). But definitely got my guard up and saw the passport no. section as a red flag.

I've done plenty of work with overseas companies and never been asked for this (or heard of anyone being asked for it). Given that this personally identifying information, I think it's entirely fair to ask why they need that. The only thing I can squint and think might be a good motivator for asking that is if they anticipate contractors needing to do onsite work, they might want that as a way to verify that you would be able to travel to Europe, but that seems kinda flimsy if that's the reasoning.

Thanks, Erik! The only time I've seen or heard a person asking for a passport was at a full-time role at larger organizations. I've never seen it as a contractor. Thank you for your insights here

Would prefer to close this thread for now. As I feel as I've had some great insights and two cents shared! Thanks all!