Upwork Badges Guide 2026: How to Earn Rising Talent, Top Rated & Top Rated Plus

How To Earn Badges and Build a Lasting Reputation on Upwork

Earning badges on Upwork is a natural process for all freelancers. However, if you're new here and don't have a badge yet, you might be wondering about the procedure to get one. Also, as a freelancer, you may want to increase your badge status over time and, thus, expand your capabilities of making money on Upwork. So, let's talk about how the Upwork system for awarding badges works below.

The Importance of Badges and Reputation on Upwork

Badges on the Upwork freelance platform are a kind of identifier of the reputation of a particular freelancer - the higher the status of the badge, the more interested potential employers will be in cooperation, and the higher the rates the specialist who has it will be able to claim.

Understanding Upwork Badges

Is Upwork a good way to make money? Yes, it is. To help freelancers stand out from others and highlight their expertise, Upwork has introduced its own badge system. This system makes it easier for employers to select contractors for their projects.

Specific badges and what they signify

Currently, Upwork freelancers can receive badges of three levels. Let's look at them in more detail.

Rising Talent

The Rising Talent badge is awarded to promising new freelancers who have joined Upwork and demonstrated strong potential - whether through a fully completed profile with in-demand skills, or through early positive results with clients on the platform. It signals to employers that you are new but already capable, and it's one of the key milestones on your path to Top Rated status.

Importantly, Upwork updated the Rising Talent criteria: freelancers who have completed contracts now need an average star rating of 4.8 or above and at least $250 USD in earnings in the past 12 months (in addition to a JSS of 90% or higher, if one has been earned). Freelancers without completed contracts can still qualify based on profile strength and in-demand skills alone.

Having received such a badge, you become an object of interest primarily for employers who do not want to waste a lot of time looking for a specialist since, most likely, your work schedule for Upwork is not yet overloaded. At the same time, you should not think that Rising Talent is something about inexperience. On the contrary, many freelancers come to Upwork to have a more flexible work schedule than with a full time job, as they are already great experts in their niche.

Benefits - the Rising Talent badge provides the following advantages that help you get started faster:

• A one-time bonus of 30 free Connects;
• Ability to offer consultations to share expertise with clients.

These perks give new freelancers a meaningful head start when competing for their first projects on the platform.

So, how to get the Upwork Rising Talent Badge? The following checklist covers everything Upwork evaluates when determining eligibility:

• Complete projects on time and as promised to clients;
• Maintain a 100% complete profile with accurate skills and genuine work;
• Keep your availability status updated;
• Regularly submit proposals to projects that match your skill set;
• Adhere to the Upwork Terms of Service;
• Have submitted a proposal or worked within the past 90 days;
• If you have completed contracts: have an average star rating of 4.8 or above and earned at least $250 USD in the past 12 months;
• Have a JSS of at least 90%, if you've earned a JSS (you can earn a Rising Talent badge before you have a JSS);
• Have no holds on your account during the past 90 days;
• Be invited by Upwork.
• Have the Identity Verified (IDV) badge (required for Rising Talent, Top Rated, and Top Rated Plus).

In addition, agencies must also have:

• 2 or more team members;
• Maintain a 100% complete agency profile;
• Maintain a 100% complete agency owner profile;
• Maintain a 60% or higher average profile completeness across the agency.

Meeting the criteria above is necessary but not sufficient on its own - Upwork assesses the overall trajectory of your performance, so consistency and compliance are equally important.

Top Rated

Once you've already earned a Rising Talent badge (or your Job Success Score is at least 90% for at least 13 of the last 16 weeks) and your first project on Upwork was completed more than 90 days ago, you can eventually upgrade this badge to a Top Rated one. Top Rated represents the top 10% of talent on Upwork. This does not require any special action from you - just expand the list of your skills over time, update your availability, cooperate with employers on Upwork (you have to earn $1,000 USD or more in the past 12 months), and receive positive feedback from them.

Benefits - the Top Rated badge unlocks a meaningful set of tools to help you grow faster and work more efficiently:

• More control over your Job Success Score;
• Invitations to submit proposals to jobs assisted by Talent Specialists;
• Job Digest email to make it easier for you to find jobs that are a great match;
• Faster payments on hourly contracts;
• Ability to offer consultations to share expertise with clients.

These benefits make Top Rated one of the most impactful milestones for freelancers looking to scale their Upwork income.

So, how to get the Upwork Top Rated Badge?

Top Rated Plus

Receiving the Top Rated Plus badge shows you have experience working on large or long-term projects (they have to bring you $10,000 or more in total in the past 12 months and the overall JSS of >=90%). Only 3% of the total number of freelancers on Upwork have this distinction (therefore, they have a really high annual salary here), so hunting such a specialist is a real challenge for employers.

Benefits - Top Rated Plus holders enjoy all the perks of Top Rated, plus exclusive additions:

• More control over your Job Success Score;
• Invitations to submit proposals to jobs assisted by Talent Specialists;
• Our Job Digest email to make it easier for you to find jobs that are a great match;
• Faster payments on hourly contracts;
• Ability to offer consultations to share expertise with clients;
• Priority customer support.

Access to priority support alone makes Top Rated Plus a significant competitive advantage when resolving account issues or navigating complex client disputes.

So, how to get the Upwork Top Rated Plus Badge?

Expert-Vetted

The Expert-Vetted badge is awarded to freelancers who have successfully passed an interview and verification by talent managers on the Upwork platform (only those who are automatically selected by this platform receive an invitation). Only 1% of talents on Upwork have this badge and it means that you have exceptional expertise in your field and strong soft skills. Crucially, the Expert-Vetted badge is only visible to Enterprise Suite™ and Business Plus clients - it does not appear to standard Upwork clients, making it the most exclusive and targeted badge on the platform.

Currently invitation-only - Upwork's previous public application window closed on June 30, 2024. The badge is awarded by Upwork's Talent Managers from the Top Rated Plus pool. Eligible categories: Design & Creative; Web, Mobile & Software Development; Sales & Marketing. 

Benefits - Expert-Vetted holders gain access to Upwork's most exclusive client pool and professional development resources:

• Be identified as the top 1% of talent on Upwork;
• An Expert-Vetted badge on your profile that displays exclusively to Upwork Enterprise Suite™ and Business Plus clients;
• Expert-level talent badge and priority: show up in expert-level talent searches and be invited first to privately-posted projects;
• A dedicated Talent Manager who can help optimize your profile and coach you through Upwork strategies;
• Network with a community of professionals, access complimentary coaching, and attend skill-specific workshops;
• Opportunities to partner with Enterprise clients, including Fortune 500 companies;
• Ability to offer consultations to share expertise with clients.

Identity Verified (IDV) Badge

Identity Verified (IDV). A separate badge that confirms you're a real person matching your profile and ID. IDV is a hard requirement for Rising Talent, Top Rated, and Top Rated Plus. To get it, spend 35 Connects in Account Settings, then complete verification (government ID + video call or phone photo, sometimes location/phone) within 7 days. The badge shows up about 3 business days after approval and is valid for 3 years.

Availability Badge

Availability Badge. A blue "Available now" indicator that promotes you in client search and lets clients filter for active freelancers. It runs on a dynamic Connects auction - you set a weekly cap, Connects are auto-spent at a rate that fluctuates by demand. Toggle it off anytime; unused weekly cap isn't charged.

Steps to Earn Your First Badge

If you want to make money on Upwork, it's time to find out how to get your first Upwork badge.

Criteria for the Rising Talent Badge

As of 2026, Upwork's criteria for the Rising Talent badge have been refined. Freelancers without completed contracts can qualify based on profile strength and in-demand skills. Those who have completed contracts must have an average star rating of 4.8 or above and have earned at least $250 USD in the past 12 months. In both cases, a JSS of at least 90% is required if one has been earned, and the profile must be 100% complete with accurate skills. You also need to comply with the platform's internal policies and regularly update your availability status.

Building a strong profile: the foundation

Just imagine that your profile is a kind of a landing page for your small business. Thus, to create a strong profile, you need to come up with a catchy description with keywords. In addition, think about what list of skills you can provide and what cases from your experience you can cite. You are also welcome to present reviews from your past employers, upload a professional photo, and customize the default URL leading to your profile as well.

Crafting winning proposals

In addition to filling out your profile, you can create a job proposal aimed at a specific employer. In a nutshell, this is something like a cover letter that contains a greeting, a short self-introduction, your own vision of solving the employer's problem, a list of links leading to your relevant cases, as well as your hourly rate (or a fixed rate for the entire project). More information on this can be found in one of our articles: How to Create a Proposal That Wins Jobs on Upwork?

If you want help writing job-specific proposals fast, the AI Cover Letter Generator drafts a tailored proposal from the job post in seconds, with your own polish on top.

Strategies to Become Top Rated

If you've been wondering how to get the Top Rated badge on Upwork, here are the strategies that actually move the needle in 2026.

In this paragraph, we invite you to consider some recommendations that will help you obtain the highest-level badge.

Consistently deliver high-quality work

The key to obtaining a Top Rated badge is to fully comply with the requirements listed by employers for the projects they delegate to you. Also, don't delay submitting your work - missing deadlines can harm your rating a lot.

Maintain high job success scores

To maintain a high Job Success Score, that is, at least 90%, you will need to focus all your efforts on establishing strong, long-term relationships with clients, completing complex jobs, and participating in high-paying projects.

Since JSS lives or dies by your contract outcomes, being picky about which jobs you bid on matters: Check Fit scores a job and its client before you spend a connect, and Analytics lets you track your reply and win rates over time.

Effective communication with clients

Clients usually need regular and quick feedback from the freelancer's side. At the same time, it is important to maintain an optimal balance between the frequency of contacts and their productivity - employers do not like too frequent clarification of project details, so they begin to doubt the level of expertise of their contractors.

Meeting or exceeding client expectations

Surely, as a conscientious specialist, you will want to exceed your employer's expectations by doing better work than the list of requirements implied. At the same time, do not forget to ensure that you didn't miss any of these requirements while refining the completed work.

Best Practices for Sustaining a Good Reputation

Now, we invite you to delve into creating a good reputation on Upwork - these insights will help you earn even more per day.

Regularly update your skills and portfolio

Whether you are well-versed in social media marketing, graphic design, blockchain development, freelance writing, data analysis, web development, or something else - if you don't expand your experience with new skills over time, you won't be able to positively affect your reputation on Upwork. Thus, to earn money here even more intensively than ever before, just continue to grow professionally. And, of course, don't forget to add new skills to your profile and upload new cases that confirm each of them.

Keeping all of this current across multiple profiles by hand gets tedious; Profile Sync automates the updates so your Upwork profile always reflects your latest skills and portfolio.

Ask for and manage client feedback

Although many Upwork freelancers believe that asking for the client's feedback is unprofessional, we remain convinced that if approached correctly, it can only benefit you.

Handling negative feedback

It's great if you receive positive feedback about your collaboration, but what if it turns out to be negative? In fact, it's okay unless you deal with it regularly. Of course, this can damage your reputation, especially if you have a Top Rated badge. Still, ultimately, the harder and more diligently you work on subsequent projects, the faster you will restore it.

Understanding the reason for negative reviews

To minimize the risks of receiving negative feedback in the future, you will need to analyze what you did so that the client did not like the result of your work. In general, working on mistakes never remains without a trace, so your task is to grow as a professional steadily.

Strategies for resolving conflicts

One of the best strategies for resolving conflicts with clients is to offer to fix work that was not initially approved or to perform a few additional Upwork jobs. After this, you can ask your employer to leave new feedback, considering that you have ensured full compliance with the client's expectations.

Requesting additional reviews to balance out one negative feedback

You should not write to a client asking for feedback while your task has not yet been completed and verified. Also, don't do this when you are faced with a large number of edits while agreeing on the details of the task with clients - most likely, you will receive negative feedback about your cooperation. And please avoid situations when you offer to do some job without requesting money but in exchange for a positive review - this is strictly prohibited by the rules of the Upwork platform (if Upwork detects such an offering, your account may be suspended and you will lose badge eligibility for a period of six months). Instead, if you suddenly notice that some of your projects that were approved by clients have not yet received feedback, you can write to them with a corresponding request - perhaps they simply forgot to do this.

Advancing Beyond Badges

While earning badges shouldn't be your ultimate goal at Upwork (we still believe that here, you just want to shift from a full time job to more flexible work conditions), you can get yourself closer to earning the most prestigious ones by following strategies like these.

Transitioning from Rising Talent to Top Rated status

To upgrade your Rising Talent badge to the Top Rated one, you must have a JSS of 90% or more for 13 of the last 16 weeks. As practice shows, this is not difficult to do if you constantly analyze the feedback of your previous employers and eliminate your professional shortcomings over time.

Leveraging badges for more complex and higher-paying projects

Another effective way to improve your badge status is to regularly choose complex, long-term projects from job listings and collaborate with the same clients. In general, just do your job well, and Upwork will definitely notice this and boost your rating.

Protecting Your Reputation

As practice shows, your reputation is mainly formed under the influence of feedback from your regular clients. Thus, to protect your rating from one-time negative experiences and continue earning money, you need to aim to establish long-term, trusting relationships with those clients with whom you initially found common ground. The more such clients you have, the better - they will be able to leave their positive reviews as you complete the next task for them, which means that your rating will constantly grow. In turn, if you suddenly receive a bad rating, against the backdrop of dozens of other positive reviews, it is unlikely to have much impact on your JSS.

One important protection note for 2026: Upwork now explicitly states that directing or accepting payments outside their payment system, or repeatedly communicating off-platform before a contract is in place, results in immediate badge loss and a six-month ineligibility period for Rising Talent, Top Rated, and Top Rated Plus badges. This policy is enforced more strictly than ever, so always keep all communications and payments within the platform.

Conclusion

Here is a comprehensive comparison table of the qualifications for Rising Talent, Top Rated, Top Rated Plus, and Expert-Vetted statuses on Upwork:

Here is a comparison table of the benefits for Rising Talent, Top Rated, Top Rated Plus, and Expert-Vetted statuses on Upwork:

We hope that after reading this article, you realized that getting your first badge at Upwork is not at all difficult - your Upwork earn money strategy just has to include analyzing in detail the task and requirements specified by the client and performing your work to achieve full compliance with them. At the same time, to receive more prestigious insignia, you will need more complex and lengthy projects in your Upwork portfolio - for this, you have to constantly boost your skills.