Compete in Ohio is a contract between an employer and an employee that states that the employee cannot compete with the employer after termination. The contract states things like "will not engage in provision of services similar or in direct competition to the Company within the municipality of Vancouver"Non-compete agreements for independent contractors forbids them to work for your competition for a specific period after employment. Should you have one? There is no definitive rule that an independent contractor can never be subject to a non-compete agreement. Each "no" is a factor in favor of designating the worker as an independent contractor. A noncompete agreement would essentially block a contractor from landing another side job, even if you don't intend to hire them as an employee. I want to bring my clients to a different distributor and have been slowly doing that for a few months. I have no non compete agreement or contract. Noncompete agreements usually aren't valid when working with independent contractors.