Legal steps to move payments off of UpWork (2019)

UpWork has policies, under which (fortunately) freelancers and clients are given an opportunity to move their payments off of UpWork after 2 years (24 months) are gone after their first meeting on platform ( I thought it was the first task’s start date. But after I clarified, even first communication counts as “identification”).

Paragraph 1 on their blog explains it well: https://www.upwork.com/blog/2016/09/five-things-upwork-terms-service/

The complete terms is here:

https://www.upwork.com/legal#noncircumvention

So, if employer and you has communication 2 years before, now you can move your projects off the UW.

Steps to use it

The first thing is to contact with UpWork support person, and notify your willing to implement that advantage. Then they will take a note for you, and they ask you that client also contacted them and told the same intention too. 
Then they will confirm and you can continue your relationship outside of UpWork.

A small disadvantage

One thing is that you might want to move your communications outside of UW too, otherwise if you mention in chat-room the phrases like “pay”, “skype”, etc… then you might get flagged and you have to explain that you have right to do that with that client as you are off the platform now.