A joint venture agreement is the contract between two or more parties combining resources for a single defined project — not an ongoing business. It sets the project's scope and end date, what each party contributes, how profits and IP created along the way are split, and how the joint venture dissolves once the project is done. Download the ready-to-fill template below, or read the full clause checklist first.
A complete, ready-to-fill PDF — 15 clauses, blanks for every detail, and a signature block for both parties. Free, no email, no account. Read it and adapt it before you use it; the cover page explains what it can and cannot do for you.
Need the other party to sign it too? Send it for signature with a full audit trail and a tamper-evident seal on the finished file — they never need an account. See pricing.
This document is a general-purpose template provided for information only. It is not legal advice, it does not create a lawyer–client relationship, and nobody has reviewed it against your situation.
Laws differ by country, state and province, and they change. A clause that is standard in one place can be unenforceable — or illegal — in another. Terms that are ordinary between two businesses can be void in a consumer or employment context.
Read every clause before you use it, fill in every blank, and delete anything that does not apply. For anything high-value, unusual, or that you could not afford to lose a dispute over, have a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction review it before it is signed.
Parties and the Project
Full legal names of each party, and a specific description of the single project they are combining resources to carry out — not an open-ended business.
Term and completion trigger
A stated End Date, a completion event (a milestone or deliverable), or both — whichever happens first ends the joint venture automatically. This is the clause that separates a joint venture from an ongoing partnership or company.
Contributions
What each party is putting into the project — cash, property, personnel or services — and the value assigned to it.
Profit, loss and cost allocation
The percentage split of the project's profits, losses and costs between the parties.
No partnership, no agency
An explicit statement that the arrangement is not a general partnership and does not give either party authority to bind the other outside the project — without this, some jurisdictions may treat an unincorporated joint venture as a de facto partnership by default.
Management committee
Who represents each party in running the project day to day, and which decisions — extending the timeline, taking on debt, bringing in a third party — need both parties' sign-off rather than one representative's call.
Background IP vs. project IP
What each party already owned coming in (and licenses to the other for the project only) versus what gets newly created during the project, and who owns the new work product.
IP and deliverables on completion
What happens to that intellectual property and to project deliverables once the project ends — licenses that expire, files and materials that must be handed over, and limits on using shared work product for a competing project afterward.
Dissolution
Because a joint venture is not an ongoing entity, this is a scheduled wind-down, not an open-ended dissolution: winding up on the completion event or End Date, returning unused contributions, and distributing remaining proceeds.
Governing law
Which jurisdiction's law applies if a dispute arises.
Signatures & date
Both parties sign and date the agreement before either contributes anything to the project.
Two businesses that keep sharing profits from a joint undertaking with no stated end can end up treated as a general partnership by default in some jurisdictions — with the personal liability and open-ended commitment that comes with it, whether or not either side intended it. A joint venture agreement heads that off by design: it names a single project, states how it ends (a completion event, a fixed End Date, or both), and dissolves automatically once that happens, rather than continuing until someone decides to wind it up.
That shape changes what the document needs to cover. A "no partnership, no agency" clause makes clear neither party can bind the other outside the project. Intellectual property gets split into what each party already owned coming in (background IP, only licensed for the project) and what gets newly created while carrying it out (project IP) — a distinction an ongoing partnership rarely needs, because it isn't handing a finished deliverable back and forth at a defined end point. And dissolution here isn't a negotiated exit from a going concern; it's a scheduled wind-down: return unused contributions, settle project costs, distribute what's left, and hand over the IP and deliverables under the terms already agreed.
The template above builds the agreement around that shape rather than adapting a generic partnership template after the fact. Review it against your own project, and have a lawyer check anything high-stakes — especially the IP ownership terms — before you sign.
Fill in the template above and send it to the other party for signature with a free Evenseal account — 3 documents a month, no card required. Only need your own copy signed? Self-sign for free with no account at /sign-pdf.
Not legal advice — review this template against your own project and have a lawyer check anything high-stakes, especially the IP ownership terms, before you rely on it.