EIN Application: How to Apply for an EIN Free From the IRS
An EIN application is free, it runs online, and most people finish it in about fifteen minutes. The IRS issues the number on screen as soon as the application goes through, so you can sit down without a tax ID and stand up with one.
That is the short version. The longer version matters because a rejected application costs you days, and the most common reasons for rejection have nothing to do with your business and everything to do with how you typed it in.
Below: what an EIN is and who needs one, what it costs, the one step to take before you apply, what to have ready, the online process, the hours the IRS tool is open, what to do when you cannot apply online, why applications get rejected, and when you can start using the number.
Key Takeaways
- An EIN Is Free. The IRS charges nothing and warns against sites that charge a fee for one.
- Form Your Entity First. Register with your state before you apply, or the IRS may delay your application.
- Finish In One Sitting. The online application cannot be saved and times out after 15 minutes of inactivity.
- One EIN Per Day. The IRS issues a single EIN per responsible party per day, across every channel.
- Bank Now, E-File Later. You can open a business account immediately, but electronic filing can take up to two weeks.
What Is an EIN and Who Needs One?
An EIN, short for Employer Identification Number, is a nine-digit federal tax ID the IRS assigns to a business, written as 12-3456789. You need one if you hire employees, run a partnership or corporation, or owe certain excise taxes. Even when the IRS does not require one, most banks will ask for an EIN before they open a business account.
The IRS also requires an EIN to operate a partnership, a limited liability company (LLC), a corporation, a tax-exempt organization, an estate, most trusts, or a retirement plan. If you withhold tax on non-wage income paid to a non-resident, you need one as well.
Plenty of people apply without being required to. The IRS allows you to request an EIN for banking or state tax purposes even when your federal filings do not call for one, and that is why most single-owner businesses end up with one anyway. It keeps your Social Security number off invoices, W-9s and vendor forms.
A few adjacent questions get their own answers: whether an LLC specifically needs an EIN, how an EIN differs from your SSN, and when a sole proprietor needs one.
What an EIN Costs
Nothing. The IRS issues a free EIN number directly, and it states the point bluntly on its own application page: you never have to pay a fee for an EIN, and it warns readers about websites that charge for one. If a site quotes you a price for the number itself, that price is not coming from the IRS.
What can legitimately cost money is having someone else do the filing, keep the paperwork and deal with the follow-up. That is a service fee for handling, not a fee for the number. The distinction matters, because both kinds of site look alike in search results.
Either way, the direct route is open to you, it is free from the IRS, and the rest of this guide walks through it.
Form Your Entity Before You Apply
This is the step people get backwards, and it is the one that actually costs time.
If you are forming a legal entity, an LLC, a partnership or a corporation, the IRS says to register it with your state first and then apply for the EIN. Apply in the wrong order and the IRS warns your application may be delayed, because the entity it is trying to match does not exist in state records yet.
So the sequence is: file with the state, wait for approval, then submit your EIN application. If you have not started, here is how to form your LLC with your state first.
Sole proprietors are the exception. There is no state formation filing to wait on, so you can apply whenever you are ready.
What You Need Before You Apply for an EIN
Have all of this in front of you, because the EIN application will not let you go back and hunt for it:
- Legal Business Name. Exactly as it appears on your formation documents.
- Trade Name. Your DBA, if you use one.
- Physical US Address. A street address, not a PO box.
- Entity Type. LLC, corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, estate or trust.
- Reason For Applying. Usually starting a new business, hiring employees or banking purposes.
- Start Date. The month and year the business began or will begin.
- Expected Employees. Your best estimate for the next twelve months.
- Principal Activity. What the business actually does.
You also name a responsible party. That is the person who controls the entity and its funds, and the IRS requires their name and their Social Security number or ITIN. Nominees are not permitted to apply on a business's behalf, and the IRS is explicit that a nominee who applies puts the entity's information at risk.
The Online EIN Application, Step by Step
The EIN registration process is a plain question-and-answer form, not a document you fill out, so there is nothing to download. You can complete the EIN application online in a single session on the IRS website.
- Open the IRS EIN application and click through to begin.
- Choose your entity type. The IRS defines each one on screen if you are unsure.
- Answer the follow-up for your type. An LLC is asked for its number of members and the state where it is physically located.
- Say whether you are the owner or a third-party designee filing on someone's behalf.
- Enter the legal name, trade name, address, county and state, and the state where your formation documents were filed.
- Give your reason for applying.
- Describe your principal business activity from the categories offered.
- Review every entry, then submit.
Two things about member count: a single-member LLC is treated by default as a disregarded entity, and a multi-member LLC is treated by default as a partnership. Those are the IRS defaults for how the business is taxed, and a CPA can confirm whether a different election makes sense for you.
Your EIN appears on screen as soon as the application is accepted. Download and save the confirmation letter at that moment. It is the easiest copy you will ever get, and retrieving it later takes a phone call.
When Is the Online EIN Application Open?
The IRS online EIN application runs Monday to Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Eastern the next day, Saturday from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and Sunday from 6:00 p.m. to midnight. It times out after 15 minutes of inactivity and cannot be saved, so finish in one sitting.
| Day | Hours (Eastern) |
|---|---|
| Monday to Friday | 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the next day |
| Saturday | 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. |
| Sunday | 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. |
Those weekend windows are worth knowing. If your week is booked, Sunday evening is a real option, and plenty of guidance still circulating online lists weekday-only hours that ended years ago.
One more limit: the IRS issues one EIN per responsible party per day. That applies across every channel, so a second application the same day will not go through no matter how you send it.
How Do You Apply for an EIN Without the Online Tool?
Fax Form SS-4 to 855-641-6935 and the IRS faxes your EIN back in about four business days, or mail it to the EIN Operation in Cincinnati and wait roughly four weeks. If your principal place of business is outside the United States, call 267-941-1099 instead, Monday to Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern.
- By Fax. Send Form SS-4 to 855-641-6935 with your own fax number on it. The IRS returns a cover sheet carrying the EIN in roughly four business days.
- By Mail. Send it to Internal Revenue Service, Attn: EIN Operation, Cincinnati, OH 45999. Budget about four weeks, and longer when IRS volumes are high.
- From Outside the US. Call 267-941-1099, which is not toll free, or fax to 855-215-1627 from inside the US and 304-707-9471 from outside it.
Worth clearing up, because stale advice on this is everywhere: applying by phone is the route for businesses whose principal place of business is outside the United States. If your business is US-based, the IRS lists online, fax and mail. The general business tax line is for retrieving a lost EIN or requesting a replacement letter, not for getting a new number. For a fuller breakdown of each channel, see how long an EIN takes.
Why Was My EIN Application Rejected?
Most rejections come back as reference number 101, which means the IRS found a conflict or could not process what you entered. The usual causes are a responsible party who already holds an EIN, a business name using characters the IRS does not accept, an address over 35 characters, or applying before your state approved the entity.
The character rules catch more people than anything else, because they are invisible until the application fails. IRS systems accept only letters, numbers, hyphens and ampersands in a business name:
| What you have | What to enter |
|---|---|
| A period, plus sign or at sign | Spell it out or replace it with a space, so Jones.Com becomes Jones Dot Com |
| A slash | Replace it with a hyphen |
| An apostrophe | Remove it with no space, so O'Brien becomes OBrien |
| An address over 35 characters | Trim to essentials using USPS abbreviations, keeping suite and unit numbers |
The other frequent cause is timing. If your state has not finished approving the entity, IRS records will not match what you are typing, which is the same problem as applying in the wrong order.
If you hit reference 101, the online tool will not tell you which field caused it. Check the name against your formation documents character by character, confirm your state approval came through, and if the EIN application still fails, Form SS-4 by fax gets a human involved.
When Can You Use Your EIN?
You can use your EIN immediately to open a business bank account, apply for licenses, and file a paper return. Wait up to two weeks before you try to e-file a return, pass IRS TIN matching, or make electronic tax deposits, because the number has to reach the IRS permanent records first.
This split explains something that confuses a lot of new owners. The bank accepts the number on day one while payroll software rejects it the same afternoon. Nothing is wrong. The bank is reading the confirmation letter, and the payroll system is querying IRS records that have not updated yet.
If a filing deadline lands before your EIN arrives, the IRS says to write "Applied For" and the date you applied in the space for the number.
Ready to hand it off instead? FormationHub can file your EIN for you and send you the confirmation letter, so you can get back to the work that pays.
After You Get Your EIN
Save the confirmation letter somewhere you will find it again. If it goes missing, the IRS will not reissue the original, but it will confirm your number another way, including a replacement letter by phone. Here is what the EIN letter is and how to replace it, and how to find your EIN number if you have lost it entirely.
A point that is widely reported backwards: you do not need a new EIN to change your business name, your address or your responsible party. The IRS states that plainly. You generally do need a new one when the entity's ownership or structure changes, such as converting an LLC to a corporation. The IRS is clear that a business entity should have only one EIN, and applying for a second number you do not need creates duplicate records that are tedious for a business owner to unwind.
If your responsible party changes, the IRS requires that change to be reported within 60 days on Form 8822-B.
Finally, some LLCs and corporations are required to report their beneficial owners to FinCEN. These requirements have changed more than once, so confirm what applies to you at FinCEN's beneficial ownership page before you rely on anything written about them, including this.
Disclaimer: FormationHub is not a law firm or an accounting firm, and this article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Filing fees, processing times, and state requirements change. Confirm the current requirements with your state's filing office or the IRS before you file, and talk to a licensed attorney or CPA about your specific situation.
You Might Also Like
- How to Get an EIN
- What Is an EIN Number?
- EIN vs TIN: What Is the Difference?
- Free EIN Lookup
- Free LLC and EIN Filing Explained