Apply for an EIN number

What an EIN is for

An Employer Identification Number is the business equivalent of a social security number: nine digits the IRS uses to identify the entity. You need one to open a business bank account, hire employees, file most business returns, and — in practice — to be taken seriously by anyone asking for your details.

It is free from the IRS, and applying is straightforward when everything is ordinary. What we are paid for is the cases that are not.

When it is not straightforward

If the responsible party has no US social security number or ITIN, the online application is closed to you and the application goes in by fax or post, with a wait measured in weeks rather than minutes. Foreign-owned single-member LLCs run into this constantly, and the form asks questions that do not have obvious answers for them.

Entities with an unusual structure, trusts, estates and entities replacing a lost EIN all take the longer route as well. We prepare and file those, and follow them up.

Questions people ask

Related

• LLC formation

  You tell us the name, the state and who is behind it. We prepare the articles, file them with the state, and put the deadlines that follow on a calendar you can see.

• Business licenses

  Forming a company and licensing a business are two different things, and the second one is not issued by the state you formed in. Here is how the pieces fit together.

• Registered agent

  Every state requires an entity to name someone to receive legal papers. What matters is not the name on the filing — it is how fast what arrives reaches you.