How to Get a Free EIN Online (Step-by-Step Guide)

Arizona Business & Estate Planning

How to Get an EIN from the IRS: A Free and Simple Guide

By Arizona attorney Richard C. Keyt, KEYTLaw, LLC. Richard C. Keyt is an Arizona attorney and a former certified public accountant whose practice covers probate, estate planning, business and tax. Reach him at 480-664-7472 or rck@keytlaw.com.

 

If you formed a limited liability company, a corporation, a partnership or a nonprofit, or you are the trustee of an irrevocable trust or the personal representative of an estate, you probably need a federal Employer Identification Number. Here is the good news: the IRS gives you an EIN in a matter of minutes, online, and it does not cost a penny.

 

The IRS says it plainly on its own website: "Beware of websites that charge for an EIN. You never have to pay a fee for an EIN." Yet dozens of commercial sites are designed to look official and charge $75 to $300 for a number the government hands out for free. This guide walks you through the free way — the only way you should ever do it.

What an EIN Actually Is

An Employer Identification Number — also called a federal tax identification number, a federal EIN, or simply a tax ID — is a nine-digit number the IRS assigns to a business entity, trust, estate or organization. It is formatted like this: 12-3456789.

 

Think of an EIN as a Social Security number for your entity. Your LLC, corporation, nonprofit or irrevocable trust is a separate legal "person" for tax purposes, and the EIN is how the IRS, banks, payroll companies and vendors identify it.

 

The name is misleading. You do not need employees to need an EIN. A single-member LLC with no employees, an irrevocable trust with one beneficiary, and a decedent's estate all commonly need one. Despite the word "Employer," an EIN is really just a taxpayer identification number for anything that is not an individual human being.

Who Needs an EIN

The IRS says businesses, organizations and some retirement trusts need an EIN to manage their taxes. Generally, you need an EIN to:

• Hire employees
• Operate a partnership or a corporation
• Pay sales and excise taxes
• Change business structures or ownership
• Administer certain trusts, retirement plans and estates

In my Arizona practice, these are the situations that send people looking for an EIN most often:

Arizona LLCs and corporations

Every multi-member Arizona LLC needs an EIN because it files a partnership return. A single-member LLC that is a disregarded entity technically may use the owner's Social Security number, but almost every bank in Arizona will insist on an EIN before it opens a business account — and using an EIN instead of your SSN keeps your Social Security number off vendor forms, W-9s and 1099s. Get the EIN. It is free and it takes ten minutes.

 

Every Arizona corporation needs an EIN, whether it is taxed as a C corporation or has elected S corporation status.

Arizona nonprofit corporations

A nonprofit corporation must have an EIN before it can apply to the IRS for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The EIN comes first; Form 1023 or 1023-EZ comes second.

Irrevocable trusts

A revocable living trust does not need its own EIN while the person who created it is alive — it uses the grantor's Social Security number. But when the grantor dies and the trust becomes irrevocable, the successor trustee must obtain an EIN for the trust before filing a Form 1041 fiduciary income tax return or opening a trust bank account.

 

The same is true of an irrevocable asset-protected trust created inside an estate plan to hold a beneficiary's inheritance. Once that subtrust is funded and operating, the trustee needs an EIN for it.

Estates of deceased people

A personal representative administering a probate estate needs an EIN for the estate to open an estate bank account and to file the estate's income tax return.

Form Your Entity with the State First

This is the mistake I see most often, and the IRS now warns about it directly on its EIN page.

 

If you are forming a legal entity — an LLC, a partnership, a corporation or a tax-exempt organization — you must form that entity with your state before you apply for an EIN. In Arizona that means filing your Articles of Organization or Articles of Incorporation with the Arizona Corporation Commission and getting them approved first.

 

The IRS puts it this way: if you don't form your entity with your state first, your EIN application may be delayed. Worse, you may end up with an EIN tied to a name that does not match your approved state filing, which creates headaches with banks and with the IRS later.

Who Can Use the Free Online Tool

The IRS online EIN application is not open to everyone. According to the IRS, you can use it if all three of these are true:

• Your principal place of business is in the United States or a U.S. territory.
• You are the responsible party in control of the entity, or that person's authorized representative.
• You have the responsible party's Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).

You cannot use the online tool in these situations:

• Your principal place of business is outside the United States. You must instead apply by phone, fax or mail.
• You want to apply using an existing EIN as the responsible party's identifying number. Only government entities may do that.

Who is the "responsible party"?

The responsible party is the individual human being who ultimately owns or controls the entity, or who exercises ultimate effective control over it and its assets. For a single-member LLC, that is normally the member. For a multi-member LLC, it is one of the members. For a corporation, it is typically a principal officer. For a trust, it is the trustee. For an estate, it is the personal representative or executor.

 

The responsible party must be a natural person, not another company — with the narrow exception for government entities noted above. You can read the IRS guidance on responsible parties and nominees for the details.

What You Need Before You Start

Gather these three things before you open the application. The form does not let you save and come back, so you want everything in front of you.

• Your business entity type. LLC, corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, nonprofit corporation, trust, estate and so on. If you are unsure, review the IRS page on business structures.
• The responsible party's Social Security number or ITIN. Plus that person's full legal name exactly as it appears on their Social Security card.
• Signed authorization, if you are a third-party designee. If someone other than the responsible party is completing the application, that person must have written authorization to apply.

I also recommend having these ready, because the application asks for them:

• The exact legal name of the entity as approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission
• Any trade name or "doing business as" name
• The entity's mailing address and street address
• The county and state where the entity is located
• The date the entity was formed or acquired
• The closing month of the entity's accounting year — almost always December
• Your best estimate of how many employees you expect in the next 12 months, if any
• A short description of the entity's principal business activity

Step by Step: Getting Your EIN Online

Set aside fifteen uninterrupted minutes. Here is the whole process.

Hours, Time Limits and the One-Per-Day Rule

Three practical constraints trip people up.

The tool is not available 24 hours a day

The IRS takes the EIN application offline for maintenance every night. These are the hours it is available, in Eastern Time:

Day	Available (Eastern Time)
Monday – Friday	6:00 a.m. – 1:00 a.m. the next day
Saturday	6:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Sunday	6:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m.

Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, so the offset from Eastern Time changes twice a year. Arizona is three hours behind Eastern during Mountain Standard Time in the winter and two hours behind in the summer. Sunday morning is the one time the tool is reliably unavailable — plan around it.

You must finish in one session

You cannot save the application and come back to it. Worse, the session expires after 15 minutes of inactivity and you must start over from the beginning. Close your email, silence your phone, and have your information gathered before you begin.

One EIN per responsible party per day

The IRS limits you to one EIN per responsible party per day. If you are forming three LLCs at once, you cannot get three EINs on the same afternoon using the same responsible party. You will need three separate days, or a different responsible party for each entity where that is legitimately accurate.

Save Your EIN Confirmation Letter

The confirmation letter the IRS issues at the end of the online application — Notice CP 575 — is the official proof that your EIN belongs to your entity. Banks ask for it. Payroll providers ask for it. Lenders ask for it.

 

The IRS will not reissue a CP 575. If you lose it, the best you can do is call the IRS Business and Specialty Tax Line and request a Letter 147C, which serves the same verification purpose but takes time to obtain.

Do Not Pay for an EIN

The IRS states it directly: "Beware of websites that charge for an EIN. You never have to pay a fee for an EIN."

 

A whole industry exists to sit between you and a free government form. These sites buy search advertising so they appear above the IRS in search results. They use official-sounding names with words like "federal," "national," "filing" and "tax ID." They display eagles and flags. Some of them look better than the actual IRS website. And they charge $75, $150, even $300 to type your answers into the same free form you could have used yourself.

How to tell the difference

The real IRS	A paid commercial site
URL ends in .gov	URL ends in .com, .org or .net
Never asks for a credit card	Asks for payment before submitting
Issues your EIN immediately	Often takes days, because it is really just filing on your behalf
Appears as an official U.S. government website banner at the top	May display a disclaimer in small print saying it is not affiliated with the IRS

If you are already on a page asking for your credit card number to get an EIN, close the tab. Go to https://sa.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/index.jsp instead.

If You Cannot Apply Online

The online tool covers the great majority of applicants, but not all. If your principal place of business is outside the United States, or the online application will not accept your situation, the IRS offers three alternatives: phone, fax and mail, each using Form SS-4.

 

International applicants can call the IRS to obtain an EIN by telephone. Domestic applicants can fax a completed Form SS-4 and generally receive an EIN back by fax within about four business days, or mail Form SS-4 and wait roughly four weeks. Current phone numbers, fax numbers and mailing addresses are on the IRS page Employer identification number.

What Happens After You Get Your EIN

Getting the number is the beginning, not the end. Once you have an EIN, the IRS expects to hear from that entity.

You must file the required returns

The IRS is explicit that once you get an EIN, you must file the required tax returns or information returns for that entity. An EIN you obtained and then ignored can generate IRS notices for years.

Open the entity's bank account

Take the CP 575 letter, your Arizona Corporation Commission approval and your operating agreement or bylaws to the bank. Keeping entity money in a separate account is one of the most important things you can do to preserve the liability protection your LLC or corporation is supposed to give you.

Give the EIN to your accountant and your payroll provider

Your accountant needs the EIN to file the entity's returns, and any payroll service will need it before it can issue a single paycheck. Send both a copy of the confirmation letter rather than typing the number into an email, so nobody transposes a digit.

When You Need a Brand New EIN

An EIN stays with the entity for life in most cases. But certain changes create a new taxpayer in the eyes of the IRS, and a new taxpayer needs a new number. Common examples include:

• A sole proprietorship incorporates or becomes a partnership
• A partnership incorporates, or a corporation becomes a partnership
• A single-member LLC taxed as a disregarded entity adds members and becomes a partnership
• You inherit or purchase an existing business and operate it as a sole proprietorship
• A corporation receives a new charter from the secretary of state
• A trust changes to an estate, or a revocable trust becomes irrevocable on the grantor's death

Simply changing your business name or moving to a new address does not require a new EIN. The IRS maintains a detailed list at when to get a new EIN.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does an EIN cost?

Nothing. The IRS issues EINs free of charge. Any website that charges you for an EIN is a commercial middleman, not the government.

How long does it take to get an EIN online?

Most people finish the application in ten to fifteen minutes, and the IRS issues the EIN immediately upon approval. You can download and print your confirmation letter the same minute.

Do I need an EIN for a single-member Arizona LLC with no employees?

Technically a disregarded single-member LLC may use the owner's Social Security number. Practically, get the EIN. Banks require it, it keeps your Social Security number off W-9s and 1099s, and it costs nothing.

Does my revocable living trust need an EIN?

Not while you are alive. A revocable living trust uses the grantor's Social Security number. When the grantor dies and the trust becomes irrevocable, the successor trustee must obtain an EIN for the trust.

Can I get more than one EIN in a single day?

No. The IRS limits applications to one EIN per responsible party per day.

Can I save the online application and finish it later?

No. You must complete it in one session, and it expires after 15 minutes of inactivity, requiring you to start over.

Should I get my EIN before or after I form my Arizona LLC?

After. The IRS instructs you to form your entity through your state first. Applying before your Arizona Corporation Commission filing is approved can delay your EIN application and produce a name mismatch.

What if I lose my EIN confirmation letter?

The IRS will not reissue the original CP 575 notice. You can call the IRS Business and Specialty Tax Line and request a Letter 147C, which banks generally accept as verification.

Can I apply if I live outside the United States?

Not through the online tool. If your principal place of business is outside the U.S., you must apply by phone, fax or mail using Form SS-4.

Does an EIN expire or need renewal?

No. An EIN is permanent and is never reused or reassigned to another entity, even if the original entity closes.

This article is general information about federal tax identification numbers and is not legal or tax advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. IRS procedures, hours and requirements change; verify current information at irs.gov. Consult an attorney or tax professional about your specific situation. Source: Internal Revenue Service, "Get an employer identification number," irs.gov, page last reviewed or updated May 20, 2026.