An EAN number for unemployment, properly called an Employer Account Number, is the identifier your state’s unemployment insurance agency assigns to your business so it can track your wage reports, tax payments, and any benefit claims filed by former employees. It’s separate from your federal EIN, it’s issued by the state, and every employer who crosses the state’s liability threshold needs one. It stays attached to your business for as long as you operate in that state.
How to Get an EAN
You get an EAN by registering with your state’s unemployment insurance agency, usually within 10 to 30 days of becoming a liable employer. In most states, hiring your first employee is what starts the clock. Some states instead trigger liability once you’ve paid a certain dollar amount of wages in a quarter, with thresholds falling roughly between $7,000 and $13,000 depending on the state.
Registration itself is straightforward. You submit your business name and address, entity type, and Federal Employer Identification Number. Most states run this online, and the EAN typically arrives within a few business days. Some agencies mail a separate authorization code or confirmation letter to your business address afterward.
What You Use the EAN For
Once you have the number, it identifies your business for three ongoing obligations to the state unemployment system:
- Quarterly wage reports. Each quarter you report every employee’s wages under your EAN. The state uses that data to determine whether former employees qualify for benefits and how much they receive.
- Quarterly tax payments. Your state unemployment contributions are due on the same schedule as the wage reports and fund the state’s unemployment trust fund.
- Benefit claim responses. When a former employee files for unemployment, the state notifies you through your EAN. Benefits paid on approved claims are charged against your account.
That third piece has consequences most new employers underestimate, because the charges against your account drive your future tax rate.
How Your EAN Drives Your Tax Rate
State unemployment taxes are experience-rated. The more successful claims filed by your former employees, the higher your rate climbs. Your EAN is the account where that history lives.
When you first register, the state assigns a default new-employer rate. These vary widely, from as low as 0.01% to over 10% for construction employers in high-rate states. After you’ve been in the system long enough to build a track record, the state recalculates your rate based on your actual claims experience. Low turnover and few successful claims pull your rate down. Frequent layoffs push it up, sometimes to the state maximum for years.
Mechanically, the state keeps a running balance on your account: taxes you’ve paid minus benefits charged against you. A healthy positive balance lowers your rate; a negative balance raises it. That’s why employers contest claims they believe are unjustified. Every approved claim chips away at the balance.
Multi-State Employers and Remote Workers
Your EAN is state-specific. If you have employees working in more than one state, you need a separate EAN in each state where those employees perform their work, even if your business only has a physical office in one of them.
The general rule under the localization-of-work tests used across states is that an employee’s work is localized where they physically perform it, as long as any work done outside that state is incidental. A full-time remote employee living in a different state than your office is localized in their own state, and their unemployment taxes go there. You need an EAN there too. When work is genuinely split and can’t be localized, the tiebreaker looks first at the employee’s base of operations, then at your place of direction and control, and finally at the employee’s state of residence.
The practical rule: every time you hire in a new state, check whether unemployment registration is required there.
EAN vs. Federal EIN
The EAN and the Federal Employer Identification Number serve different systems. Your FEIN is a nine-digit IRS-issued number that identifies your business for federal tax purposes and stays the same everywhere you operate. Your EAN is issued by a state unemployment agency and applies only to that state’s unemployment program.
Two things trip employers up. Some states use the term “state EIN” to mean EAN. And some states assign an EAN that happens to match your FEIN. They aren’t interchangeable. The FEIN goes on federal returns; the EAN goes on state quarterly wage reports and unemployment filings. If you operate in three states, you have one FEIN and three EANs.
How the EAN Ties Into Federal FUTA
Keeping your state account current under your EAN also protects a federal credit. The Federal Unemployment Tax Act imposes a 6.0% tax on the first $7,000 of each employee’s wages per year.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 3301 – Rate of Tax That wage base has been unchanged since 1983. Most employers don’t actually pay the full 6.0%, because paying state unemployment taxes on time earns a credit of up to 5.4% against FUTA liability.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 3302 – Credits Against Tax That drops the effective FUTA rate to 0.6% for most employers, or $42 per employee per year.
The catch: your state has to be in good standing with the federal government. When a state borrows from the federal unemployment trust fund and doesn’t repay within two years, it becomes a “credit reduction state” and your FUTA credit shrinks. For 2025, California faced a 1.2% credit reduction, meaning employers there paid an effective FUTA rate of 1.8% instead of 0.6%.3Federal Register. Notice of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) Credit Reductions Applicable for 2025 You report all of this on IRS Form 940, your annual FUTA return, where you claim the credit for state contributions paid through your EAN.4Internal Revenue Service. FUTA Credit Reduction
Late state payments don’t just cost you interest at the state level. They can also cost you the FUTA credit federally, which is worth far more than most small employers expect.
Finding a Lost EAN
If you’ve misplaced yours, check prior correspondence from your state unemployment agency, pull a previously filed quarterly wage report, or ask your payroll provider, since they need the number to file for you. The EAN also often appears on the unemployment insurance poster that many states require employers to display in the workplace.
If none of those work, contact the state’s employer services unit. You’ll typically need to verify identity with your business name, address, FEIN, and the owner’s name plus the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Penalties for Skipping Registration or Filing Late
Failing to register, filing wage reports late, or paying unemployment taxes past the deadline all carry consequences. Late contributions typically trigger interest and can push your experience-rated tax rate higher in future years. Late wage reports often bring flat penalties that grow the longer you wait, plus per-employee charges in some states.
The bigger risk is worker misclassification. If you treat employees as independent contractors and an audit reverses that call, you can face back state unemployment taxes covering multiple years, unpaid FUTA, and penalties for missing or incorrect payroll information returns. Some states add per-worker penalties on top.
Buying or Selling a Business
When a business changes hands, the unemployment insurance account often transfers with it. If you acquire all or part of an existing business, you generally inherit some or all of the prior owner’s experience rating, including a favorable low rate or a punishing high one. Acquire the whole business and the seller’s account merges fully into yours. Acquire part, and the state calculates the percentage of experience to transfer based on the workforce and payroll you absorbed. Due diligence on the seller’s unemployment account matters, because a deeply negative balance can raise your rate for years.
Federal law requires every state to prohibit “SUTA dumping,” where an employer shuffles workforce into a shell entity or buys a clean-record business to escape a high experience rate, and to impose penalties on employers who knowingly attempt it.5U.S. Department of Labor. UIPL 30-04 SUTA Dumping – Amendments to Federal Law
A Note for Job Seekers
If you’re filing for unemployment benefits rather than running a business, you don’t need to know your former employer’s EAN. When you provide the employer’s name and address on your claim, the state matches that to the correct account on its own.