How to Get an EIN From the IRS Online for Free

To get an Employer Identification Number from the IRS online for free, go to irs.gov and use the agency’s EIN Assistant. The tool walks you through an interview version of Form SS-4 and, once you finish, issues your nine-digit EIN on the spot. There is no fee, no matter how you apply.¹

Everything below is about doing it correctly the first time so you leave the session with a working EIN.

Who Can Use the Online Tool

Two conditions have to be met. The entity must have a legal residence or principal place of business in the United States or a U.S. territory, and the responsible party listed on the application must have a valid Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number.¹

The responsible party is the individual who owns, controls, or effectively manages the entity and its funds — not a nominee, not a formation agent.²

One more prerequisite: if you’re forming an LLC, partnership, corporation, or tax-exempt organization, register the entity with your state first. The IRS warns that applying before your state formation is complete can delay your application.¹

What to Have Ready Before You Start

The online session doesn’t let you save and return, so gather everything before you open the tool. The interview follows Form SS-4, and it asks for:³

The entity’s legal name, spelled exactly as it appears on the charter, articles of organization, or Social Security card.
Any trade name or “doing business as” name, if different.
Mailing address for IRS correspondence, plus a physical street address if it differs.
Entity type: corporation, partnership, LLC, sole proprietor, trust, estate, and so on.
The date the business was started or acquired, and the closing month of your accounting year.
The responsible party’s full name and taxpayer ID number (SSN, ITIN, or existing EIN).
The reason for applying — starting a new business, hiring employees, changing organization type, etc.
The expected number of employees over the next 12 months and a description of the entity’s principal business activity.

If you’re authorizing an accountant, attorney, or formation service to receive the EIN for you, complete the Third Party Designee section of Form SS-4. That designee’s authority is narrow: it covers answering IRS questions about the application and receiving the assigned EIN, and it ends the moment the EIN is issued. Watch one restriction — if the designee’s address or phone number matches the entity’s, the IRS will not process the application online, and you’ll have to fax or mail Form SS-4 instead.³

When the Online Tool Is Available

The EIN Assistant runs on a fixed schedule in Eastern Time:

Monday through 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 midnight

The IRS also limits each responsible party to one EIN per day.¹ If you’re standing up several entities, plan to apply on separate days.

Walking Through the Application

Once you launch the assistant, it takes you through the SS-4 fields in order. You choose the entity type, confirm eligibility, identify the responsible party, enter the addresses and formation details, and describe what the business does. The session must be completed in one sitting, and the tool times out if you leave it idle.

At the end, the IRS validates your entries in real time. If everything clears, the assistant displays your EIN and offers a downloadable confirmation notice (CP 575) that you should save and print immediately. The IRS treats this notice as the only original proof of your EIN and will not issue a duplicate, so store it with your permanent business records.⁴

The EIN Is Free — Ignore the Paid Sites

The IRS does not charge anything for an EIN, regardless of how you apply, and the agency states plainly that you should never pay a fee for one.¹ Despite that, third-party websites designed to look like official IRS pages routinely charge anywhere from $50 to $300 to file the application on your behalf. The Federal Trade Commission has warned operators of these sites that their practices may violate federal law.⁵

Type irs.gov into your browser directly. Don’t follow search ads or links from unfamiliar sites, and be skeptical of any page asking for payment information as part of an “EIN application.”

If the Tool Returns a Reference Number Error

The online assistant sometimes stops short and displays a Reference Number instead of an EIN. Most of these fall into two categories.

Data mismatches mean the IRS found a conflict between what you entered and what it has on file. The usual triggers are a business name too similar to an existing one, an SSN or ITIN that doesn’t match the responsible party’s name on record, or a third-party designee whose contact information matches the entity’s. Recheck every field for typos and try again. If the same error comes back, submit Form SS-4 by fax or mail so the IRS can review it manually.

Technical errors are server-side problems unrelated to your data. Wait 24 hours and try again. Repeated attempts in a short window can themselves trigger errors, so patience helps more than persistence. If it still fails after a day, switch to fax or mail.

One block isn’t really an error. The system will stop you if the responsible party already received an EIN that day. That’s the one-per-day limit doing its job; come back tomorrow.

If You Can’t Use the Online Tool

The online option is off-limits to applicants without a U.S. legal residence, principal office, or place of business in the United States or U.S. territories. International applicants have three alternatives:⁶

Call 267-941-1099 (not toll-free), Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The caller must be authorized to receive the EIN and answer questions about Form SS-4. The IRS may ask you to fax or mail the signed form within 24 hours of the call.
Fax the completed Form SS-4 to the IRS EIN International Operation.
Mail the completed Form SS-4 to Internal Revenue Service, Attn: EIN International Operation, Cincinnati, OH 45999. Delivery by mail takes about four weeks.

If the responsible party doesn’t have and isn’t eligible for a Social Security number or ITIN, enter “foreign” or “N/A” on Line 7b. You can’t leave it blank.

Domestic applicants who prefer paper can fax Form SS-4 to 855-641-6935 and receive the EIN back within about four business days, or mail it to the Cincinnati address above and allow roughly four weeks.⁶

Using the EIN Once You Have It

You can start using the EIN immediately for most purposes: opening a bank account, applying for business licenses, and filing a tax return.⁴ The IRS also mails a paper copy of the CP 575 to the entity’s address after a successful application.

If the CP 575 is ever lost, you have two ways to verify the number. Request an entity transcript through the IRS’s online transcript tool, or call the Business and Specialty Tax Line at 800-829-4933 (Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. local time) and ask for Letter 147C, which confirms the EIN previously assigned to your entity.⁴

One thing worth knowing before you apply: an EIN is permanent. Once assigned, the IRS won’t cancel it or reassign it to another entity, though you can later close the business tax account associated with it if the entity dissolves.⁷ Apply once, apply for the right entity, and you’re set.

1
Internal Revenue Service. Get an Employer Identification Number
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Internal Revenue Service. Responsible Parties and Nominees
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form SS-4 (Rev. December 2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. Employer Identification Number
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Federal Trade Commission. Don’t Pay to Get Your Employer Identification Number (EIN)
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Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form SS-4 (12/2025)
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Internal Revenue Service. If You No Longer Need Your EIN