EIN basics for non-residents

Verified on November 4, 2026 against the IRS page “Employer identification number” and the Instructions for Form SS-4 (Rev. December 2025), cited in full at the foot of this entry.

§ 1 —What an EIN is

An EIN is a nine-digit number the Internal Revenue Service assigns to an entity — a company, partnership, estate, trust, or similar — for federal tax administration: filing returns, reporting payments, opening the entity's tax accounts.¹ It belongs to the entity, not to its owner. A foreign owner does not “have” the EIN; the U.S. entity does, and the owner's own number, if they have one, is a different thing entirely (see REF A-2).

Nothing about an EIN requires the owner to be a U.S. citizen, resident, or taxpayer. U.S. entities owned entirely by foreign persons hold EINs as a matter of routine, because the entity — formed under a state's law — is the applicant.

§ 2 —What it costs at the source

The IRS does not charge a fee for an EIN.¹ Any organisation charging for an EIN is charging for its own assistance — preparation, submission, chasing — never for the number itself. This library charges for reference and review, and files nothing; a filing business charges for filing. In every case, the number itself is free at the source.

§ 3 —Who needs one

The IRS's own test is functional: an entity needs an EIN when, among other triggers, it has employees, files certain excise or employment returns, withholds taxes on income paid to a nonresident alien, or — the case that brings most of this library's readers here — is a foreign-owned U.S. disregarded entity required to file Form 5472, which requires an EIN to file.^1,2 In practice, banks, payment processors, and marketplaces also ask for the entity's EIN as a condition of service.

§ 4 —The structural rules

One entity, one EIN. An entity keeps its EIN through changes of address and, generally, of ownership. A new EIN is called for by changes in the entity's own structure — the IRS lists the cases in the source below — not by a lost letter or a forgotten number (see REF C-1).

One EIN per responsible party per day. The IRS limits an applicant to one EIN per responsible party per business day, across every route — online, phone, fax, and mail alike.¹

A responsible party must be named. Every application names the individual who ultimately owns or controls the entity. The rules for that person are their own entry: REF B-1.

The route depends on where the entity sits. Online application is the fastest route and the most restricted. Who may use which route is set out in REF B-2.

§ 5 —Reading an IRS letter about your EIN

Keep the exact name and address on the IRS's confirmation notice.1 That spelling — not your articles of organization, not your bank's version — is what the IRS's records hold, and it is the spelling other institutions will be asked to match. When the notice itself is wrong, the correction is REF C-2.

General information only, not tax advice. Where this page and an IRS source differ, the IRS source governs.