When opening and operating a company in the United States, there are a number of elements you must be aware of in order to be compliant as a legal entity conducting business. One of those elements is whether your business needs to be registered as an independent tax-paying entity with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The way to ensure that your business and the IRS are on the same page when it comes to tax time is by applying for and obtaining an Employer Identification Number (EIN) or Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN).
But what happens if you lose, or can’t find, your EIN? In this article, we will help you understand the importance of keeping your EIN safe and at your fingertips and what to do if you’ve lost your business’s EIN.
What Is an EIN?
An EIN or FEIN is a unique taxpayer identification number that is assigned to a business by the IRS. It is necessary to comply with IRS business requirements in order to be in good standing with the United States federal government. It’s a nine-digit number that identifies your company with the IRS, in much the same way as your SSN identifies you with the IRS as an individual taxpayer.
Once you have an EIN, you can use it to file both federal and state taxes.
Determining whether or not your business needs an EIN depends on the operating structure you choose for your business. For example, some sole proprietorships can operate without an EIN, simply using the owner’s SSN for all business-related expenses and taxes. However, more often than not, there are structural elements to an operating entity that would require it to apply for and obtain an EIN. Very simply, business-operating structures, including partnerships, corporations, LLCs, and many others, generally require an EIN.
How to Find Your EIN
The first place to look for your EIN is on your EIN confirmation letter, also known as the CP-575 letter.
Before you do anything else, look through your paper and digital business files. You, or the person who helped you apply for your EIN, may have a saved copy of it for times just like this.
When you find it, make sure you keep it in a safe and retrievable place, and keep a duplicate in a digital backup file for next time.
If you’re not able to locate your EIN number this way, there are a number of alternative ways to find it. We will explore these throughout this article.
How to Find Your EIN if You've Lost It
The easiest and quickest way of retrieving your EIN is by finding it on the original confirmation CP-575 letter from the IRS, but if you can’t find your confirmation letter, don’t worry, all is not lost.
Consult Your Business Documents
Try revisiting applications, account statements and previously filed forms to find your EIN. While the CP-575 confirmation letter is the most typical place to find your EIN, it will also be listed on any and all tax forms filed in previous years, business bank account statements, business loan applications. Even payroll documents, like 1099s you’ve received or issued, will have your company’s EIN listed on them.
Contact Related Institutions
Another possible way of finding your lost EIN is to contact any institutions with which you previously shared your ID. For example, your business bank or your local and state business license agencies would likely have a copy of your EIN on file. Giving your bank manager or licensing agency a quick call could help you retrieve your EIN quickly and easily.
Call the IRS
If the previous methods didn’t help you find your lost or misplaced EIN, you can always call the IRS Business & Specialty Tax Line directly at 800-829-4933. You can reach them Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. local time. For shorter wait times, we recommend calling as early in the day as possible on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. If possible, we also recommend avoiding calling the IRS close to President’s Day weekend and close to the April tax deadline.
Whenever you make your call, be sure to bring lots of patience and the understanding that the assister on the other end is doing their very best to resolve your issue quickly.
You can also help make your call smoother by having the right information ready when you make your call.
The assister will need to verify you as a person authorized to receive sensitive information like your business’s EIN. Examples of an authorized person include: a sole proprietor, a partner in a partnership, a corporate officer, a trustee of a trust or an executor of an estate.
Once the assister is able to verify you, they will provide you with your EIN number over the telephone.
When Do You Need to Use Your EIN?
While the most common use for your EIN is to apply for business licenses and file taxes with the IRS, there are many other instances in which you will need to use your EIN in day-to-day business operations.
Using your EIN will make the process of opening business bank accounts and applying for business loans and lines of credit faster and easier. It might even open up eligibility for banking products or opportunities to work with financial institutions you wouldn’t be able to access without it.
Having an EIN is also required for hiring employees and executing payroll, benefits programs and retirement plans.
How to Lookup Another Company's EIN
Unfortunately, because the IRS does not offer a public database of business EINs, you will need to do a little research to get it.
There are a few options if you’d like to find another company’s EIN.
1.Contact the company directly.
It’s not uncommon that a business is unwilling to provide their EIN. But asking a business directly for this information is always a good first step if you have a relationship with them already. Some of the best people to ask are in the accounting and payroll departments, where they use the company’s EIN regularly and will likely have it on hand.
2.Obtain a copy of the company’s credit report.
Did you know that business credit reports are easily accessible from all major business credit bureaus? And, many of these reports include the company’s EIN.
3.Do an online search.
Consider conducting a search through various federal government websites. You could start with the appropriate secretary of state’s website (the state where the business is registered), or try the Security Exchange Commission’s website for recently filed 10-K or 10-Q forms to identify a company’s EIN. For publicly traded companies, you could also try the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) website for SEC filings. If you’re searching for a nonprofit’s EIN, use the IRS database instead.
Safeguarding Your EIN
Your EIN is one of the most important pieces of identification you need for day-to-day business activities, so it’s essential to keep it safe.
We recommend keeping your critical, paper-based business records in a locked filing cabinet, with a digital duplicate stored in a digital document-management system or password-management system.
Conclusion
Knowing and having your EIN available is as important as keeping it safe. Because of this, we recommend memorizing your EIN and keeping it on hand, while securing the paper document in a safe place and keeping a digital duplicate in a password-management system.
Even with these measures, sometimes we can forget, misplace or even lose an important piece of information like an EIN. In that case, there are a number of different ways to retrieve it.
FAQS
Yes, an EIN is a record within the public domain, which means you can legally search for the number for any company. However, it is a federal crime to use EIN information illegally.
Yes, there are multiple ways to look up an EIN number. We covered all of the options above.
An EIN is required for tax filing; IRS-related issues; opening most business bank accounts and loans; hiring employees; executing payroll, benefits programs and retirement plans; and more.
You can apply for and obtain an EIN by submitting a Form SS-4 to the IRS.
Only in the case of nonprofits can you search for an EIN on the IRS database. Otherwise, try the Security Exchange Commission’s website for recently filed 10-K or 10-Q forms. Or, for publicly traded companies, you could also try the Securities and Exchange Commission’s(SEC) website for SEC filings.
Yes, in some banks, it can be possible to open a business bank account without an EIN. In most cases, however, having an EIN makes opening a business bank account a much faster and smoother process, and can even open up the option of banking products and services you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
The simple answer is no. Your EIN is only one of several pieces of information you’ll most likely need to open a business bank account if your operating business structure is a partnership, corporation or LLC with employees.
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