EIN Lookup: Find Your EIN or Another Company's

"EIN lookup" means two very different things. Finding your own business's EIN is straightforward: the IRS gives you several ways to recover and confirm it. Finding another company's EIN is harder, because the IRS offers no public EIN search for businesses in general. This guide covers both, using the IRS's own instructions, and is honest about where the public record ends.

Part 1: Finding your own EIN

An EIN (Employer Identification Number) is the nine-digit federal tax ID the IRS assigns to a business. If you have lost track of yours, the IRS's EIN page suggests these steps, in this order:

1. Look for the notice the IRS issued when you applied. The confirmation notice (the CP575 series) shows the number.
2. Contact the bank where the business has its account.
3. Check with agencies where you applied for state or local licenses.
4. Look on past business tax returns.

Other places worth checking: payroll records, Forms W-2 or 1099 your business issued, and any Form W-9 you gave a client.

If you still can't find it, the IRS says to call its Business and Specialty Tax Line at 800-829-4933, Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time (Alaska and Hawaii follow Pacific time). The IRS will verify your identity and give the number over the phone if you are authorized to receive it. That condition is the key to everything in Part 2.

Getting written proof: CP575 and Letter 147C

Banks and other institutions often ask for written confirmation of an EIN. The IRS lists three ways to confirm one:

• An entity transcript, requested through the IRS business tax transcript process.
• A digital CP575, which eligible users can download from their IRS Business Tax Account.
• Letter 147C, "EIN Previously Assigned", requested by calling the Business and Specialty Tax Line.

The IRS page Understanding your CP575 notice explains that the digital CP575 is available only through Business Tax Account and can be used in place of both the original CP575A-J notices and Letter 147C. It also says the original CP575A-J notice cannot be duplicated or recreated, so if you lost it, don't wait for a copy; use one of the options above. The IRS says banks and other institutions accept the digital CP575 as written confirmation of an entity's EIN.

Keeping your EIN record current

According to the IRS, you don't need a new EIN to change your business name, address or responsible party, but you do generally need a new one when you change the entity's ownership or structure. Use Form 8822-B for a new mailing or location address or a new responsible party; the CP575 page says changes to the responsible party must be reported within 60 days. If you no longer need the number, the IRS says it can't cancel an EIN but can deactivate it.

If you receive an EIN you never requested, the IRS's page on EINs you didn't request suggests first checking whether a family member, accountant, partner or bank requested it for a legitimate reason. If not, you can report business identity theft with Form 14039-B.

Part 2: Finding another company's EIN

Here is the honest answer: there is no official, public, nationwide database where you type in a company's name and get its EIN. The IRS's own ways of confirming an EIN, described above, are for the business itself or someone authorized to receive its information. Be skeptical of any website that claims to look up any company's EIN in an "IRS database." It has no access to IRS records, so whatever it shows came from somewhere else and may be outdated or wrong.

That said, there are legitimate ways to get or confirm another business's EIN in specific situations.

Ask the business for a Form W-9

If you are paying a business and need its taxpayer ID for an information return such as a Form 1099, the standard route is to ask for a Form W-9. The IRS describes Form W-9 as the form a payee uses to provide its correct taxpayer identification number to the person who must file an information return. A legitimate vendor will expect this request.

If you file information returns, the IRS's TIN Matching service can check whether a name and TIN combination matches IRS records before you file. It is not a public lookup: the IRS says it is only for payers and their authorized agents who submit information returns, and the payer must be in the IRS Payer Account File and have an IRS account.

Tax-exempt organizations

Charities and other tax-exempt organizations are the main exception. The IRS's Tax Exempt Organization Search lets you search by EIN or organization name across datasets including Publication 78 data, the automatic revocation list, determination letters and Form 990-series returns. That makes it useful both for finding a nonprofit's EIN and for checking whether a charity is eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions.

State records that include an EIN

A few state systems accept or display the federal EIN:

• Florida. The Sunbiz records guide describes an FEI Number search that lists federal EINs and the entities associated with them, and notes that multiple entities may be listed under a single FEI number. Entity records also have an FEIN field. See Florida Sunbiz search options.
• Texas. The Comptroller's Franchise Tax Account Status search accepts an 11-digit Comptroller taxpayer number or a 9-digit federal EIN, as well as a name or Secretary of State file number. It shows the franchise tax account, which is a different record from the Secretary of State filing. See Texas business records and tax status.

These state fields contain whatever the business reported, so they can be blank or out of date. They are useful for matching a number you already have to a company, less so for discovering an unknown number.

Documents you already have

A company's EIN often appears on paperwork it has given you: a W-9, an invoice, a contract, or a tax form it issued to you. If you need the EIN for a legitimate business reason and can't find it, asking the company directly is usually the fastest and most reliable route.

An EIN is not a state registration

An EIN is issued by the IRS for federal tax purposes. It does not create a company, and it is not the same as the file or entity number a state assigns when a company registers. The IRS itself tells new entities to register with their state before applying for an EIN. To check that a company legally exists and is active, use the state registry, not the EIN. Start with how to look up an LLC or our list of official state business searches, and see what an EIN is for the basics.

Summary

• Your own EIN: check your IRS notice, bank, license applications and past returns, then call the IRS. For written proof, use a digital CP575, Letter 147C or an entity transcript.
• Another company's EIN: ask for a W-9. Use the IRS exempt organization search for nonprofits, and state systems like Florida's or Texas's to match a number you already have.
• Avoid sites that promise a complete EIN database; no such public IRS database exists.