How to get an EIN without an SSN or ITIN
Francis Webb, Founder, 1 Day EIN LLC
This is general information about IRS procedure, not tax advice.
If you are not a US citizen or resident, you can get an Employer Identification Number for your US company. You do not need a Social Security Number, you do not need an ITIN, and you do not need to set foot in the United States.
Almost everything written about EINs is written for Americans, which is why so little of it helps you. This page covers what is specific to non-residents: why the obvious route is closed, why the process is less treacherous than most pages suggest, the one thing about it that genuinely varies, and how to tell whether you need an EIN at all — because a large share of the people who ask us for one are trying to solve a different problem.
Why the IRS online application refuses you
The IRS online EIN assistant asks for the responsible party's SSN or ITIN, and validates it before it will issue a number. If you have neither, the application cannot complete.
This is not a bug and there is no workaround. The tool was built for applicants who already hold a US taxpayer identification number, and it behaves correctly by refusing everyone else.
That single fact is why so many non-residents conclude they cannot get an EIN at all. They can. The web form is simply not the route, and the IRS does not pretend otherwise: its own instructions for Form SS-4 provide for a responsible party who holds no US tax number and is not eligible for one, and the form can reach the IRS by means other than the website.
So access is not the problem. Nobody is being gatekept.
It is also not as difficult as most pages want you to believe
A lot of what is written about non-resident EINs is written by people selling the solution, and it reads accordingly: traps at every line, rejections waiting, an application that will fail in ways you cannot foresee.
That is not our experience, and we would rather say so.
If the information on the form is correct and consistent, the application is routine. And if something is wrong, you are told — this is not a process that swallows your application and leaves you guessing. You get the chance to put it right.
Four things have to be true, and they are the same four every time:
- The company exists. An EIN is issued to an entity, so the entity must be approved by the state first — not filed, not pending. Formation comes before this, always.
- The company name matches the state filing exactly. Punctuation, "LLC" against "L.L.C.", a dropped comma, a changed word order. The match is on text, not intent.
- The responsible party's details match their passport. A real person, normally you as the owner — not a company, not a nominee — with names and spellings consistent across every document.
- The entity classification is right. A foreign-owned single-member LLC is a specific thing to the IRS, and getting it wrong here creates a problem you will meet again the following April.
Get those four right and there is very little left to go wrong.
The real variable is time — and it is the provider, not the IRS
Here is the part nobody puts on a comparison page.
If you are using a formation service, the wait for your EIN depends far more on which service you chose than on anything the IRS does. The spread is not marginal. These are the published positions of the main providers serving non-residents, as at September 2026:
| Provider | Time to receive your EIN |
|---|---|
| 1 Day EIN | 1 business day, Monday to Friday |
| doola | 4 to 6 weeks |
| LegalZoom | Several weeks |
| Firstbase | Not guaranteed |
Provider turnaround times as published by each provider, checked 1 September 2026.
Four to six weeks against one business day is not the IRS being slow for one company and fast for another. It is a difference in how quickly the provider prepares and submits your application, and in whether they are willing to commit to a date at all. Note the last row in particular: a provider that gives no timeline has told you something important, which is that your date is not their problem.
For a US applicant, a few weeks either way is an inconvenience. For a non-resident it is usually the whole problem, because the EIN sits upstream of everything else you are trying to do. The bank account needs it. The payment processor needs it. The supplier account, the marketplace registration and the first client contract all wait behind it. You are not waiting for a number — you are waiting to be able to trade.
An EIN is not an ITIN, and you probably only need one of them
This causes more confusion than anything else in the process, and getting it wrong costs months.
| EIN | ITIN | |
|---|---|---|
| Issued to | a business entity | an individual person |
| What it is for | the company's tax identity — filings, bank accounts, payment processors | filing a personal US tax return when you are not eligible for an SSN |
| How long | one business day with us; weeks with most providers | 8 to 12 weeks, frequently longer |
| Do you need it to form and run a US LLC as a non-resident? | yes | usually not |
Most non-resident founders forming a US LLC need an EIN and never need an ITIN. An ITIN becomes relevant when you personally have a US filing obligation — which is a different question from your company having one.
If someone has told you that you need an ITIN before you can get an EIN, that is wrong, and it is an expensive kind of wrong: you would be waiting three months for a document you do not need, in order to get one you could have had this week.
About five times a week, someone comes to us wanting an ITIN. Most of them do not need one.
When we ask what they are actually trying to do, the answer is nearly always the same: they want a US bank account. They have read that a US tax number is the way to get one, found that they cannot get an SSN, and concluded that an ITIN must be the answer.
Here is what that costs. An ITIN application takes 8 to 12 weeks at the IRS before anything comes back, and frequently longer than that. A large share need rework — a W-7 re-signed, a clarification answered, a document re-certified — and each round trip adds weeks. We do this work and we are good at it, and it is still months.
For someone whose actual goal is banking, the alternative is a US LLC with an EIN: the company's own tax identity, in a day rather than a quarter. That identity is what a US bank or payment processor is asking about in the first place.
An ITIN is for your personal US tax return. An EIN is for your company. If you cannot name the personal US filing obligation that requires an ITIN, you probably need the other one.
After the EIN: what is actually coming
Getting the EIN is the start of a compliance calendar, not the end of a task. Two obligations catch new foreign-owned LLC owners out, and both carry penalties out of all proportion to the size of the business.
Form 5472 with a pro-forma 1120. A foreign-owned single-member US LLC must file these annually, due 15 April for the previous tax year — including a part-year first filing if you formed mid-year. It is required even if the company earned nothing and did nothing.
Your state's annual report. Requirements differ by state. Wyoming's falls in your formation anniversary month, with a minimum licence tax. Colorado has its own annual filing. New Mexico LLCs have no annual report at all — if anyone tries to sell you one, there is nothing to file.
The honest summary
Getting an EIN without an SSN or ITIN is not gatekept and it is not hard. If the four things above are right, the application is routine, and if something is wrong you will be told and can fix it.
What varies is time, and what drives that variation is who you use.
So the question is not whether you can do this — you can. It is whether anything is waiting on the other side of it. If your timeline is soft, take your time. If there is a bank appointment, a processor application, a supplier or a client waiting, then the date is the product.
That is the one we sell: company formed, EIN in one business day, registered agent and US address included, $399 all in with state fees, and a 72-hour money-back guarantee on the formation and EIN together. If you already have the company and only need the EIN, we do that on its own.