Why does the IRS website say it cannot give me an EIN?

Question

Accepted Answer

That screen, which reads "We are unable to provide you with an EIN", is the IRS online tool's one generic failure message, and it appears for reasons that have nothing to do with whether your company is entitled to an EIN: a name conflict, a responsible party the IRS cannot match, the one-per-day limit, or the tool itself being down. What it means depends on whether the screen shows a reference number. If it shows a reference number, look it up. The IRS has never published what the numbers mean, but the pattern is well established: 101 is a name conflict with an existing IRS record, 102, 103 and 108 are the responsible party not matching IRS records, 104 is the designee section, 105 is too many tries, 109 to 113 are the IRS's own systems failing, 114 is the one-EIN-per-day limit, and 115 means IRS records show the responsible party as deceased. If there is no number, check the basics. The tool only runs Monday to Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Eastern, Saturday 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Sunday 6:00 p.m. to midnight, and a session idle for fifteen minutes is discarded. The responsible party has to be a person with a Social Security number or ITIN, entered exactly as the Social Security Administration holds the name, and a responsible party who was issued an EIN today cannot get another until tomorrow. When to stop retrying Two or three attempts is the limit, because repeated attempts trigger their own error. After that, fax a completed Form SS-4 to the IRS at 855-641-6935. A person reads it, and most of what the online tool rejects goes through on paper. The IRS says to expect the number back by fax in about four business days. Do not fax and retry online in parallel: that is how a company ends up with two EINs.

Why does the IRS website say it cannot give me an EIN?

When to stop retrying

Related questions