Form SS-4 · EIN WITHOUT SSN · einwithoutssn.com
Application for Employer Identification Number · Cat. No. 16055N · Form SS-4 (Rev. December 2025) · OMB No. 1545-0003
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COMPARISON — THREE ROUTES TO THE SAME NUMBER · THE FREE IRS ROUTE IS ROUTE ONE BECAUSE IT IS FREE · NO ROUTE ON THIS PAGE MAKES THE IRS FASTER

Getting an EIN without an SSN: your three routes

If your entity is already formed and its responsible party has no SSN and no ITIN, the online EIN application is closed to you — and there are exactly three honest ways forward. You can file Form SS-4 with the IRS yourself, for free. You can pay a third-party EIN service to handle the application for you. Or you can join this Membership, which handles the application at joining and then coordinates your annual federal cycle on a short, published list. This page puts all three on the same criteria, in that order, and it does not crown a winner: the right route depends on how much of the work you want to carry yourself.

One fact governs every route: the EIN itself is free from the IRS. The IRS charges nothing for an EIN. Anything you pay, on any route, is a service fee for work around the application — never a fee for the number. The IRS source for the method below is the Instructions for Form SS-4 at irs.gov (checked November 7, 2026).

Route 1 — File it yourself with the IRS (free)

ROUTE ONE — FREE · DO THIS FIRST IF YOU CAN

This is the route this desk recommends you consider first, because it costs nothing and the method is published in full. Under the Instructions for Form SS-4 (irs.gov, checked November 7, 2026):

  • Complete Form SS-4. On line 7a, name the responsible party — the individual who ultimately owns or controls the entity. On line 7b, the instructions say: enter “foreign” or “N/A” if the responsible party does not have, and is ineligible to obtain, an SSN or ITIN. An entry is required — do not leave line 7b blank.
  • Send it by fax. Under the Fax-TIN programme the instructions describe, you can receive your EIN by fax generally within 4 business days, if you provide a return fax number. Applicants with no legal residence, principal place of business, or principal office in the United States or its territories fax to the international numbers listed in the instructions (855-215-1627 from within the United States, or 304-707-9471 from outside it — confirm the current number in the instructions before you send, because the instructions note the numbers may change without notice).
  • Or send it by mail. The instructions say to complete the form at least 4 to 5 weeks before you will need the EIN, and that you will receive your EIN in the mail in approximately 4 weeks. International applicants mail to the EIN International Operation address in Cincinnati listed in the instructions.
  • Or apply by telephone, international applicants only. If you have no legal residence, principal place of business, or principal office in the United States or its territories, the instructions give 267-941-1099 (not a toll-free number) for obtaining an EIN by phone. The IRS no longer issues EINs by telephone for domestic applicants.
  • Use one method only for each entity, and expect the limit the instructions state: EIN issuance is limited to one per responsible party, per day.

What you carry on this route: completing the form correctly from your own facts, sending it, tracking the published window yourself, and — after the number arrives — keeping your own calendar for everything the EIN starts, including the annual federal cycle described on After the CP 575. The worked, line-by-line version of this route is The Form, Annotated, and it is free to read whether or not you ever join anything here. If you can run this route yourself, you may not need either paid route below at all.

Source: Instructions for Form SS-4 (12/2025), irs.gov — checked November 7, 2026. Fax and mail windows, the line 7b “foreign” entry, the international telephone number, and the free-of-charge statement are the IRS's published terms as read on that date.

Route 2 — A paid third-party EIN service

The second route is to pay a third-party EIN service — a business, other than this Membership, that offers to handle an EIN application for a fee. This page names no such service and states no price for one, because services differ and their terms change; what follows is a neutral description of what the route itself is, so you can judge any specific offer against it.

On this route, the service's work is work around the same Form SS-4: taking the facts you provide, preparing the application from them, submitting it to the IRS by one of the methods above, and passing the assigned number back to you. The IRS fee is still nothing — the charge on this route is the service's own fee for that handling, and it is set by the service, not by the IRS. The timeline is still the IRS's timeline: a service submits into the same fax, mail, or telephone channels described in Route 1, so read any speed language against the IRS-published windows above.

Before paying for this route, the questions that decide its value are about scope, and they are yours to ask the service directly: exactly which steps are included and which are not; whether the help ends when the number is issued or continues into the years after; who holds your confirmation notice afterwards; and what happens if the application is returned or goes silent. A service whose scope is only the application is a different purchase from a service whose scope continues — neither is the better one in the abstract; it depends on whether the continuing work is work you want carried.

Route 3 — This Membership ($249/year or $24/month)

The third route is this desk's Membership: $249/year, or $24/month with a 12-month minimum term, for owners of already-formed entities only. Its scope is published in full on the Fee Schedule, and this page states it in the same exact terms — nothing wider is implied here.

At joining, the EIN act: Form SS-4 is prepared from the facts you provide and submitted to the IRS as your third-party designee, with the designee authorisation on file; the submission is confirmed with route and date, the expected window is tracked against the IRS-published window for your route, the status is chased when the window passes, and the CP 575 confirmation is delivered into your document vault. Identity verification comes before any EIN work, as the Fee Schedule states.

In every term, the annual cycle runs as coordination only, on this permitted list and no other:

  1. Deadline calendaring, reminders, and status tracking for the annual Form 5472 + pro-forma Form 1120 cycle.
  2. Verbatim collection of figures and documents exactly as you provide them.
  3. Completeness checks stated as facts about the file — present, absent, unsigned — measured against the IRS's published instructions.
  4. Transmittal of filings you have signed, as your designee/transmitter, with your authorisation on file.
  5. The document vault, and tax-ID re-verification support: when a bank or platform re-asks for proof of your tax ID, we retrieve your CP 575 from your vault (or walk the replacement-letter route with you, as the holder) and supply the document.
  6. General education cited to the IRS's published instructions, with a read date.

What the Membership does not do — because determining and computing are preparation, and preparation is outside its scope: it does not decide whether you do or do not have a filing duty, does not identify or classify your transactions, does not compute, adjust, or clean up your figures, does not complete the substantive parts of a filing from your raw records, and does not sign any filing as preparer. Questions that need one of those go, in writing, to your own CPA or tax attorney. The Membership also includes no formation service and no mail service, and it makes no promise about IRS speed or IRS decisions.

Read the honest shape of renewal before you join: your EIN is issued once, in your first term; cancelling cannot un-issue it. Renewals buy the coordination, vault, re-verification support, and calendar listed above — the full wording is on the Fee Schedule and at checkout, before any billing field.

The three routes on the same criteria

CriterionRoute 1 — Yourself, with the IRSRoute 2 — A paid third-party service · Route 3 — This Membership
What the IRS chargesNothing. The EIN is free from the IRS.Nothing on either paid route. The IRS fee is $0 whichever route you take.
What you pay for the serviceNothing — there is no service.Route 2: the service's own fee, set by that service; check its current terms directly. Route 3: $249/year, or $24/month with a 12-month minimum term.
Who does the application workYou do: the form, the sending, and the tracking.Route 2: the service, on the facts you provide — confirm its exact scope before paying. Route 3: at joining, the SS-4 is prepared from the facts you provide and submitted as your designee, authorisation on file.
The timelineThe IRS-published windows: fax generally within 4 business days with a return fax number; mail approximately 4 weeks.The same IRS windows on both paid routes. No service submits into a faster IRS channel, because none exists in the published instructions.
After the EIN is issuedEverything after is yours: your calendar, your filings, your document keeping.Route 2: depends on the service's stated scope — ask whether it ends at issuance. Route 3: every term buys deadline calendaring, verbatim collection, completeness checks stated as facts, transmittal of filings you have signed, the vault, and re-verification support.
Who decides your filing dutiesYou do, with your own CPA or tax attorney if you engage one.Route 2: ask the service directly what it will and will not decide. Route 3: never this desk — determining a filing duty is preparation, it is outside the Membership's scope, and it is declined in writing to your own CPA or tax attorney.
Who signsYou sign your own application and filings.Route 3: you sign your filings; this desk transmits what you have signed, as your designee, and signs nothing as preparer. Route 2: confirm the service's signing posture before paying.

No row in this table makes one route the winner for everyone. If you can complete and track a one-page form, Route 1 costs nothing and this page has shown you the whole method. If you want the application handled and nothing after it, Route 2 is the shape to price against a specific service's own terms. If you want the application handled at joining and the annual cycle coordinated every year after — on the permitted list above, with its limits stated plainly — that is the only thing Route 3 sells.

Not sure which facts describe your case? Run the free EIN Eligibility Checker — it rules on your route from your answers, in the Examination's own words, before you pay anyone anything.

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