An Employer Identification Number — an EIN — is the nine-digit number the IRS uses to identify your organization. You will need one before you file Form 1023-EZ, whether or not you have a single employee, and you will use it on bank paperwork, filings, and correspondence for the life of the organization. Getting one is free and, online, can take minutes. It is also one of the most reliably fumbled steps in a nonprofit formation, not because the questions are hard, but because the process has a handful of rigid rules — form the entity first, one session with no saving, one number per responsible party per day — that punish anyone who starts clicking before they are ready.
This guide is self-help education, not legal or tax advice. ExemptReady is not a law firm, we file nothing for anyone, and we cannot get an EIN for you. What we can do is lay out the IRS process as the IRS publishes it, checked in October 2026, and flag the failure points that trip founders most often. Start at IRS.gov and work only there or by the official channels below.
The IRS is blunt about this: you can get an EIN for free directly from the IRS, and you never have to pay a fee for an EIN. Search for “EIN” online and you will find polished websites that look official, walk you through a form that resembles the IRS application, and then ask for a payment card at the end. What they sell is the act of typing your answers into a free government process. Some founders pay without ever realizing a charge was optional.
Protect yourself with two habits. Go to the IRS through its own root address, IRS.gov, rather than through an advertisement or a look-alike domain. And if any site asks you to pay for the EIN itself — as distinct from a professional you have deliberately hired to form your whole organization — stop. Close the tab. The number costs nothing, and the official online application issues it immediately when it is approved.
An EIN identifies a legal entity, so the entity has to exist before the number is issued. The IRS directs applicants to register the legal entity — a corporation, including a tax-exempt organization, an LLC, a partnership, or the form your organization takes — with the state before applying, and says specifically that for tax-exempt organizations, you should not apply until you are legally formed.
For a typical nonprofit founder, that means the sequence is: adopt your articles of incorporation with the purpose and dissolution clauses the organizational test requires — explained in the organizational test guide — file them with your state, receive confirmation that the corporation exists, and only then apply for the EIN. Applying first and forming later creates a mismatch between the organization the IRS has on record and the corporation the state later creates, and unwinding identity mismatches with any agency is far slower than doing the steps in order.
This is also the moment to freeze the organization’s exact legal name. Copy it character for character from the state filing, including punctuation and any suffix, and use that identical name on the EIN application, the bank account, and the exemption application. A name that is close to the filed name is a mismatch, and mismatches surface later as confusing letters, delayed applications, and hours spent proving that two similar names are one organization.
The online tool is the fastest channel, but it is not open to everyone. As the IRS describes it, the applicant must be applying for a domestic organization formed or created in the United States or U.S. territories, with its principal place of business in the United States or U.S. territories. The person applying must be the responsible party in control of the entity, or that party’s authorized representative, and must have the responsible party’s Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number — an SSN or ITIN.
If the organization’s principal place of business is outside the United States, the online tool is not your channel; use the phone, fax, or mail options below. International applicants can call the IRS on 267-941-1099, Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern Time. Ordinary founders forming an ordinary domestic nonprofit corporation will almost always fit the online tool comfortably — the edge cases worth noticing are a foreign principal place of business and a responsible party without an SSN or ITIN.
Every EIN application names a responsible party: the person in charge of the entity and its assets. Read that definition functionally. It is not an honorary title for a founder, not a mailing contact, and not a volunteer who happened to be free that afternoon. It is the person who controls, or is in a position to control, the organization and how its funds and assets are handled.
Two consequences follow. First, the application must generally include that person’s name, their SSN, ITIN, or — for an entity acting in that role — its EIN, and a signature where the channel calls for one. Gather the responsible party’s information before you start, with their knowledge; the one-session clock described below is not forgiving of a mid-application hunt for a number.
Second, nominees are not authorized to apply for an EIN. A nominee, in this context, is a stand-in — someone lending their name and number to an application for an entity they do not actually control. Do not let a formation service, a helpful friend, or a board member who is leaving next month apply as a nominee. If the person in charge changes later, deal with that change through the IRS process for updating the responsible party at the time. Starting with the wrong person creates a record that names someone with no real relationship to the organization’s assets, and that is a bad foundation for a bank account, an exemption application, and every filing after.
The IRS online application is available during set hours, in Eastern Time: Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the next day; Saturday, 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; and Sunday, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. Founders who sit down at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday or on a Sunday morning and find the tool closed sometimes assume the site is broken and wander off to a paid service. It is not broken. Come back during the posted hours.
Inside a session, the rule that matters most is this: you must complete the application in one session. You cannot save a draft and finish later, and the session expires after 15 minutes of inactivity. Treat the application like a timed form at a counter. Before you open it, have on one page in front of you: the exact legal name as filed with the state, the mailing address, the responsible party’s full legal name and SSN or ITIN, the entity type, the date and state of formation, and the organization’s accounting period and primary activity in plain words. Then sit down and finish it in one sitting, without putting it aside to answer email.
If the application is approved, the EIN is issued immediately online. Print the confirmation letter — and save a copy where your organization’s permanent records live, not only in one person’s downloads folder. That letter is the cleanest proof of the number you will ever have. Banks ask for it. Grantmakers ask for it. A future treasurer, three boards from now, will be grateful it exists. Losing it is not fatal, but replacing that clean proof is slower than printing one page.
The IRS allows only 1 EIN per responsible party per day. The limit applies across channels — online, phone, mail, or fax — so you cannot use up your online attempt in the morning and try again by fax in the afternoon as the same responsible party.
For most founders forming one organization, the limit never bites. It bites the enthusiastic volunteer who serves as responsible party for two new groups in the same week, the founder who makes an error, abandons a session, and tries to start fresh the same day, and anyone forming several related entities at once. Plan around it: one organization, one day, done carefully. If you are involved in forming more than one entity, space the applications across days and keep a simple log of which number was issued for which legal name.
Online is not the only route. Form SS-4 is the paper application for an EIN, and it remains the standard channel for applicants who cannot or should not use the online tool.
By fax: for an applicant whose principal place of business is in the United States, fax Form SS-4 to 855-641-6935. Provide a fax number and the IRS faxes back a cover sheet with the EIN in about 4 business days. That “about” is the IRS’s own timing language; count business days, not calendar days, and do not build a deadline on the fourth morning.
By mail: send Form SS-4 to Internal Revenue Service, Attn: EIN Operation, Cincinnati, OH 45999. Expect the EIN in approximately 4 weeks. Mail is the slowest channel and the one with the least feedback along the way, so keep a complete copy of what you sent and a record of the mailing date.
International applicants: call 267-941-1099 during the hours given above, or use Form SS-4 through the IRS international operation in Cincinnati by fax or mail, following the current instructions on IRS.gov.
Whichever channel you use, the same foundations apply: the entity must already be formed, the responsible party must be the real person in charge, and the daily limit still counts.
The exemption instructions are direct: you cannot submit Form 1023-EZ until you have an EIN, and an EIN is required regardless of whether you have employees. The word “Employer” in the name misleads founders of all-volunteer organizations into thinking the number is for payroll and can wait until a first hire. For a nonprofit, the EIN is simply the organization’s federal identification number, needed from the first application onward.
Sequence your formation with that in mind. Articles filed with the state, then EIN, then the exemption application — Form 1023-EZ if you pass every eligibility test, or the full Form 1023 if you do not. Our free eligibility checker applies the worksheet tests, Form 1023-EZ vs. Form 1023 compares the two filings, and the special-rules guide explains why a church, school, or hospital always uses the full form. If your organization lost exemption after missed annual filings, the EIN you already have is part of the revival story in automatic revocation and the four ways back — do not apply for a second number for the same entity. And if you are not forming at all, fiscal sponsorship is the alternative worth weighing.
None of these failures comes from misunderstanding charity law. They come from rushing a rigid little process. Slow down for the twenty minutes this application deserves: entity formed, name copied exactly, responsible party ready, session completed, letter printed. Do that, and the easiest step in your formation will actually be easy.
Browse all the guides for the steps before and after this one, or look at the $49 kit if you want the whole formation sequenced for you.
The ExemptReady Formation Kit orders the whole formation — articles with the IRS clauses, EIN, bylaws, the eligibility worksheet, and the filing — so each step happens in the order the agencies expect, with the common failure points flagged before you reach them.
Get the Formation Kit — $49 one-time
The kit is self-help education and templates, not legal advice. We are not a law firm, we file nothing for you, and no kit can guarantee IRS approval.