The EIN is the gate. Without it there is no US bank account, no Stripe, no PayPal Business — the company exists on paper and can do nothing. It is also the step where non-resident founders lose the most time, almost always to a formatting mistake rather than to anything substantive.
What an EIN actually is
An Employer Identification Number is a nine-digit federal tax identifier for a business, issued by the IRS. It is free. The IRS charges nothing for it, and any site quoting a "government fee" is charging for its own service.
The name is misleading: you do not need employees. A single-member LLC with no staff still needs one to open banking or be paid by US platforms.
Why the online application will not work for you
The IRS online EIN assistant issues a number in about fifteen minutes. It also requires the responsible party to enter a valid SSN or ITIN, and it validates that number in real time. With neither, the form stops you.
There is no non-resident version of the online tool. The alternative is the paper form — Form SS-4 — submitted by fax or by post.
Fax or post
| Fax | Post | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical wait | 2–6 weeks | 6–10 weeks |
| Proof of delivery | Transmission report | Only with tracked mail |
| How the EIN comes back | Fax, if you give a return number | Post, to the address on the form |
Fax wins on every measure that matters. You do not need a fax machine — an online fax service costs a few dollars and gives you a transmission receipt, which is worth having when you are chasing a number that has not arrived.
Timings move with the IRS backlog. They are worst around the US filing season in spring. Treat any quoted figure, including these, as a range rather than a promise.
Filling in the SS-4
The form is one page. These are the lines that matter for a foreign-owned single-member LLC.
Lines 1 to 6 — identity and address
- Line 1 — the exact legal name on your formation certificate, including "LLC". Not your brand name.
- Line 3 — leave blank unless a trustee or executor is involved.
- Lines 4a–4b — a mailing address. Your registered agent's address or a US mail-forwarding address is fine. This is where a posted EIN letter lands, so it must be an address you genuinely receive.
- Lines 5a–5b — the street address if it differs.
- Line 6 — the county and state where the company was formed.
Line 7 — the responsible party, and the field that causes rejections
Line 7a is your full legal name as it appears on your passport.
Line 7b is where applications die. It asks for the responsible party's SSN, ITIN or EIN. You have none of them.
The responsible party must be a natural person with control over the entity — you, not your formation agent and not a company.
Lines 8 to 18 — the rest
- 8a — tick "Yes" for an LLC. 8b — number of members. 8c — "No" if the LLC was organised in the United States.
- 9a — for a single-member LLC with no corporate election, tick "Other" and write Foreign-owned U.S. disregarded entity. Multi-member LLCs tick "Partnership".
- 10 — reason for applying: "Started new business", with a short description.
- 11 — the date the company was formed.
- 12 — closing month of the accounting year: December unless you have a reason otherwise.
- 13 — expected employees. Zero is a perfectly normal answer.
- 16 — principal activity. Be specific: "Software as a service", "E-commerce retail", not "Consulting".
- 18 — whether this entity ever had an EIN before. Usually "No".
Sign it, date it, and give a title such as "Member" or "Managing Member". Add your fax number in the return-fax box so the IRS can send the letter back the fast way.
What you get back
The IRS issues a CP 575 confirmation letter containing your EIN. Save the PDF in more than one place. Banks and payment processors ask for it during onboarding, and the IRS does not reissue CP 575 — a replacement comes as a 147C letter, which you have to request by phone.
If nothing arrives
Give it the full window before assuming it failed. After that, the International EIN line for applicants with no US legal residence is +1 267 941 1099, staffed during US East Coast business hours. It is not toll-free and waits can be long.
Have your transmission receipt, the company name and formation date to hand. If the application was rejected, the usual cause is line 7b.
What actually goes wrong
- Line 7b filled with anything other than "Foreign". The single most common failure.
- Company name not matching the certificate. Brand name instead of legal name, or a missing "LLC".
- An address you cannot collect post from. If the letter is posted and nobody reads it, you are back to the phone queue.
- Applying before the state approves the company. The EIN is for an entity that already exists.
- Paying for a "guaranteed 24-hour EIN". No third party can make the IRS move faster than its own queue.
EIN is not ITIN
They solve different problems. The EIN identifies your company; the ITIN identifies you personally for US tax purposes. Most foreign founders need only the EIN — an ITIN becomes relevant when you personally have a US filing obligation. The distinction is worth getting right before you spend weeks on the wrong application: see EIN or ITIN.
What the EIN unlocks
With the CP 575 in hand you can move to opening a US business bank account, and from there to payment processing. It also puts you on the IRS's radar as a foreign-owned entity, which is what makes Form 5472 your responsibility from that point on.
If you would rather not chase this yourself, the EIN application is part of our formation service — prepared, submitted and followed up until the letter arrives.