EIN without SSN: How Non-Residents Get a US Tax ID

You started the IRS online EIN application, hit the screen that demands a Social Security number, and stopped. So now what — does an EIN without SSN even exist as an option for a non-resident founder, or did the LLC formation service that sold you the LLC quietly skip a step you can’t actually complete from outside the US?

The short answer: yes, you can absolutely get an EIN without an SSN, and you don’t need an ITIN first either. The path just isn’t the online one. It’s the international phone line — or fax, or mail — and the IRS publishes the exact procedure for non-residents. Most founders never find it because the IRS website surfaces the online tool first and treats every other route as a footnote.

This article is the footnote, expanded. I’ll walk you through what an EIN actually is (and what it isn’t), why the online application blocks you, the four ways an EIN without SSN is actually obtainable, how to fill out the dreaded Form SS-4 line 7b as a non-resident, and where DIY breaks down.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Your specific situation may differ — consult a qualified professional before acting.

What an EIN actually is (and what it isn’t)

Before chasing the form, get the vocabulary straight. The US has three different “tax IDs” floating around and they are not interchangeable.

ID	Who it’s for	How you get it	Required for non-residents?
EIN (Employer Identification Number)	A business entity (LLC, corp, partnership, trust, estate)	Form SS-4 — online, phone, fax, or mail	Yes, almost certainly — for any LLC that will bank, hire, file, or transact
SSN (Social Security Number)	A person who is a US citizen, lawful permanent resident, or work-authorized	Social Security Administration; requires legal status	No — and you can’t get one as a non-resident
ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number)	A person who needs to file a US return but is ineligible for an SSN	Form W-7, usually filed with a tax return	Only if you personally have a US filing obligation (e.g. Form 1040-NR)

Two things that surprise founders:

• FEIN and EIN are the same thing. “FEIN” stands for Federal EIN. The IRS only uses “EIN.” If a bank or vendor asks for an FEIN, give them your EIN.
• You don’t need an ITIN to get an EIN. This is the single most common misconception in the candidate evidence I read for this article — non-residents assume they have to chase an ITIN first, then an EIN. Wrong. The EIN is issued to the business, and the IRS explicitly allows the responsible party (you) to be a person without an SSN or ITIN.

Do you even need an EIN?

For a non-resident-owned US LLC, the honest answer is: technically not always, practically yes. Federal income tax doesn’t strictly require a single-member disregarded-entity LLC to have its own EIN — the owner’s tax ID can stand in. But you almost certainly need one for everything else you’ll actually do with the LLC:

• Form 5472 + pro forma Form 1120. The single-member foreign-owned LLC information return — the one with the $25,000 minimum penalty — is filed under the LLC’s EIN, not the owner’s tax ID.
• A US business bank account. Mercury, Brex, Wise Business, Relay, and every traditional bank ask for an EIN. No EIN, no account.
• Payment processors. Stripe, PayPal Business, and Square all require an EIN on the business onboarding form.
• A registered agent’s filing portal. Most state-level annual reports and BOI-era filings reference the EIN.
• Form W-9 / W-8BEN-E when a US payer onboards your LLC as a vendor. They ask for an EIN.

For multi-member LLCs taxed as partnerships, the EIN requirement is absolute — Form 1065 cannot be filed without one. There is no path where a foreign-owned US LLC ships its first year without an EIN and you don’t pay for it later.

Why the IRS online application won’t work for you

The IRS publishes a slick web-based EIN application. It issues a number in minutes. It is also closed to anyone outside the US. The page is explicit:

“If your principal place of business is outside the U.S. Apply by phone, fax or mail.”

— IRS Get an Employer Identification Number page

The same tool also requires that the responsible party — the person actually behind the entity — has a valid US Taxpayer Identification Number. For most non-resident founders, no such number exists yet. So you have two simultaneous blockers: foreign principal place of business and no domestic TIN.

Heads up — the workaround you’ll see on Reddit and in LLC-formation forums is “use a friend’s SSN.” Don’t. The IRS treats whoever’s listed as responsible party as the person with “ultimate effective control” over the entity (per IRS Responsible Parties and Nominees). Putting a friend’s SSN there assigns them legal control of your LLC in the IRS’s records. Then you have to clean it up later with Form 8822-B, and the friend has to be willing to cooperate. Just take the longer path the first time.

The four ways an EIN without SSN is actually obtainable

The Form SS-4 instructions list four application methods. One is closed to you; three are open. Here’s the comparison every non-resident founder needs:

Method	Available to non-residents?	Turnaround	Notes
Online	No	Instant	Requires a US TIN and US principal place of business
Phone	Yes — exclusive to international applicants	Instant during the call	Call 267-941-1099 between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. ET, Mon–Fri
Fax	Yes	~4 business days	International applicants fax to 304-707-9471 from outside the US
Mail	Yes	~4 weeks	Mail to the international operation in Cincinnati, OH 45999

These are not B&E numbers — they are pulled verbatim from the IRS:

“Under the Fax-TIN program, you can receive your EIN by fax generally within 4 business days… If you don’t have a legal residence, principal place of business, or principal office or agency in any state or in the District of Columbia (this could occur if you are in a U.S. territory or an international location), fax your form to 855-215-1627 (if within the United States) or 304-707-9471 (if outside the United States).”

— IRS Instructions for Form SS-4

And for the international phone option:

“If you have no legal residence, principal place of business, or principal office or agency in the United States or U.S. territories, you may call 267-941-1099 (not a toll-free number), 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. (Eastern time), Monday through Friday, to obtain an EIN.”

— IRS Instructions for Form SS-4

In practice the phone line is the fastest path. You’ll be on hold (often 30–90 minutes depending on the day), you’ll talk to an IRS representative who runs through the SS-4 with you, and you’ll walk away with the EIN before the call ends. Fax is the backup if the phone wait times don’t fit your schedule. Mail is the path of last resort — useful only if you have no fax number and can’t make a long-distance call to the US.

How to fill out Form SS-4 as a non-resident

Even if you call the phone line, the IRS representative reads off the same form. Have it filled out before you dial. The lines that trip up non-residents:

Lines 4a–4b: Mailing address

This is where the IRS will mail your CP 575 EIN confirmation letter. Use the address where you can actually receive US Mail — usually your registered agent or virtual mailbox in the US, not your residential address abroad. Mail to a foreign address from the IRS is slow and unreliable.

Lines 5a–5b: Street address

Your physical business address. For a non-resident-owned LLC with no US office, this is typically the same as your registered agent’s address or your virtual mailbox.

Lines 7a–7b: Responsible party (this is the line)

Line 7a is your full legal name. Line 7b is where almost every non-resident founder gets stuck — because it asks for an SSN or ITIN, and you don’t have either. The instructions are unusually explicit about what to do:

“Enter ‘foreign’ or N/A on line 7b if the responsible party doesn’t have and is ineligible to obtain an SSN or ITIN. An entry is required.”

— IRS Instructions for Form SS-4, Lines 7a–7b

Just write foreign. Don’t leave it blank. Don’t enter “0”, “000-00-0000”, or anything else creative — the form will get kicked back. This single word on line 7b is what makes the EIN without SSN path legitimate.

Lines 8a–8c: LLC information

8a: Yes, it’s an LLC. 8b: number of members. 8c: was it organized in the United States? Yes — your Wyoming/Delaware/New Mexico LLC is a US LLC even if you live abroad.

Line 9a: Type of entity

For a multi-member LLC: Partnership by default (unless you’ve filed Form 8832 to elect corporate treatment). For a single-member LLC: check the box for Other and write “Disregarded Entity” — this is what triggers the foreign-owned single-member disregarded-entity Form 5472 path downstream.

Line 10: Reason for applying

Check Started new business.

Third Party Designee section

If you want a US-based accountant, a formation service, or a colleague to receive the EIN on your behalf and answer follow-up questions, you complete this section. The instructions are precise:

“Complete the Third Party Designee section only if you want to authorize the named individual to receive the entity’s EIN and answer questions about the completion of Form SS-4. The designee’s authority terminates at the time the EIN is assigned and released to the designee.”

— IRS Instructions for Form SS-4, Third Party Designee

That last sentence matters. The designee’s authority ends the moment the EIN is issued. They cannot speak to the IRS about your LLC after that — for that you’d need Form 2848 (Power of Attorney). Many formation services don’t make this distinction clear.

The fastest path: the international phone line, step by step

For founders who want the EIN before tomorrow’s bank-account meeting, here is the realistic playbook for the phone route:

1. Complete Form SS-4 fully before calling. The representative will not coach you through which boxes to check — they read off the form you tell them you’ve filled in. Have the form in front of you with every line answered.
2. Pick a time inside 6 a.m. – 11 p.m. Eastern, Monday–Friday. Avoid Monday mornings (longest queues). Late afternoon Eastern time (which is mid-evening for Caribbean and West Africa, early morning for Asia) tends to be quieter.
3. Call 267-941-1099. This is not toll-free — your long-distance carrier will charge you. Budget for a 30–90 minute call.
4. Be ready to confirm authorization. Per the SS-4 instructions, “the person making the call must be authorized to receive the EIN and answer questions concerning Form SS-4.” Practically: you (the owner) are calling about your own LLC, so the answer is yes. If a designee is calling, they need the Third Party Designee section signed.
5. Write down the EIN as soon as it’s read. They will read it twice. Write it in the upper right corner of your Form SS-4 — the SS-4 you used during the call is now your own record copy.
6. Watch for the CP 575 letter. The IRS will mail a paper confirmation (the CP 575) to the address on lines 4a–4b. This is your official EIN assignment letter. Banks ask for it.

The 98-prefix trap: when your EIN says “foreign entity”

Look at the first two digits of your EIN. For a Wyoming, Delaware, or New Mexico LLC, those digits should be almost anything — except 98. The 98 prefix has a specific meaning, and a US-formed LLC should never get one. When it happens anyway, you’ve landed in one of the messiest downstream problems in the foreign-founder playbook.

The rule comes from the IRS Internal Revenue Manual, which guides every IRS assistor processing an SS-4:

“1) A corporation or limited liability company indicates on Line 9b that it was incorporated in a foreign country — Assign Prefix 98.

2) A corporation or limited liability company indicates on Line 9b that it was incorporated in the United States, but provides a foreign mailing and/or location address — Do not assign Prefix 98.”

— IRM 21.7.13.3.2.7, Foreign Entities — Definitions and Instructions

Read that carefully. The 98 prefix is reserved for entities formed outside the US — a Canadian corporation, a German GmbH, an Indian Pvt Ltd registering to operate inside US borders. Your address is irrelevant for the prefix. Only the state of formation on Line 9b matters. A Wyoming LLC owned by a Caribbean founder operating from Trinidad is still a domestic entity, and the IRM directs the assistor to route it into the domestic EIN inventory — not assign prefix 98.

How non-residents trigger a 98 prefix by accident

The IRM continues with a list of triggers — “language anywhere on Form SS-4 suggesting foreign status.” That list includes:

• Mentioning a tax treaty as the reason for applying
• Writing “foreign entity” anywhere on the form
• Referencing Treas. Reg. §1.1441-1(e)(4)(viii) or a §897(i) election
• Indicating you’ll file Form 1120-F (the foreign-corporation return) or Form 5471
• Attaching or referencing W-8BEN, W-8BEN-E, W-8IMY, or W-8EXP

— IRM 21.7.13.3.2.7

The single most common accidental trigger I see: a non-resident calls 267-941-1099 about their Wyoming LLC, and on Line 10 — Reason for applying — they check “Compliance with IRS withholding regulations” instead of “Started new business.” That box sits right above the new-business one and sounds plausibly correct to a foreign founder who’s been reading about Form 5472 withholding rules. The IRS assistor reads the form, sees a withholding-compliance reason, and follows the IRM script: assign prefix 98.

The Line 7b “foreign” stamp does not trigger this. Writing “foreign” on Line 7b is the correct entry for a non-resident responsible party (per the SS-4 instructions quoted earlier) and is unrelated to the 98 prefix. The trigger is the entity classification on Line 9b plus the reason on Line 10, not the responsible party’s nationality.

Why a 98 prefix matters downstream

The IRS itself does not penalize a Wyoming LLC for having a 98-prefix EIN. Federally, your tax obligations are still driven by the entity’s actual classification, not the prefix. The friction is downstream, in banking and payment processing, and it’s worth being precise about what’s actually documented versus what gets repeated on forums.

What is documented: a foreign entity (the classification the 98 prefix maps to in the IRS’s records) is generally expected to complete a W-8BEN-E or related Form W-8 series, not a Form W-9, when a US payer onboards it as a vendor. Payment platforms reflect this. PayPal, for example, explicitly asks foreign-status entities to complete a “Certificate of Foreign Status” using the W-8 series (PayPal Help, Certificate of Foreign Status). Stripe publishes general tax-ID verification guidelines tied to business type and tax classification (Stripe Help, Tax ID Verification Guidelines). Neither names the 98 prefix specifically, but both onboarding flows route foreign-classified entities into a different verification lane than domestic LLCs.

What is not officially documented but widely reported by foreign founders: a 98-prefix EIN on a US LLC application can mismatch the rest of the application (state of formation = Wyoming, EIN prefix = foreign entity), and that mismatch triggers manual review, additional document requests, or — in some founder reports — account closure. I’m treating this as a credible pattern based on candidate evidence from the research for this article and competitor reporting, but no major processor publishes an explicit “we reject 98 EINs” rule, so the framing here is founders report friction, not platform X has a documented rule.

The honest picture: the IRS is silent on the prefix’s downstream meaning, processors are silent on a prefix-specific rule, but the W-8 vs W-9 classification that the prefix indirectly signals is real and well-documented. If your LLC is US-formed and your EIN starts with 98, you’ll often be explaining the discrepancy until it gets corrected.

What to do if your EIN already starts with 98

If you’ve already received the EIN, the first two digits are 98, and your LLC was actually formed in a US state, you can ask the IRS to correct the classification:

1. Call the EIN International Line at 267-941-1099. Yes, the same line that may have issued the wrong prefix the first time. Explain that your LLC was organized in [your state], not in a foreign country, and the 98 prefix was assigned in error.
2. Have your Articles of Organization (or equivalent state filing) ready to fax. The IRM authorizes the assistor to redirect domestic-formed entities back to the domestic EIN inventory once they verify the formation state.
3. Be patient about the outcome. In some cases the IRS issues a corrected EIN with a domestic prefix; in others they leave the EIN in place and update internal records to reflect domestic status. Either resolves the bank/processor issue going forward, but a new EIN means updating every account, registration, and document that referenced the old number.

Heads up — the cleanest fix is to never get the wrong prefix in the first place. When you call to apply, make sure Line 9b clearly states your US state of formation and Line 10 is “Started new business” — not anything that hints at withholding compliance or treaty positions. If you don’t actually have a Form 1120-F filing position or a tax-treaty claim, those boxes are not for your LLC.

Common pitfalls foreign founders fall into

Five recurring mistakes I see in candidate evidence:

Trap 1: Using a US friend’s SSN to apply online. Don’t. The friend becomes the responsible party in the IRS’s records. Cleaning it up requires Form 8822-B and 60 days. Just take the phone line the first time.

Trap 2: Filing multiple SS-4s “to be safe.” The IRS instructions warn directly: “File only one Form SS-4.” A duplicate filing creates an enforcement headache for both you and the IRS — they may assign two EINs to one entity, and then you have to call back to merge them. Submit once and wait.

Trap 3: Confusing EIN with ITIN. You do not need an ITIN to apply for an EIN. The candidate evidence is full of non-residents who got stuck for weeks chasing a W-7 they didn’t need. If line 7b is the only thing blocking you, the answer is “foreign,” not “wait for an ITIN.”

Trap 4: Paying for the EIN without knowing what you’re paying for. The EIN itself is free from the IRS — there’s no government filing fee for Form SS-4 through any of the four channels. What a paid service actually charges for is the work: filling out the SS-4 correctly, holding on the phone line for an hour on your behalf, choosing Line 9b and Line 10 entries that avoid the 98-prefix trap, and circling back if the application gets kicked back. That’s legitimate work and plenty of founders rightly delegate it — your time is worth more than 90 minutes on hold, your country may block US toll numbers, or you simply don’t want to learn the IRS lines. The actual trap depends on the path: DIY-ing the call unprepared and checking the wrong Line 10 box, or paying a service that won’t tell you which boxes it ticked on your behalf.

Trap 5: Putting a residential foreign address on lines 4a–4b. The IRS mails the CP 575 to that address. International mail from the IRS to Saint Lucia, Peru, or anywhere outside the US is slow and lossy. Use your registered agent or virtual mailbox instead — that way you can scan the letter to yourself the same day it arrives.

After you have the EIN

The EIN is permanent. It will not change if you rename the LLC, move states, or change members. A few things you may need to do downstream:

• Save the CP 575 letter. This is the original assignment letter and banks will ask for it. If you lose it, you can request a 147C letter by calling the IRS — but the 147C is a replacement, not the original, and some banks treat it differently.
• Update the responsible party within 60 days of any change. Per the IRS, “report changes to your responsible party, address or location to the IRS within 60 days” via Form 8822-B (IRS Responsible Parties and Nominees). If you transfer ownership, add or remove a partner, or simply change your home address, file the 8822-B.
• Don’t apply for a second EIN for the same LLC. If the LLC changes tax status (e.g. elects C-corp via Form 8832), the same EIN follows it through the election in most cases. There are narrow scenarios where a new EIN is required (entity restructuring, certain bankruptcies) — confirm before you re-apply.

Do you also need an ITIN?

This is the question I get most after the EIN is in hand. The short answer for most non-resident founders: no, not until you personally have a US filing obligation.

An ITIN is a personal tax ID, not a business one. You’d typically need one only if:

• You personally have to file a Form 1040-NR (e.g. because you’re engaged in a US trade or business — see the foreign-owned US LLC taxes guide for the ECI analysis)
• You’re claiming a tax treaty benefit on US-source income
• A US bank flatly refuses to onboard you without one (rare for fintech banks like Mercury; more common at traditional banks)

If you do need one, you apply via Form W-7, usually filed with the same tax return that requires the ITIN (IRS ITIN page). The application process is its own slow journey — original passport submission or a Certified Acceptance Agent — but it’s a separate fight from the EIN, and you can run your business with just the EIN for as long as your facts don’t trigger a personal filing obligation.

When DIY makes sense — and when it doesn’t

For a clean case (you own 100% of one LLC, you’ll be the responsible party, you have a registered agent address for line 4a, you can place an international call), the EIN process is genuinely free and doable in an afternoon. The IRS phone line is the fastest path I’ve seen.

A few cases where DIY breaks down:

• Trusts, estates, or holding-structure LLCs where the responsible party is itself another entity. The SS-4 line 7a/7b logic gets weird and a US accountant should sanity-check the entries.
• You’ve already filed an SS-4 with a friend’s SSN and now need to undo it. The cleanup is Form 8822-B plus a call to the IRS — not impossible, but unpleasant.
• You need an EIN, an ITIN, and a Form 5472 strategy in the same calendar year. Sequencing matters; doing them out of order can delay your bank account by months.

If you’d rather not work through the SS-4, the line 7b “foreign” stamp, and the phone-line process yourself, B&E Global Access is being built for exactly that — EIN obtainment and the full foreign-owned US LLC compliance stack around it, packaged for non-US founders. Right now we’re running a waitlist to find out what non-US founders most need help with first, so the offering is shaped by real demand rather than our guess. Join the waitlist on the home page and tell us what you’re stuck on.

Either way: the EIN without SSN path is real, the IRS publishes it, and the only thing standing between you and the number is one phone call to 267-941-1099 with a filled-out SS-4 in front of you.