How to Look Up a Business EIN

Last updated September 30, 2026.

Look up a business EIN

Search a business name, or enter an EIN to see whose it is. We hold the EINs published by the IRS for nonprofits, the SEC for public companies, and the Department of Labor for employers with a benefit plan. Most small businesses are in none of these.

For an ordinary private company, you cannot. There is no public EIN directory, the IRS does not operate one, and an EIN is not part of what a state business register holds. Sites that promise an EIN lookup are almost always offering something else: a state entity number, a paid data broker record, or a form that returns nothing.

There are four routes that do work, three of them free, and one number people mistake for an EIN every day.

How to find a business EIN: the four routes that work

The company tells you. Request a Form W-9. For a contractor or vendor this is the normal mechanism and it obliges them to provide the number.
IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search, for any nonprofit or charity. Free and authoritative.
SEC EDGAR, for any company that files with the SEC. Free, and the number is on the cover of the 10-K.
A business credit report from Experian or Equifax, which carries the EIN for many established companies. Paid, and coverage is partial rather than universal.
Department of Labor benefit plan filings. An employer sponsoring a 401(k) or a qualifying health plan files a Form 5500, and the sponsor’s EIN is on it. Searchable free through the DOL’s Form 5500 search. This is the one route that reaches ordinary private companies, and it reaches only those with a plan.

Nothing else does. Every free EIN lookup tool that promises any U.S. business is working from one of these sources, from a purchased data set with the same gaps, or from the state register, which does not hold EINs at all.

Free EIN lookup: IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search and SEC EDGAR

Both are official, both are free, and between them they cover every nonprofit and every SEC registrant in the country. Neither covers an ordinary private company.

IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search. Search by organization name or by state. The result carries the EIN, the determination letter that granted exempt status, and the filed Forms 990. If a charity gives you an EIN that does not match what is published here, that is worth stopping over.
SEC EDGAR. Search the company, open any annual or quarterly filing, and the IRS Employer Identification Number is on the cover page, labeled as such. The company profile carries it too. This works for subsidiaries that file separately, which is often how you find the entity you actually wanted.

A third free source is your own paperwork, if the business is yours: the CP 575 notice the IRS issued with the EIN, any federal return filed since, and the bank’s file for the business account.

Can you look up another company’s EIN? Why there is no public database

An EIN is a tax identifier, not a public registration. It is issued by the IRS for federal tax administration, and the IRS treats it as business tax information rather than as a public identifier the way a state treats a filing number. Exempt organizations and SEC registrants are exceptions because disclosure is a condition of their status, not because EINs are public in general.

This is also why an EIN cannot be verified by a third party in the way a state registration can. The state register will tell you a company exists, when it filed, and whether it is active. Nothing public will confirm that a given EIN belongs to a given company.

State entity number vs EIN: the number people mistake for one

Every business search result on this site carries a state entity number, and it is the thing most often mistaken for an EIN. They are different in every way that matters:

Who issues it. The state filing office issues the entity number. The IRS issues the EIN.
How many exist. A company has one EIN and a separate entity number in every state where it has registered. A business operating in six states has six entity numbers.
Whether it is public. The entity number is published on the register and is how you cite a filing. The EIN is not published.
What it proves. The entity number proves a filing exists in that state. The EIN says nothing about whether a business is registered anywhere.

If what you actually need is to confirm a company exists, identify the correct legal entity, or cite a filing, the entity number is the number you want, and it is free to look up.

What an EIN looks like

Nine digits, written with a hyphen after the first two: 12-3456789. The first two digits are the campus prefix, which used to indicate where the number was issued and no longer reliably does, because EINs have been issued centrally online since 2001. There is no check digit, so a number in the right shape is not evidence of a real EIN. That matters if you are validating one from an invoice: format tells you nothing about whether it belongs to the business that gave it to you.

Asking the company: the Form W-9 route

For most people asking this question, this is the answer. If you need a contractor’s or vendor’s EIN in order to issue a 1099, request a Form W-9. It is the mechanism the IRS built for exactly this, it is free, it obliges them to provide the number, and it gives you a signed record that the number came from them. Searching for the number instead is slower, less reliable, and leaves you carrying the risk if it is wrong.

If they will not provide it, backup withholding is the remedy, not a lookup tool.

EIN vs TIN, SSN, ITIN and the state tax ID

These get used interchangeably and are not the same thing, which is part of why lookups go wrong.

TIN is the umbrella term. Every tax identification number the IRS uses is a TIN, including an EIN.
EIN is the TIN issued to a business. Nine digits, formatted 12-3456789.
SSN is the TIN issued to an individual, and a sole proprietor with no employees may use one where a business would use an EIN.
ITIN is issued to individuals who need a TIN but cannot get an SSN. It is not a business number.
State tax ID is issued separately by a state revenue department for state taxes. It is not the EIN, and it is not the entity number from the business register either.

So a company can hold an EIN, a state tax ID and an entity number in the same state, all different, all doing different jobs. Asking for “the tax ID” without saying which one is how the wrong number ends up on a filing.

How to find your own EIN if you have lost it

Check the CP 575 confirmation notice from the IRS first. It is the original grant and the cleanest evidence.
Any previously filed federal return carries it.
The bank that opened the business account holds it on file.
Failing all of those, the IRS Business and Specialty Tax Line will confirm an EIN to a person authorized to receive it.

An EIN is not reissued and does not expire, so a lost EIN is a retrieval problem rather than an application problem. Applying again creates a second EIN for the same business, which causes more trouble than it solves.

What to do instead, depending on why you are asking

Verifying a company is real before doing business with it. Search the state register. It tells you whether the entity exists, its status, and when it filed, which is what you actually wanted to know.
Issuing a 1099 to a contractor. Request a Form W-9 from them. That is the mechanism, and it obliges them to give you the number.
Researching a nonprofit. IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search, then the Form 990.
Researching a public company. SEC EDGAR.
Checking a name before you form a business. Search the state register, then the federal trademark register. The EIN comes after formation and has no bearing on whether a name is available.

Common questions

Can you look up a company’s EIN?

For most private companies, no. The IRS does not publish a public EIN directory, and an EIN is not part of what a state register holds. The exceptions are tax-exempt organizations, whose EINs the IRS publishes, and public companies, which print theirs on SEC filings.

Is an EIN public record?

Not generally. It is issued by the IRS for tax administration and is treated as business tax information rather than a public identifier. It becomes public only when an organization is required to disclose it, which is what happens with exempt organizations and SEC registrants.

What is the number on a business search result, if not an EIN?

It is the state entity number, assigned by the state filing office when the business registered there. It identifies the filing in that state only. A company operating in six states has six of them, and one EIN.

How do I find my own EIN?

It is on the CP 575 notice the IRS issued when the EIN was granted, on any filed federal return, and usually on business bank account paperwork. If none of those can be found, the IRS Business and Specialty Tax Line will confirm it to an authorized person.

Can I find a nonprofit’s EIN?

Yes. The IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search publishes the EIN for organizations recognized as exempt, alongside their determination letter and filed Form 990. It is free and it is the authoritative source.

Does a clear business name search mean the company has an EIN?

No. The two are unrelated. A business can be registered with a state and have no EIN, and a business can hold an EIN without being registered in the state you are searching.

You can check a name against all 50 states and the District of Columbia from the search on our home page. Every result links back to the state office that holds the record.

Sources reviewed

The sources below were retrieved and confirmed in August 2026. Filing requirements and fees change with legislative sessions and agency rulemaking; check the state’s own page before acting on anything here. This page is general information, not legal or tax advice.

Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search, the published source for exempt organization EINs.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, where SEC registrants disclose their Employer Identification Number.
Official business entity search portals for all 51 jurisdictions, each retrieved and confirmed to resolve. The full list appears in the table above.

Related terms, and the registers they apply to: