EIN Confirmation Letters: CP 575 and 147C Explained

What an EIN confirmation letter is

When the IRS assigns your company an Employer Identification Number, it confirms the number in writing. That paper is what people mean by an EIN confirmation letter, an EIN verification letter or just "the EIN letter". Two IRS documents carry those names: the CP 575 notice and Letter 147C. Both show the company's legal name, its mailing address on IRS records and the EIN.

The IRS puts the reason plainly: "You may need to confirm your EIN when you open a bank account for your entity or obtain other business services". The number belongs to the company, not to you, so a founder with no Social Security number gets the same letters as anyone else.

Sources: IRS, Understanding your CP575 notice · IRS, Employer identification number · IRS, Business Tax Account

What an EIN confirmation letter looks like

The two letters look different but carry the same facts: the EIN, and the legal name and address the IRS has on record.

The legal name is the part people get wrong. Shopify's help page says the registered name "is always the line or lines above the business address on your IRS documentation", and its own example of a single-member LLC shows the owner's name and "SOLE MBR" printed under the company name. If your letter has a second name line, it is part of what the IRS has on record.

Sources: Shopify, Acceptable business documents

CP 575: the notice the IRS sends once

The CP 575 is produced when the EIN is assigned. How it reaches you depends on how the application was sent. A founder with no SSN or ITIN can't use the online form, so the fax and mail rows are the ones that usually apply. Our guide to applying for an EIN without an SSN covers those routes.

Why you can't get a second one

Asked whether you can request a copy of the original notice, the IRS answers: "No. The original CP575A-J series, Notice of New Employer Identification Number, cannot be duplicated or recreated". Its advice for the notice is to keep it in your permanent records and to make several copies, because it "can be used when EIN verification is requested for business purposes".

If someone else sent your application

A person or service named as third-party designee on Form SS-4 can receive the new EIN, but the SS-4 instructions say "the EIN notice will be mailed to the taxpayer". The staff manual is blunter: the third party "does not receive the CP 575". The notice follows the mailing address on the form, whoever sent it.

Sources: IRS, Get an employer identification number · Internal Revenue Manual 21.7.13, assigning EINs · IRS, Employer identification number · IRS, Instructions for Form SS-4 · IRS, Processing status for tax forms · IRS, Understanding your CP575 notice

Letter 147C: the EIN verification letter

Letter 147C is the IRS's answer when the CP 575 is lost, never arrived, or a third party wants fresh confirmation. Its official title is "EIN Previously Assigned". The staff manual describes the requests it covers as including "an EIN that is lost, misplaced or forgotten".

People search for a "147C form" or "Form 147C", but there is nothing to fill in. It is a letter the IRS produces after it has checked who you are. The IRS lists it among the 3 ways to confirm an EIN: "Call our business and specialty tax line. Request Letter 147C, EIN Previously Assigned".

• It shows what the IRS has on record now: the legal name, the mailing address and the EIN.
• It can be issued again, each time you call and pass the checks.
• The IRS treats the two as interchangeable for proof: its digital CP575 "can be used as a substitute for the original CP575A-J notice series and Letter 147C". What a bank accepts is the bank's decision, covered below.

Sources: Internal Revenue Manual 21.7.1, EIN verification and Letter 147C · IRS, Employer identification number · IRS, Understanding your CP575 notice

How to get a copy of your EIN letter

The public IRS page gives one instruction: call, and request Letter 147C. The detail of what happens on the call comes from the Internal Revenue Manual, the procedures IRS phone staff follow.

1. 1
   Call the Business and Specialty Tax Line800-829-4933, Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. your local time. Alaska and Hawaii follow Pacific time, and the TTY number is 800-829-4059.
2. 2
   Say what your role in the company isThe assistor first establishes your relationship with the company, to decide whether you are authorized to receive the EIN. If you say you are the taxpayer, the manual tells them to ask for your position with the entity.
3. 3
   Answer the identity questionsHave the EIN if you know it, the full business name including "LLC" or "Inc", and the business address on IRS records. If you can't give the EIN, the assistor checks your own identity instead: complete name, SSN or ITIN, address and date of birth.
4. 4
   Ask for Letter 147C, by fax or by mailOnce the EIN is located, staff provide the verification "verbally and/or in writing via fax and/or mail to the address of record".

Fax or mail?

• Mail goes only to the address of record. Assistors are told to say: expect the letter in 10 to 14 business days.
• Fax can happen during the call. The assistor checks the fax number and asks whether you are at the same location as the fax machine; the manual says the number "must be at a location where the taxpayer or authorized third-party is physically present to receive the fax".
• If the EIN was assigned in the last 30 days, staff are told not to mail a 147C, because a CP 575 was generated when the number was assigned. They can still fax one if you ask for written confirmation.

Who is allowed to ask

Sources: IRS, Telephone assistance for business customers · IRS, Employer identification number · Internal Revenue Manual 21.7.1, EIN verification and Letter 147C · Internal Revenue Manual 10.10.3, identity proofing · Internal Revenue Manual 21.1.3, faxing account information · Internal Revenue Manual 21.7.13, assigning EINs · IRS, About Form 2848 · IRS, Instructions for Form 8821 · IRS, Instructions for Form SS-4 · IRS, Power of attorney and other authorizations

Can you download an EIN confirmation letter online?

Sometimes. The IRS now offers a digital CP575, the Employer Identification Number Verification Notice, under Tax Records in its Business Tax Account. The staff manual dates it to 25 June 2026. The IRS says the digital notice "is accepted by banks and other institutions as written confirmation of an entity's EIN". That is the IRS's statement; each provider still publishes its own list.

The catch is who can open an account. The IRS sets access by business type and role:

• Sole proprietors, individual partners and individual shareholders register with an SSN or ITIN.
• A C corporation's Designated Official must be all three of these: an officer or managing member, "a current employee who received a W-2 for the most recent tax filing year", and authorized to legally bind the company. That role's tax records include the EIN verification letter.
• For single-member LLCs, an account is available to those that file Form 1120-S or Form 1065, and the Designated Official role is marked "coming soon". The IRS says the account "isn't yet available for LLCs that file as sole proprietors with Schedule C or Schedule F".

If you own a US company from abroad, read that list before you count on the download. When it doesn't fit, the phone call for a 147C is still the route. A third option is an entity transcript, which "verifies information in IRS records such as employer identification number (EIN)"; you can get one through a Business Tax Account, by mail with Form 4506-T, or from the business line. The providers below ask for the letters by name, so check before you send a transcript in place of one.

If you applied online and didn't manage to save the notice at the end of the session, a CP 575 will not follow by post. The staff manual tells assistors to explain that and to offer a Letter 147C by mail or fax.

Sources: Internal Revenue Manual 21.7.1, EIN verification and Letter 147C · IRS, Understanding your CP575 notice · IRS, Business Tax Account · IRS, Get a business tax transcript · Internal Revenue Manual 21.7.13, assigning EINs

Asking from outside the US, with no SSN

Most guides to these letters assume a caller in the US with a Social Security number. Here is what changes when you have neither.

No SSN or ITIN is needed

You can be the responsible party on IRS records without either number. On Form SS-4, line 7b, a responsible party who has no SSN or ITIN and can't get one writes "foreign" or N/A, and the staff manual says foreign individuals "are not required to have an ITIN in order to receive an EIN".

The same holds when you call about a letter. The identity-proofing table for these calls has a row for exactly this case: when the caller does not have an SSN or ITIN, the instruction is to "disclose the EIN to the caller if their position with the entity authorizes them to receive it". So know your EIN, your company's exact name and the address on file before you dial. If you're unsure which number is which, see EIN vs ITIN.

Which number to call from abroad

The address on file decides where the letter goes

A mailed 147C goes to the address of record and nowhere else. For most new companies that is the mailing address from lines 4a and 4b of Form SS-4. An address outside the US is allowed there, but international post is slow. A US mailing address, such as a virtual mailbox that scans what arrives, lets you read an IRS letter the day it is delivered.

If that address is out of date: Form 8822-B

The IRS says to use Form 8822-B to tell it you changed your business mailing address, your business location or the identity of your responsible party, and that a change of responsible party must be reported within 60 days. You don't need a new EIN for any of these. File it before you ask for a mailed letter, or ask for the fax. Our guide to changing your business address walks through the form.

Sources: IRS, Instructions for Form SS-4 · Internal Revenue Manual 21.7.13, assigning EINs · Internal Revenue Manual 10.10.3, identity proofing · IRS, Telephone assistance for business customers · IRS, Contact my local office internationally · IRS, About Form 8822-B · IRS, Employer identification number

When banks and payment platforms ask for it

A bank or payment provider checking a company wants to see the legal name and the EIN on one IRS document. Each one publishes its own list, and the lists are not identical. These are the providers' words, not ours.

A new number can also fail an automatic check for a short time. The IRS says you can use an EIN right away to open a bank account, but should wait up to 2 weeks before it passes the IRS TIN Matching Program.

The rest of each provider's list is on our requirements pages, such as Stripe requirements.

Sources: Mercury, Gathering your documents · Relay, Required documents by entity type · Stripe, Acceptable verification documents · Shopify, Acceptable business documents · IRS, Employer identification number

Common problems with EIN letters

The name on the letter doesn't match your formation document

Small differences are often the IRS's own formatting. Its systems allow only letters, numbers, hyphens and ampersands in a business name, so symbols are spelled out or replaced with a space and apostrophes are removed. A comma before "LLC" on your state filing may simply not exist on the letter, and a single-member LLC can carry the owner's name on a second line.

Where a provider asks for the name as registered with the IRS, type it as the letter shows it. Shopify asks for an exact match "including punctuation and capitalization". If the letter has a real error, or the company changed its name with the state, the IRS has a separate business name change process. The right step depends on your company type, so check with a US tax professional.

The EIN was assigned but the letter hasn't arrived

On the fax route you get a cover sheet with the number first and the CP 575 by post afterwards. Stripe's list includes an "IRS Fax Transmission Letter"; other providers name only the notice or the 147C. If the post is the problem, call and ask for a faxed 147C, as described above.

A scan, a photo or the original?

Keep the paper, because the original can't be reissued. What you upload depends on the provider. Stripe asks for "the original scan (PDF) or photo (JPEG/PNG), not a screenshot", and says all borders must be visible. Shopify says the opposite about scans: "Take an original photograph of your document using a camera. Don't photocopy, scan, or screenshot your documents". Read the upload rules before you send.

What is not an EIN confirmation letter

• The Form SS-4 you filled in. Stripe: "An SS-4 application isn't the same as an SS-4 confirmation letter".
• A Form W-9. You complete it yourself to give your taxpayer number to someone who pays you. The IRS doesn't issue it.
• Your state formation document. It comes from the state and proves the company exists, not what the IRS has on record.
• A confirmation email or order page from a formation service. Only the IRS issues these letters.

Sources: IRS, Employer identification number · Shopify, Acceptable business documents · Stripe, Acceptable verification documents · Shopify, Ensuring documentation compliance · IRS, About Form W-9

What Registate does, and doesn't do

Registate's EIN support is a paid service that prepares Form SS-4 from your formation details and sends it to the IRS for you, without an SSN. The EIN itself is free: the IRS says "You never have to pay a fee for an EIN". Your EIN letter is stored in your panel under Documents, in the Tax Documents tab, next to your Formation Documents, so it is there to download when a bank or platform asks.

• We don't file tax returns and we don't apply for ITINs.
• We can't make the IRS faster. The IRS sets its own processing times.
• We can't promise that a bank or payment provider will accept your application. Each one decides.
• A 147C request is a call that you, or a representative you have authorized with the IRS, make yourself.

Keeping the letter usable

1. 1
   Save it the day it arrivesKeep the paper and a PDF. The original CP 575 can't be reissued.
2. 2
   Read the name and address linesCompare them with your formation document, and note any difference before a provider does. Our formation document checklist lists what else gets compared.
3. 3
   Copy the name exactlyWhere an application asks for the name registered with the IRS, type what the letter shows.
4. 4
   Keep the IRS address currentFile Form 8822-B when the mailing address changes, so the next letter reaches you.
5. 5
   Lost it? Ask for a 147CCall 800-829-4933, pass the identity checks, and ask for the letter by fax or mail.

Sources: IRS, Get an employer identification number