Hawaii EIN and Your Hawaii Tax ID: Form BB-1 Next

After your EIN in Hawaii

Form BB-1, the State of Hawaii Basic Business Application, filed online through Hawaii Tax Online, gets the business a Hawaii Tax ID and registers it for the Department of Taxation licenses it needs, such as general excise and employer's withholding, in one application. It does not cover unemployment insurance, which is registered separately with DLIR's Unemployment Insurance Division.

Hawaii gives each business one Hawaii Tax ID. When the LLC starts paying wages, it adds employer's withholding to that same ID by filing Form BB-1 again, and the Department of Taxation says no second Hawaii Tax ID is needed.

Hawaii's Form BB-1 asks for the federal EIN, and its instructions say every business except a sole proprietorship with no employees must have one. A single-member LLC also completes line 20 with its owner's name, ID number and contact details.

Also on the Hawaii list

• Register with the Hawaii Department of Taxation through Hawaii Tax Online, or on Form BB-1, State of Hawaii Basic Business Application, to receive a Hawaii Tax ID and a general excise tax license. The Department says every business must obtain a Hawaii Tax ID and the tax licenses it needs.
• File the annual report with the Business Registration Division each year during the calendar quarter that contains the date the LLC registered. Each quarter's reports are due by its last day: March 31, June 30, September 30 or December 31.
• If the LLC will have employees, register for an unemployment insurance account with the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations by completing Form UC-1 online; the department does not accept paper registrations.

Agency sites checked November 1, 2026 · All 50 states

What is different about Hawaii

• Hawaii has no sales tax. It has the general excise tax, which the Department of Taxation describes as assessed on all business activities and as a tax on the business, not the customer. It reaches services as well as goods, so a Hawaii consultant with no products still holds a GET license and files GET returns, and passing the tax on to customers is optional.
• Hawaii taxes every LLC for GET purposes even when the IRS disregards it: a single-member LLC must get its own GET license, file its own returns and pay GET on its gross business income. The Department of Taxation also notes that banks commonly ask for the Hawaii Tax ID along with the EIN when a business account is opened.
• The Hawaii Tax ID is formatted as a two-letter tax type followed by twelve digits, such as GE-987-654-3210-01 for a general excise account, and it replaced the older numbers that began with W. The federal EIN, not a Hawaii Tax ID, remains the primary identifier for Hawaii corporate income tax accounts, which matters for an LLC that elects to be taxed as a corporation.

Before you apply

The SS-4 must match the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division filing; its file number is a state index, not a tax ID.

Hawaii EIN questions