How to Apply for an EIN in Illinois

The EIN step itself

One federal form, one agency, the same options wherever the business sits: online, fax, mail, or the international phone line. The method decides the timeline, not the state. Every method and what it actually takes covers that in full, and it applies to Illinois unchanged.

What Illinois needs first

Form your entity with the Illinois Secretary of State, Department of Business Services before applying. The IRS asks for the legal name and formation date exactly as the state recorded them, and a mismatch is one of the common causes of a rejected application.

Illinois issues a file number. It identifies your company in state records and is not a tax ID. It cannot be used where an EIN is asked for, and the IRS has no record of it.

What Illinois requires once you have the EIN

• Register with the Illinois Department of Revenue through MyTax Illinois — the EIN is required to open the account.
• Register with the Illinois Department of Employment Security before your first payroll; unemployment insurance is handled separately from the revenue account.

What is actually different about Illinois

• Illinois charges LLCs and partnerships a Personal Property Replacement Tax on income, on top of the tax the owners pay personally. Most states tax a pass-through entity once at the owner level, so an Illinois LLC has a state filing obligation its equivalent in another state simply does not have.
• The Illinois annual report is due before the first day of the month the LLC was formed in, so every company has its own deadline rather than a single statewide date. Owners who move from another state routinely miss the first one.
• The Department of Business Services issues a file number for the company. It appears on the formation paperwork and is not a tax ID of any kind.