How to Apply for an EIN in Maine

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 Maine unchanged.

What Maine needs first

Form your entity with the Maine Secretary of State, Division of Corporations, UCC and Commissions 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.

Maine assigns its own charter 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 Maine requires once you have the EIN

• Register with Maine Revenue Services on the Maine Tax Portal through the Register a New Business link for the accounts the business needs, such as sales and use tax, service provider tax or income tax withholding. Maine Revenue Services requires an EIN from any registrant other than a sole proprietor, and each account it opens gets its own eight-digit Maine account ID.
• File the annual report with the Division of Corporations between January 1 and June 1 every year, starting the year after the LLC is formed. The report is filed by charter number, online or on a preprinted form.

What is actually different about Maine

• Maine's charter number ends in letters that show the entity type, and a domestic Maine LLC's ends in DC. The corporate name search and the annual report are keyed to that charter number; the EIN comes into play at Maine Revenue Services, which requires it to open the LLC's tax accounts.
• Every Maine LLC's annual report is due June 1, whatever month the company was formed. A report received after June 1 draws a late filing penalty, and the Secretary of State administratively dissolves an LLC that does not pay that penalty.
• Maine Revenue Services issues the Resale Certificate itself, and only to registered retailers that qualify, separately from the Retailer Certificate that shows the sales tax registration number. A Maine retailer without one pays sales tax to its vendors on goods bought for resale and takes a credit for that tax on its next sales tax return.