How to Apply for an EIN in Pennsylvania

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 Pennsylvania unchanged.

What Pennsylvania needs first

Form your entity with the Pennsylvania Department of State, Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations 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.

Pennsylvania assigns its own entity 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 Pennsylvania requires once you have the EIN

• Register with the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue through myPATH — the enterprise registration replaced the old PA-100 and asks for the EIN to open employer withholding and sales tax accounts.
• File the annual report with the Department of State every year; for LLCs it falls due on the same date each year regardless of the formation date.

What is actually different about Pennsylvania

• Pennsylvania's certificate of organization is filed together with a docketing statement, and the docketing statement asks for the federal EIN. An LLC that does not have the number yet can still file, but the Department of State's form is one of the few in the country that expects the EIN at the moment of formation.
• Pennsylvania replaced its once-a-decade decennial report with an annual report requirement, so an LLC now has a yearly Department of State filing that older guides say does not exist. Searches for the Pennsylvania decennial report turn up advice written for the old regime.
• Pennsylvania requires a registered office address rather than a named registered agent. An LLC with no Pennsylvania street address uses a Commercial Registered Office Provider, and the provider's name, not an individual's, appears on the filed certificate.