How to Apply for an EIN in Washington
Last updated September 4, 2026 · Written by the EIN Registration filing team
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 Washington unchanged.
What Washington needs first
Form your entity with the Washington Secretary of State, Corporations and Charities Division 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.
Washington assigns its own UBI number — they look like 603-123-456. 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 Washington requires once you have the EIN
- Apply for the Washington state business license through the Department of Revenue's Business Licensing Service — the application asks for the EIN, opens the business and occupation tax account, and adds city endorsements in the same filing.
- File the initial report with the Secretary of State shortly after formation, then the annual report each year by the end of the anniversary month.
What is actually different about Washington
- Washington issues one Unified Business Identifier, a nine-digit UBI number, that the Secretary of State, the Department of Revenue, the Employment Security Department and Labor and Industries all share. The UBI is assigned at formation and is the number every later state filing asks for, alongside the federal EIN.
- Washington has no personal or corporate income tax. Instead it taxes gross receipts through the business and occupation tax, filed with the Department of Revenue, and nearly every business needs a state business license from the Department's Business Licensing Service even if it never collects sales tax.
- A Washington LLC owes the Secretary of State an initial report soon after formation, separate from and in addition to the annual report. The initial report names the governors and is where most first-year delinquencies come from, because owners assume the certificate of formation was the only filing.
If you own the LLC with your spouse and no one else: Washington is a community property state, so you may treat the LLC as a disregarded entity instead of a partnership. That decision belongs on the SS-4, and getting it wrong commits you to filing a partnership return every year. Our application asks about this directly rather than leaving you to work it out.
Get Your EIN the Easy Way
Answer a few questions in about 5 minutes. Our specialists prepare your IRS Form SS-4, file it, personally handle any rejection or name conflict along the way, and get your EIN to you, typically within 2 to 4 business days. One flat $197 service fee. No upsells, no subscriptions.
- ✓ Prepared and filed by specialists
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EIN Registration is an independent document preparation and filing service and is not affiliated with the IRS or any government agency. You can also apply for an EIN directly with the IRS at irs.gov at no cost.