Can You Get an EIN During a Government Shutdown?

What has historically stayed on

During a lapse in appropriations the IRS keeps its automated systems running under its contingency plan. The online EIN application is one of them. In past shutdowns it continued to issue EINs to applicants who completed it, on the same weekday hours as always. If you are a U.S. applicant with an SSN or ITIN and a straightforward entity, a shutdown may not affect you at all.

That is the usual pattern, not a guarantee. The IRS publishes a contingency plan for each lapse, and the newsroom link in the sources is where it announces what is and is not operating.

What has historically stopped or slowed

• The phone lines. The Business and Specialty Tax Line and the international applicant line are staffed. During a lapse they have been closed or reduced to a recording. That removes the phone route for international applicants and the phone fix for a 101 name conflict.
• Fax and mail processing. Faxed and mailed SS-4 forms are keyed by people. Forms received during a lapse have sat until staff returned, then been worked in the order received. The usual four business days by fax has stretched to weeks.
• 147C letters and record changes. Verification letters, name changes and 8822-B updates all wait.

What to do, by situation

You can use the online tool

Use it. Prepare every answer first, go early in the day, and save the confirmation page. If it returns a technical 109, wait and retry once; the system is under more load than usual when the phone route is closed.

You cannot use the online tool

No SSN or ITIN, outside the United States, or blocked by a reference number. Your route is fax, and fax is queued behind the shutdown. The useful move is to get the SS-4 prepared and sent now so it is in the queue with the earliest possible date. No one can make the IRS queue move; what can be done is to be at the front of it when it does, with a form that will not bounce for a wrong box or a missing signature. That is what we do for applicants in this position.

The bank or a deadline cannot wait

Tell them the IRS is in a funding lapse. Banks and courts have seen it before and will usually hold an application or extend a date. A printed copy of the IRS newsroom notice helps.

After the shutdown ends

Expect the backlog to take longer to clear than the shutdown itself lasted. Do not refile a faxed SS-4 because it has been quiet; a second application for the same entity risks two EINs. If you need to know whether the first one was issued, the 147C call is the check, once the phones are back.

Quick answers

Is the IRS EIN website down because of the shutdown?

In past lapses, no. If it is unavailable, check the hours first; the overnight and weekend closures are unrelated to funding. The troubleshooting guide walks through the causes in order.

Will my EIN be valid if it was issued during a shutdown?

Yes. An EIN issued by the online system is a normal EIN.

Can a third-party service get an EIN during a shutdown?

It uses the same IRS routes, so it cannot beat the shutdown. What it does is prepare the SS-4 correctly and put it in the queue on day one, so the backlog is behind you rather than in front of you when processing resumes.