Hawaii Business Search

What the Hawaii business search shows

The Hawaii Business Express finds a company by business name. It finds a company by business name. Use it to confirm a company exists and is active, not to get its federal number.

Hawaii Tax IDs start with a two-letter tax type code, as in GE-987-654-3210-01, so they are easy to tell apart from an EIN.

The Hawaii file number

The Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division gives every company a file number when it is formed. It identifies the company in state records, and it is not the company’s EIN.

Check if a Hawaii LLC is active

Search the company in the Hawaii business search and open its record. The status tells you whether the state counts the company as active. Words such as dissolved, revoked, forfeited, inactive or delinquent mean it is not in good standing, usually because an annual filing or fee was missed, and the company may need to be reinstated before it can do business there.

To prove a company is in good standing to a bank, a lender or another state, order a Certificate of Good Standing from the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Business Registration Division. Our LLC status check reads the status from public data where a state publishes it.

Good to know in Hawaii

• Hawaii has no sales tax. It has the general excise tax, which the Department of Taxation describes as assessed on all business activities and as a tax on the business, not the customer. It reaches services as well as goods, so a Hawaii consultant with no products still holds a GET license and files GET returns, and passing the tax on to customers is optional.
• Hawaii taxes every LLC for GET purposes even when the IRS disregards it: a single-member LLC must get its own GET license, file its own returns and pay GET on its gross business income. The Department of Taxation also notes that banks commonly ask for the Hawaii Tax ID along with the EIN when a business account is opened.
• The Hawaii Tax ID is formatted as a two-letter tax type followed by twelve digits, such as GE-987-654-3210-01 for a general excise account, and it replaced the older numbers that began with W. The federal EIN, not a Hawaii Tax ID, remains the primary identifier for Hawaii corporate income tax accounts, which matters for an LLC that elects to be taxed as a corporation.

Questions

More for Hawaii companies

• Hawaii EIN lookup: where a company’s federal number can be found.
• EIN for a Hawaii business: what Hawaii asks for after the EIN.
• LLC name check and LLC status check.
• Business search in other states.