Getting an EIN for your LLC: the complete picture

Form the LLC, get the EIN, open the bank account, that's the standard sequence for a reason. The LLC must exist first (the EIN application asks for its legal name and formation state), and the bank account can't open without the EIN.

The single-member LLC nuance

Technically, a single-member LLC with no employees is a 'disregarded entity' and the IRS doesn't require it to have an EIN, the owner's SSN can serve for federal taxes. That's the rule people quote. Here's the practice: banks require an EIN for an account in the LLC's name, and an account in the LLC's name is how you keep business and personal money separate.

That separation isn't bookkeeping fussiness, commingling funds is a classic argument for piercing the liability veil, which defeats the reason you formed an LLC at all. So while the IRS may not require the EIN, the way LLCs actually work does.

Multi-member LLCs don't have this nuance: they're taxed as partnerships and required to have an EIN.

Getting it done

Apply free yourself at irs.gov (the online tool needs the responsible party's SSN/ITIN and operates weekday business hours), or have it done: we prepare the SS-4 from a five-minute plain-language form, check the details that cause rejections. LLC name mismatches are a common one, and file as your third-party designee. Our $99 charge is a service fee; the IRS fee is $0.

One timing note: if you elect S-corp taxation later, your LLC keeps the same EIN. But if you're currently a sole proprietor planning to form an LLC soon, wait, the new LLC will need its own new EIN, and getting one as a sole proprietor first means paying twice or refiling.