How Indian Founders Get an EIN for Their US LLC (No SSN Required)

Every non-resident, including Indian citizens without a US Social Security Number, has exactly three ways to apply for an EIN: phone, fax, or mail. The IRS''s online EIN application -- the one most Google results push you toward -- is not available to you at all, because it requires either a valid SSN/ITIN or a US legal residence, and Indian founders applying from India have neither. Phone (267-941-1099) is the only method where you can walk away with your EIN in a single call, but it means navigating the timing problem above and a possible long hold. Fax is the most commonly used method among Indian founders: complete Form SS-4, fax it to 855-215-1627 (the IRS''s number for entities with no US address, if faxing from within the US) or 304-707-9471 (if faxing from outside the US, i.e., from India), and the IRS''s official Fax-TIN program aims to fax your EIN back within about four business days -- though in practice, non-resident applications often take one to two weeks depending on IRS workload. Mail is the slowest option, at four to five weeks, and rarely makes sense unless fax access genuinely is not available. Whichever method you pick, use only one -- submitting the same SS-4 by two methods can result in duplicate EIN issuance and confused IRS records.

If you are an Indian founder searching for how to get an EIN for your US LLC, the first surprise usually is not the paperwork -- it is the clock. The IRS''s telephone line for international applicants, 267-941-1099, is open Monday through Friday from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM Eastern Time. Translated to Indian Standard Time, that window falls between roughly 3:30 PM and 8:30 AM the next day (the exact gap shifts slightly depending on US daylight saving), which means the entire calling window sits in India''s evening, night, and early morning hours. There is no way around this: the IRS runs on US business hours, and India does not observe daylight saving, so the overlap never lands during a normal Indian workday. Most Indian founders who choose the phone route end up making the call late at night or very early in the morning, and the line is not toll-free -- international call charges apply for the full duration of the hold time, which can run well past 30 minutes during busy periods. This single detail is why most non-resident founders, including the vast majority of Indian applicants EasyBrise works with, skip the phone method entirely and use fax instead, even though phone is technically the fastest route when it works.

Once your EIN is issued, you will receive a confirmation letter -- Form CP 575 -- either by fax, mail, or both, depending on your method. Keep this document permanently; it is the primary proof of your EIN and most US banks (including Mercury and Relay) and payment processors will ask to see it during account opening. If you ever lose it, you cannot get a duplicate CP 575, but you can request an EIN Verification Letter (Form 147C) instead, which serves the same purpose for banking and tax purposes. With your EIN in hand, the next milestones for most Indian founders are opening a US business bank account, setting up Stripe or another payment processor, and -- critically, since almost every Indian-owned US LLC is a foreign-owned disregarded entity -- filing Form 5472 alongside a pro forma Form 1120 every year, even if the LLC had zero US activity. Missing that filing carries a $25,000 minimum penalty, far higher than anything involved in the EIN process itself, so it deserves attention right after your EIN, not months later.

Processing time is the question every Indian founder asks, and the honest answer depends heavily on method and season. Phone applications, when they go through, can hand you an EIN in a single call -- but you are gambling on hold times that regularly exceed 30-60 minutes during the IRS''s busier periods (especially January through April). Fax applications officially target about four business days under the IRS''s Fax-TIN program, but real-world experience among non-resident applicants -- including Indian founders -- often runs one to two weeks, particularly if you did not include a return fax number for the IRS to send your EIN back to. Mail is the slowest at four to five weeks and is rarely worth it unless your fax access is genuinely unreliable. A practical rule for Indian founders: if you need your EIN to open a US bank account or activate Stripe within a specific timeline, plan for the fax route to take up to two weeks, not four days, and build that buffer into any launch date you are promising customers or investors.

One mistake specific to founders who use a formation service is listing the wrong person as the ''responsible party'' on Line 7a. The IRS defines the responsible party as the individual who ultimately owns or controls the entity and its funds -- not whoever happens to be filling out the paperwork. If you hire a formation agency (including EasyBrise) to handle your EIN application, the responsible party on file should still be you, the actual Indian founder and owner of the LLC, identified by your full legal name as it appears on your passport. Some lower-quality formation services list their own staff member or a generic ''authorized representative'' as the responsible party to speed up their internal process -- this creates an IRS record that does not match who actually controls the business, and it becomes a real problem later if the IRS or a bank ever needs to verify beneficial ownership (the same information you will separately report under BOI/FinCEN rules). If a provider suggests listing anyone other than you as the responsible party, treat that as a red flag, not a convenience.

Before you fill out Form SS-4, have three things ready. First, your LLC must already be formed and approved by the state -- the IRS explicitly says not to apply for an EIN before the business legally exists, and applying too early is one of the most common causes of rejected or delayed non-resident applications. Second, you need your Indian passport, since this is the identity document that stands in for an SSN throughout the process; while the SS-4 form itself does not have a dedicated ''passport number'' field, many practitioners recommend attaching a copy of your passport''s photo page when faxing, since it helps the IRS verify the responsible party''s identity and can reduce follow-up requests. Third, you need a reliable mailing address -- either your Indian home address or a US virtual mailbox address if you have already set one up -- because that is where your CP 575 confirmation letter goes, and a missed or outdated address is a common reason Indian founders lose track of their own EIN confirmation after approval.

Getting an EIN only satisfies the US side of forming your company -- it says nothing about your obligations back home. Under India''s Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), an Indian resident who forms and funds a US LLC to actually operate a business (as opposed to buying shares as a passive investment) generally falls under the Reserve Bank of India''s Overseas Direct Investment framework, not just the simpler Liberalised Remittance Scheme that covers personal remittances up to $250,000 per financial year. In practice, this means the capital you send from India to fund your LLC may need to be reported to the RBI through your bank (an Authorised Dealer Category I bank) via Form ODI, typically within a defined window of the first remittance, followed by an Annual Performance Report each year based on your LLC''s financial accounts. This is a separate compliance track from anything the IRS or your EIN touches, and it is easy to miss because most US-focused formation guides do not mention it at all. This is not financial or legal advice -- FEMA/ODI rules have genuine nuance depending on your specific structure -- but every Indian founder funding a US LLC from India should have this conversation with a chartered accountant familiar with cross-border FEMA compliance before wiring the first rupee.

Beyond the SS-4 field errors above, a few mistakes show up repeatedly among Indian founders specifically. Trying the online application first, discovering it is blocked, and then panicking about how to get an EIN as an Indian citizen without an SSN -- when in fact the fax and phone routes were the correct path from the start. Providing a business name or address on Form SS-4 that does not exactly match your Articles of Organization filed with the state (even a punctuation difference, like ''LLC'' versus ''L.L.C.,'' can trigger a mismatch flag). Choosing the wrong entity classification on Line 9a -- most Indian-owned single-member LLCs should either accept the default ''disregarded entity'' treatment or actively elect corporate treatment via Form 8832, but checking the wrong box without understanding which applies can create tax filing headaches over a year later. And selecting ''S-Corporation'' anywhere in the process -- S-Corp status is legally unavailable to non-resident founders, since it requires all shareholders to be US citizens or residents, so an Indian owner cannot use it under any circumstances.

Form SS-4 is a single page, but three fields consistently trip up Indian applicants. Line 7b asks for the responsible party''s SSN, ITIN, or EIN -- if you do not have any of these and are not eligible for one (true for almost every Indian founder applying from India), the IRS''s own instructions say to write ''Foreign'' or ''N/A,'' not leave it blank. A blank line 7b is one of the most common reasons non-resident applications bounce back for correction. Lines 4a-4b (mailing address) must show your full Indian address -- city, state, postal code (PIN code), and the country name spelled out as ''India,'' never abbreviated -- since this is where your EIN confirmation letter (Form CP 575) will be mailed if you apply by mail, and it is the address the IRS keeps on file regardless of method. Lines 8a-8c ask about your LLC''s membership: a single-member LLC is disregarded by default for tax purposes, while a multi-member LLC defaults to partnership treatment -- get this wrong and it can misalign your later tax filings, including Form 5472 if you are a foreign-owned single-member LLC. Finally, Line 11 (date business started) should reflect your actual formation date, not the date you are filling out the form -- and you should not submit Form SS-4 at all until your LLC has been legally approved by the state.