Paid EIN services advertise heavily, which makes the government fee look like an open question. Nothing below is about whether a preparation service is worth paying for — only about what the agency itself charges, which is a fact rather than an opinion.
What does the IRS charge for an EIN?
Nothing, through every channel. The online application page describes the service as free, and the Instructions for Form SS-4 name no fee for any submission method.
| Channel | Government fee |
|---|---|
| Online assistant | $0 |
| Phone (international applicants) | $0 |
| Fax | $0 |
| $0 |
Verified against IRS material in August 2026. The form itself is also free to download, and no version of it costs money. 3
What costs do applicants actually meet?
Three, and none of them is a government charge. Recognising them prevents the usual confusion between a fee and an expense.
| Cost | Who charges it |
|---|---|
| Preparation service | A private company, for guidance and a completed package |
| The phone call to the international line | Your telephone carrier — the line is not toll-free |
| Fax or courier delivery | Your fax service or postal operator |
What is a preparation service actually selling?
Guidance and completeness, not the number. No private company can issue an EIN, influence the queue, or shorten the four-day fax turnaround. 4
What such a service can legitimately do is narrow: check whether an EIN is needed at all, translate line 9a into plain language, catch the answers that get applications returned, and hand over a filled, validated form with the right fax number attached. Our own offer is exactly that, and the line above the button says so on every page. 5,6,3
How do I recognise a service pretending to be the agency?
Four signals, and one of them is usually enough. Federal rules prohibit a private company from implying an official connection it does not have.
- Check the domain. Pages published by the agency sit on irs.gov, and nowhere else.
- Look for the fee disclosure. A legitimate service states plainly that the government charges nothing.
- Watch for pressure. Deadlines invented by the seller are a sales device, not a tax rule.
- Read the branding. Seals, eagles and words like "official" on a private site are marketing, not authority.
An unsolicited demand for payment to keep an existing EIN active deserves special suspicion, because no such payment exists.
What if I already paid and want to file myself?
Filing yourself remains open at any moment, and nothing about a previous payment blocks it. The form is downloadable free of charge, and the channel available to you is determined by the entity, not by whether you bought help. 3,1
Start with who can use the online EIN application. If both conditions hold, the online assistant issues the number in one session. If either fails, Form SS-4 goes by fax or mail instead, and the result is the same number. 1,5,6