After forming your LLC company in the USA, you applied for EIN, your EIN result was received via fax, but if the "CP575 Letter" document, which is your EIN approval letter, did not reach your address, you have the chance to get the new "147C" document.
You can even obtain a lost EIN document or documents that have not been delivered to your address from the IRS this way.
Why Isn't the EIN Approval Letter Received?
In some cases (though rare), the EIN confirmation letters automatically sent to business addresses by the IRS after the EIN application may not be delivered. Some of the reasons why EIN approval letters may not arrive may be;
- The documents arriving at your address office may have not been received by the officer by mistake or may have been lost.
- The IRS may have marked your address incorrectly and sent the document to a different address
- You may have written the address incorrectly when filling out your SS4 form.
- The document may have been lost in the mail
- Or your document may have been uploaded to the wrong person's address panel by the address office.
The CP575 EIN approval document, which is automatically sent to the company address after the EIN application, may be requested by banks, virtual POS processors and accountants. In fact, many institutions can accept the version of the SS4 form sent via fax written in the upper right corner, but in some cases they may also request the original confirmation document.
If for some reason you have not received the CP575 document sent by the IRS and you know your EIN number, you can request a new one from the IRS. The EIN confirmation letter, called CP575, is generated once by the IRS and mailed to the address. When a confirmation document is requested again, this time they do not send CP575, instead they send a document called 147C Letter, which has the same value as the original.
147C Letter serves the same purpose as CP575 and is an official document accepted under all circumstances.
How to Request an EIN Confirmation Letter (147C)?
If you know your EIN number (if you received it handwritten on SS4 via fax), you can obtain the EIN confirmation letter, called 147C Letter, from the IRS in two ways. Or, if you do not know your EIN number and you have the SS4 form you used to apply for EIN, you can still receive your EIN approval document.
- Call the IRS and ask them to fax document 147C to you
- Send a fax to the IRS and ask them to mail document 147C to your address (Very low chance of a return)
1-Requesting EIN Approval Letter 147C by Phone
You can request your EIN letter by calling IRS officials by phone. You need to be able to receive a fax before calling the IRS because you will be asking them to fax the 147C Letter. You must have a fax number before asking the officer for the 147C document.
fax.plus, an online fax system . All details about getting a number via Fax.plus and opening an account on the platform in this guide .
Now that you have your fax number, you can call the IRS. The IRS contact number is below.
IRS Phone Number: +1 800 829 4933
You can access the 147C request system by dialing the phone with the following combination.
- For English, press “1”
- Then, the answering machine will ask you to dial many forwarding options, so press "3" among the options. This number “3” is the EIN approval document and lost EIN service.
The IRS call center is usually very busy, and if the waiting time exceeds the call time you may hear the message, wait as long as you can and try to connect to the official. To avoid rush hour, call after 15:00 Türkiye time. Since it is still early in the morning, there is a possibility that the IRS head office will be less busy.
After reaching the customer representative;
Explain to him that you need the EIN approval letter and that you need help with it.
The representative on the phone will ask you for your company name, your EIN number, your company's registered agent name, the first application date on the SS4 form, your telephone number on the SS4 form, and your fax number on the SS4 form. You must read all of this information to the officer from your SS4 form.
If it asks for your SSN number, explain that you are not a US citizen, you are a foreigner, but since you own an llc in the US, you need a document showing the assigned EIN number.
Important:
If your fax number is different from the number written on the SS4 form, you should warn him/her about this. If you do not inform them that your fax number has changed, they will fax your EIN confirmation document (147C) to the number on the SS4 form. This issue is very important, if your fax number is the same, there is no need to make this warning.
Wait until the fax reaches you. In any case, officers usually ask whether you have received the fax and wait until you confirm that it has arrived. After you receive the fax, tell the officer that the fax has arrived, thank him and end the conversation.
2- Send a Fax to the IRS and ask them to mail Document 147C to your address
This method may react too late or may not work at all, so it would be beneficial to try the first option, the phone method, first.
A second method for those who cannot speak English on the phone is to request the EIN approval letter from the IRS in writing by fax. For this, you can follow the order below.
- First, download the attached word document
- Complete the information in the Word document according to your company (write the address section in the correct format in the order of Street, suite, city, state, zip code)
- Find a handwritten version of the EIN number from the IRS (your SS4 form)
- Combine your self-filled Word file as the first page and your SS4 EIN form as the second page as a PDF on a single page. (You can combine it with Photoshop or online pdf editor applications)
- Fax the two-page pdf file via fax.plus to +1 304 707 9471
The word file should be on the first page, and your SS4 EIN document should be on the second page, that is, your cover letter in the word file should be on the first page.
There is no response to your request via fax, but they will mail the 147C document to your US business address within a few weeks.
Not receiving the EIN approval letter is a very rare problem, but this problem does not mean the end of the world. Just like every problem has a solution, this problem also has a solution. After all, thousands of documents are mailed from the IRS every day, and some confusion may occur in rare cases.
You can apply one of the two methods above for the solution.
