Whether you can look up a company by EIN depends on what kind of company it is. Nonprofit EINs are fully public and searchable through several free databases. Public companies print their EIN on the cover page of their annual SEC filing. Private, for-profit businesses are a different story: the IRS does not run a public directory of the EINs it issues, and no federal tool lets you type in a number and get back a private company’s name.
Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofits are the easiest case. Federal law requires their annual tax returns to be publicly available, and the EIN appears on every Form 990 without any redaction.1Internal Revenue Service. Exempt Organization Public Disclosure and Availability Requirements2Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 990 Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (2025) Three free tools cover almost every search you’d want to run.
The IRS runs its own Tax Exempt Organization Search, which accepts an EIN or an organization name and pulls from several underlying databases at once: Pub 78 data on eligible donees, auto-revocation lists, determination letters, and filed Form 990 returns.3Internal Revenue Service. Tax Exempt Organization Search It only returns tax-exempt entities, so a search for a for-profit business will come back empty.
GuideStar, now part of Candid, lets you paste an EIN directly into its search bar and returns a full profile with financials, leadership, and mission information. A free account unlocks the detailed view.4Candid. Conduct a Search in GuideStar ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer does something similar and includes full Form 990 PDFs along with executive compensation and revenue breakdowns.5ProPublica. Nonprofit Explorer Both pull from the same IRS data but format it differently, so it’s worth checking both if one doesn’t give you what you need.
Publicly Traded Companies
Public companies disclose their EIN on the cover page of their Form 10-K, directly below the state of incorporation.6SEC.gov. Form 10-K You get to the filing through the SEC’s EDGAR system, which archives electronic filings back to 2001.7SEC.gov. EDGAR Full Text Search
EDGAR has no dedicated EIN search field. The normal path is to search by company name, ticker, or CIK number, open the most recent 10-K, and read the cover. If you already have the number and want to work backward to the company, drop the EIN into EDGAR’s full-text search. The results aren’t always clean, but for companies that file electronically it usually points you at the right entity.
Private For-Profit Companies
This is where most searches stall. The IRS issues EINs to millions of private businesses but doesn’t publish a lookup tool for any of them.8Internal Revenue Service. Employer Identification Number No federal site accepts an EIN and returns a private company’s name, address, or status.
Secretary of State websites let you search registered businesses in each state, but almost all of them search by business name, not by EIN. A few will show the EIN inside the entity’s filing details once you’ve found it by name, but most don’t display it at all. Coverage varies enough that this isn’t a reliable method.
If you need a private company’s EIN for a legitimate reason, ask the company. Businesses routinely provide their EIN on IRS Form W-9 when signing a contract, opening a vendor account, or taking on work that will require a 1099 at year-end. The W-9 exists for exactly that purpose.
Why Private EINs Aren’t Public
The IRS treats EINs as part of a taxpayer’s confidential return information. Federal law defines “return information” to include a taxpayer’s identity, which in turn covers name, mailing address, and taxpayer identifying number. EINs sit squarely inside that definition, and the statute bars IRS employees, state officials, and anyone else with access from disclosing it outside specific authorized channels.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6103 – Confidentiality and Disclosure of Returns and Return Information
That’s why there’s no master directory. Nonprofits are an exception because Congress separately required tax-exempt organizations to make their filings public. Public companies disclose voluntarily through SEC rules. Everyone else’s EIN stays confidential unless the business decides to share it.
When a Company Won’t Give You Its EIN
If you’re paying a vendor and they refuse to furnish an EIN on a W-9, backup withholding applies. You have to withhold 24% of the payment and send it to the IRS.10Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15 (2026), (Circular E), Employers Tax Guide The business that failed to provide the number is also subject to information return penalties for each instance of nonfurnishing.11Internal Revenue Service. Information Return Penalties On the other side, giving a false TIN to avoid backup withholding carries its own $500 penalty, and willful falsification can bring criminal charges.12Internal Revenue Service. Form W-9 (Rev. March 2024) – Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification
So the short version: look up nonprofits through the IRS tool, GuideStar, or ProPublica; look up public companies through EDGAR and the 10-K cover; for a private company, request a W-9 and let backup withholding do the work if they refuse.