How Do I Get an EIN for a Trust?

1. When Does a Trust Need an EIN?

A trust needs an employer identification number, or EIN, when it becomes a taxpayer separate from the person who created it. The number is the trust’s tax identification number, and the IRS calls it an employer number even though a trust usually has no employees.

There are three common moments.

1. The grantor of a living trust dies. While the grantor is alive, a revocable trust is a grantor trust, and the trustee gives banks the grantor’s Social Security number. Treasury regulations then require a trust that was entirely owned by the person who died to obtain a new number if the trust continues, which nearly every living trust does for at least a few months.
2. An irrevocable trust is created that is taxed on its own. A trust for grandchildren, an irrevocable life insurance trust or a special needs trust funded by a parent usually needs its own number from the day money first goes in.
3. A new trust splits off at a death. A couple’s joint trust may divide at the first death into a survivor’s share and a marital or family trust. Each separate trust that continues gets its own number.

A revocable trust whose grantor is alive does not need an EIN, and the IRS instructions for Form SS-4 tell the trustee of that kind of trust not to apply. A bank that asks for one is following its own procedure. Our page on whether your trust needs a tax return covers the same rule from the filing side.

2. How Do I Get an EIN for a Trust Online?

You apply on the IRS website, the application is free, and if it is approved the IRS issues the number immediately at the end of the session. A website that charges a fee to obtain an EIN is a private service filling in the same free form. The IRS sets four conditions and limits worth knowing before you start.

• Hours. The online tool runs Monday to Friday from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. the next day, Saturday from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 6 p.m. to midnight, Eastern time.
• One session. The application cannot be saved, and it expires after 15 minutes of inactivity.
• A responsible party with a number. The applicant must have the responsible party’s Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number. The Form SS-4 instructions describe the responsible party for a trust as a grantor, owner or trustor.
• One a day. The IRS issues one EIN per responsible party per day, so a family closing out a joint trust with two new trusts may need two days.

Have the trust document open before you begin. The IRS asks for the trust’s name as it appears on the trust instrument, the date the trust was signed, the trustee’s name and mailing address, and the reason for applying. For a living trust after a death, the successor trustee should also have the date of death and the death certificate at hand. The name matters, because the bank will compare the name on the IRS letter with the name on the trust.

At the end the IRS shows a confirmation letter, often called the CP 575. Save and print it before closing the window, because the bank will ask for it.

3. How Do I Apply With Form SS-4 Instead?

Form SS-4 is the paper version of the same application, and it suits a trustee who cannot use the online tool or prefers a signed filing. The IRS instructions give three routes.

• Fax. Within the 50 states and the District of Columbia, fax the completed form to 855-641-6935. The IRS generally faxes the number back within 4 business days.
• Mail. Send the form to Internal Revenue Service, Attn: EIN Operation, Cincinnati, OH 45999. The number arrives by mail in about 4 weeks.
• Telephone. An applicant with no legal residence or principal place of business in the United States may call 267-941-1099, which is not toll free, from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time, Monday to Friday. A trustee living in Canada or Israel who is administering a Florida trust uses this route.

On the form, the trust’s name goes on the first line exactly as the trust instrument states it, and the reason for applying is the box for a created trust. A lawyer or accountant can sign as the trustee’s authorized representative with the designee section completed.

4. What Do I Do With the EIN at the Bank?

You use the EIN to move each account into the trust’s own name, under the trust’s own number. Florida puts a duty on every trustee to take reasonable steps to take control of trust property and protect it, and retitling the accounts is how that starts. The rules on protecting trust property cover the duty.

A successor trustee usually brings four things to the bank.

1. The IRS letter confirming the trust’s EIN.
2. A certified copy of the death certificate.
3. A certification of trust, a short statement Florida law lets a trustee give instead of the whole trust. The certification confirms the trust exists, the date it was signed, the settlor, the current trustee, the trustee’s powers, and how title is held. The bank may also ask for the pages that name the trustee and grant the power, but Florida law protects a bank that relies on the certification, so it has no need to read who inherits.
4. A completed IRS Form W-9 giving the trust’s name and EIN, so the bank reports future interest under the trust’s number.

The bank then opens an account titled in the trustee’s name as trustee of the trust, or changes the existing one. Avoid leaving the account under the parent’s Social Security number after the death, because the bank will keep issuing tax forms to a person who can no longer file a return. Our guide on how to open a trust account covers the bank side in more detail, and our successor trustee guide lists the rest of the first 30 days.

5. What Comes After the Trust Has an EIN?

The trust starts filing its own income tax return, Form 1041, for any year its gross income reaches $600. Income the trust keeps is taxed to the trust, and income it distributes is generally taxed to the beneficiaries who receive it, reported to each on a Schedule K-1. An election can let a revocable trust be taxed together with the probate estate for a period, and our page on whether your trust needs a tax return explains the timing.

Florida adds two notice duties that run alongside. Within 60 days of learning that the trust has become irrevocable, the trustee must tell the qualified beneficiaries that the trust exists, who created it, that they may ask for a copy, and that they are entitled to accountings. The trustee also files a notice of trust with the court in the county where the grantor lived. Our pages on the trustee’s duty to account and on the notice of trust cover both, and our guide to Florida trust administration covers the months that follow.

What Does Help With a Trust Administration Cost?

Administering a Florida trust after a death, including the EIN, the notices, the accountings and the deeds, is a flat fee quoted at consult, because the work moves with the number of accounts and properties. Many successor trustees handle the EIN themselves and ask us to handle the notices and the real estate. Recording and other government costs are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. Our page on Florida trustee fees covers what the trustee may be paid for the work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The son who became trustee on a Tuesday. A mother dies and her son is named successor trustee. He applies online that evening, receives the number before closing the window, and brings the IRS letter, the death certificate and a certification of trust to her bank the next morning. The accounts move into the trust’s name under the new number within the week.

The widow with a new marital trust. A husband dies and the couple’s joint trust divides into a survivor’s share and a marital trust. The survivor’s share keeps reporting under her Social Security number, and the marital trust gets its own EIN and its own accounts.

Sources of Law

• Treas. Reg. §1.671-4(b)(2)(i)(A) (trustee of a trust owned by one grantor furnishes the grantor’s name and number to payors); §1.671-4(h) (a trust entirely owned by the decedent obtains a new number at death if it continues). 26 U.S.C. §6109 (identifying numbers); §6012(a)(4) (trust return at $600 of gross income).
• Internal Revenue Service, Get an employer identification number (online hours, 15-minute session, one EIN per responsible party per day, responsible party’s SSN or ITIN required); Instructions for Form SS-4 (grantor-type trust exception, trust name as in the instrument, responsible party for trusts, fax, mail and international telephone routes). Both retrieved September 30, 2026.
• Fla. Stat. §736.0809 (trustee takes control of and protects trust property); §736.1017 (annotated)(1),(5)-(7) (certification of trust; excerpts a recipient may request; reliance protected).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0813(1)(a)-(b) (60-day notices to qualified beneficiaries); §736.05055 (notice of trust at the settlor’s death); §733.808(1) (life insurance payable to a trust is disposed of under the trust’s terms as of the insured’s death).
• Case retold below: Morey v. Everbank, 93 So. 3d 482 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012). Opinion read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026.

The Insurance Check That Went Where the Trust Said

Cases with this shape keep coming up, and it is usually a beneficiary form that nobody reread after the trust changed.

In January 2000 a Florida businessman signed a revocable trust. The next month he applied for two life insurance policies of $250,000 each. The agent’s note on the application said one policy was for the trust to benefit his daughters and the other was for the continuation of his business, and the first policy named his trust as beneficiary. In 2004 he restated the trust. The restated version told the trustee to pay whatever the personal representative of his estate certified was needed for his debts and the costs of his estate, and only then to hold what remained in a separate trust for the daughters. He never changed the policy, which still named the main trust. He died in 2008. His estate held seven corporations, a limited liability company, twenty-six rental properties, an apartment complex and more than twenty-five vehicles, with real estate valued at $7,350,500, and his finances had turned for the worse, with the estate seeking counsel to put several of the businesses into bankruptcy.

His brother, serving as trustee, asked the court to rule that the money was protected from the estate’s creditors and belonged to the daughters. The trial court said no, and the First District affirmed in 2012. Florida law says insurance paid to a trust is handled under the trust’s terms as they read on the date of death, and these terms sent money to the estate’s obligations first. The court also refused to rewrite the trust, because a change in his finances after signing was not a mistake in the document.

My reading of that case is that the father’s plan for his daughters was clear to the agent in 2000 and was lost in the 2004 restatement. In reading the Florida cases on money that reaches a trust at death, I have a few take-home points.

The first is that the trust becomes a taxpayer the day the grantor dies. An insurer paying a trust typically asks for the trust’s own number, so the successor trustee obtains the EIN before filing the claim, and the money then follows the trust document rather than the family’s memory of the plan.

The second is the beneficiary form. Avoid restating a trust without rereading every policy and account that names it, because the form points at the trust, and the trust’s current words decide where the money goes.

The third is protection. An owner who wants insurance kept for children and away from business debts can name the children’s trust directly, or keep the payment-of-debts clause from reaching the policy.

Every trust administration I handle, flat fee quoted at consult, starts with a list of every account and policy that names the trust. One limit is worth stating plainly. The opinion does not say how much of the $250,000 the estate’s obligations consumed, so it does not tell us what the daughters finally received.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. The case described above is a decision of a Florida court rather than a matter handled by this firm. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Updated on September 30, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.