Tax and residency

Individual Taxpayer Identification Number

Also called ITIN, IRS individual taxpayer identification number.

An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, is a nine digit number the IRS issues on Form W-7 to someone who needs a US taxpayer identification number for federal tax purposes but is not eligible for a Social Security number, and it is issued for federal tax purposes only: it does not permit work and does not change immigration status.

What it decides

26 U.S.C. 6109(a) requires an identifying number on a return and 6109(d) makes the Social Security number the default, and 26 CFR 301.6109-1(d)(3) is the exception that creates the ITIN for an alien individual who must furnish a number but cannot obtain an SSN. An EB-5 investor commonly needs one before the green card, because an interest in the new commercial enterprise can produce US source income and a filing obligation while the family is still abroad. Form W-7 is attached to the front of the return the number is needed for, unless one of the listed exceptions applies. Under 26 U.S.C. 6109(i)(3) an ITIN that appears on no federal return for three consecutive tax years expires on 31 December of that third year. Anyone entitled to an SSN is not issued an ITIN, so once residence is approved the investor must get the SSN, tell the IRS in writing and use the SSN on every later filing. The IRS then voids the ITIN and moves the earlier records onto the SSN, and failing to ask for that costs credit for tax already withheld.

Governed by 26 U.S.C. 6109(a), (d) and (i)(3), headed Term of ITIN, read on uscode.house.gov. 26 CFR 301.6109-1(d)(3) and (d)(4)(i), read through the eCFR renderer API. IRS, Individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN), last updated 28 October 2025, for the nine digits and for what an ITIN does not do; IRS, Additional ITIN information, for combining records once an SSN issues; Instructions for Form W-7, revised 12/2024, for attaching the return and for the three year expiry.

Related terms

Schedule K-1Schedule K-1 (Form 1065) is the annual statement a partnership issues to each partner reporting that partner's distributive share of the partnership's income, gains, losses, deductions and credits, which the partner must then report on their own tax return whether or not any cash was actually distributed.
Nonresident alien and resident alienResident alien and nonresident alien are the two United States income tax statuses a non-citizen can hold: a resident alien is taxed on worldwide income and files Form 1040, while a nonresident alien files Form 1040-NR and is taxed only on income effectively connected with a United States business and on United States source passive income.
Substantial presence testThe substantial presence test is the day count at 26 U.S.C. 7701(b)(3) that makes a foreign national a United States resident for income tax purposes: at least 31 days of presence in the current year, and 183 days across three years counting the current year in full, one third of the first preceding year and one sixth of the second. No green card is needed to meet it.
State income taxState income tax is a second layer of income tax that most US states charge their residents on all income wherever earned, with residence fixed by each state's own statute rather than by the federal residency tests or by immigration status, so an EB-5 family can become resident of a state on facts that have nothing to do with the green card.

Checked against primary sources on 10 August 2026. Back to the glossary