Get your tax IDs in Oregon

An EIN, if you need one, takes minutes online. Oregon does not add a sales-tax permit for ordinary sales. It does add income tax, a commercial-activity tax once receipts are high enough, and employer accounts when you have people on the payroll.

What’s different in Oregon

• No general sales tax. Oregon does not have a general sales or use tax. The exception on that page is a vehicle use tax on a new vehicle bought outside Oregon, paid before the vehicle is titled and registered here¹.
• The Corporate Activity Tax is not an income tax. Only a taxpayer with more than $1 million of taxable Oregon commercial activity has a payment obligation.⁴ Below that line, you may still have to register and file.
• A C corporation’s Oregon return is not due with the federal return. It is due the 15th day of the month after the federal corporation return is due. The calendar-year example is May 15 when a calendar-year federal C corporation return is due April 15⁵.
• Unemployment tax applies to the first $56,700 each employee earns in 2026. A new employer’s base rate is 2.4%¹², plus a separate offset.

Do this

1. Get an EIN from the IRS if you need one. It is free and, if approved, issued immediately¹⁴ online. You will need it for a bank account and for Oregon employer accounts. A sole proprietor with no employees can often use a Social Security number for federal income tax. Don’t pay a website to apply for you.
2. Do not register for a general sales tax. Oregon does not have a general sales or use tax. Oregon does not have a sales tax exempt certificate. If you buy a new vehicle outside Oregon, there is a vehicle use tax on a new vehicle bought outside Oregon, paid before the vehicle is titled and registered here¹. Oregon also will not reduce your Oregon tax because you paid sales tax in another state. If you rent rooms or a short-term rental, Oregon’s lodging tax does apply: 1.5 percent for stays ending on or before December 31, 2026, and 2.75 percent for nights beginning on or after January 1, 2027. For a stay crossing from 2026 into 2027, charge 1.5 percent on nights starting in 2026 and 2.75 percent on nights starting in 2027, even if it is one reservation. Lodging receipts must list the additional 1.25 percent separately as a “nature conservation fee”. Under the lodging tax page, whoever collects payment for the stay is responsible for collecting and remitting the tax². Register with the Department of Revenue before you collect it.
3. Register for the Corporate Activity Tax if commercial activity reaches the line. A business or unitary group with $750,000 or less of Oregon commercial activity is excluded from all CAT requirements. At $750,000, you must register, within 30 days. A late registration can cost $100 a month, up to $1,000 in a calendar year. A business or unitary group with more than $1 million of Oregon commercial activity must file a return. Only a taxpayer with more than $1 million of taxable Oregon commercial activity has a payment obligation. The tax is $250 plus 0.57 percent of taxable Oregon commercial activity over $1 million. The law also allows a subtraction of 35 percent of certain business expenses. The return is due the 15th day of the fourth month after the tax year ends⁴. Read the CAT page before you assume a receipt counts. Some receipts are excluded.
4. If you operate in Portland or Multnomah County, register for the local business taxes. A business operating in the City of Portland or Multnomah County, including a rideshare driver, must register for a Revenue Division tax account within 60 days. The Revenue Division collects the City of Portland Business License Tax at 2.6% and the Multnomah County Business Income Tax at 2%. The Metro supportive housing tax of 1% applies to a business with total gross receipts of more than $5 million that also operates within the Metro jurisdiction³. A sole proprietor is not liable for that Metro business tax; the Revenue Division page points sole proprietors to the Metro personal income tax instead.
5. Plan for Oregon income tax. Personal rates are 4.75 percent, then 6.75 percent, then 8.75 percent, then 9.9 percent on income above the third bracket. Oregon uses two sets of brackets, one for married, head of household, or qualifying surviving spouse, and one for single or married filing separately⁸. The dollar cutoffs for the year are on the rate chart linked from the personal income tax page. That page’s chart heading is the 2025 tax year.* Use the chart for the year you are filing, and do not copy a dollar band from memory. Personal returns are due generally April 15⁷.
6. If you formed a corporation, read the excise tax rules. Registering the corporation with the Secretary of State does not by itself create an Oregon tax return. A corporation doing business in Oregon generally files an excise return. The rates are 6.6% when Oregon taxable income is in the lower band, and 7.6% on the amount above it, plus $66,000. The minimum for a C corporation excise filer is between $150 and $100,000, depending on Oregon sales, when that minimum is greater than the tax calculated from the rates⁶. The sales bands are in ORS 317.090 and the Form OR-20 instructions. An S corporation doing business in Oregon pays $150, and that minimum does not flow through to the shareholders. The Oregon return is due the 15th day of the month after the federal corporation return is due. For example, it is due May 15 when a calendar-year federal C corporation return is due April 15, and April 15 when a calendar-year federal S corporation return is due March 15. Estimated payments for a calendar-year corporation are April 15, June 15, September 15, and December 15 for a calendar-year filer⁵.
7. If the business is a partnership or an S corporation, the income passes through. Income and losses of a pass-through entity pass through to its owners. The entity can elect to pay Oregon tax itself if every owner is an individual, or a pass-through entity owned entirely by individuals, at 9% on the first $250,000 of distributive proceeds and 9.9% above that. File Form OR-21. The return is due April 15, or October 15 if you have an extension. A return after that date, including the extension, is not accepted, and then there is no election. A sole proprietorship, and a single-member LLC that files as a sole proprietorship, cannot elect it. For the 2026 tax year only, the first and second quarterly payments are both due June 15. The program now runs through tax years beginning before January 1, 2028. The law ends if the federal cap on the state and local tax deduction ends or is repealed.⁷ Whether the election helps depends on your numbers. Ask a CPA. This page does not pick it for you.
8. Open employer accounts when you have employees. Start with the combined employer registration. Only a person or firm with employees files the combined employer registration. Corporate officers count as employees, including in an S corporation.¹¹ A sole corporate officer who is also a director and owns a substantial part of the corporation may elect out of unemployment coverage, if the Employment Department approves it in writing first. A sole corporate officer cannot elect out of Paid Leave. Your Oregon business identification number is not the Secretary of State registry number and not the Revenue identification number. The quarterly combined report is Form OQ. For 2026 the booklet prints these report dates: April 30, 2026, July 31, 2026, November 2, 2026, and February 1, 2027. If the due date is a weekend or holiday, the report is due the next business day.¹⁰ Use the booklet for the year you are filing.
9. Add the payroll taxes that apply. Unemployment: liable at $1,000 in a quarter, or an employee in each of 18 weeks. Agriculture is different: $20,000 or more of cash wages in a calendar quarter, or 10 or more employees during 20 weeks. Household employees: $1,000¹¹ in a quarter. The 2026 wage base is $56,700. Rates run from 0.9% to 5.4%. A new employer starts at 2.4%. The same page lists a special payroll tax offset of 0.135% for each quarter of 2026. Paid Leave: the 2026 rate is 1% of wages up to $184,500¹². Every employer withholds the employee contribution and pays it over. Employees pay 60% of that rate. Employers with 25 or more employees on average pay 40%. An employer with fewer than 25 employees on average does not pay the employer portion unless it receives an assistance grant. It still withholds the employee portion. Employer size counts employees in Oregon and employees outside the state. A self-employed person or independent contractor is not covered unless they choose coverage.¹³ Statewide transit tax: withhold one-tenth of 1 percent (0.001) from wages of Oregon residents, wherever the work is done, and wages of nonresidents for work done in Oregon. Self-employment income is not subject to the statewide transit tax.⁹ TriMet’s rate in the 2026 booklet is 0.008237, and Lane Transit District’s is 0.0080, for an employer paying wages earned in the TriMet or Lane Transit District. The Workers’ Benefit Fund rate for 2026 is 0.018, and the booklet calls it an hourly assessment based on hours worked by paid individuals subject to it. The quarter’s assessment is the hours worked by those workers in the quarter times the rate, rounded down to the nearest cent. The employer pays half and deducts half from the worker's wages. Report new hires and rehires to the Oregon Department of Justice within 20¹⁰ days. The hiring guide covers the federal side.

What you get back

An EIN from the IRS if you applied, a Corporate Activity Tax account if you had to register, and an Oregon business identification number once you register as an employer. Write down the filing frequency the agency assigns. The Secretary of State registry number is a different number.