Get your tax IDs in Rhode Island

An EIN, if you need one, comes from the IRS. Rhode Island then adds a sales tax permit if you sell taxable goods, a yearly charge for most LLCs and corporations, withholding if you have employees, and an unemployment account once you have hired someone.

What’s different in Rhode Island

• Most LLCs pay $400¹ a year even with no profit. The charge is not pro-rated, and owed no matter how long the business operated that year¹⁵. A sole proprietor does not pay it. A general partnership files the partnership return and does not pay it.
• Sales tax is 7%, and meals at a restaurant or bar add 1%⁵. The permit itself has no fee. You still renew it every year.
• A single-member LLC files on its owner’s due date, not the March date other pass-through LLCs use. For an owner who is a calendar-year individual, that is April 15³.
• Unemployment tax starts with the first employee, not after a dollar threshold. The exception on the FAQ is domestic work, at $1,000¹² of cash wages in a quarter. Temporary disability insurance is paid by the employee, and you withhold it.

Do this

1. Get an EIN from the IRS if you need one. It is free and, if approved, issued immediately¹⁴ online. A sole proprietor with no employees can often use a Social Security number. Get the EIN if you will hire, open a bank account in the company’s name, or the form asks for one. Don’t pay a website to apply for you.
2. Register for sales tax if you make retail sales in Rhode Island. The sales and use tax page says every person, firm, or organization making retail sales in Rhode Island needs a permit, and you register before you start your business⁵. The application fee was eliminated for permit periods that begin on or after July 1, 2022⁷, and there is no renewal fee for a permit period that begins on or after July 1, 2022. The renewal form is still required, due February 1, for a permit covering July 1 through June 30⁶.
3. Charge the rate for what you sell. From the same page: taxable sales are 7%, an eating or drinking establishment also collects 1% as a local meals and beverage tax, and a hotel room rental owes a 6% hotel tax on top of the sales tax. Use tax is 7%⁵.
4. File sales tax monthly through the Tax Portal. The return is due on or before the 20th of the next month. A return is still required when there were no sales. You can ask to file quarterly if six consecutive months averaged less than $200⁵ a month. That quarterly schedule needs written permission. It is not the default.
5. File the income return for your structure. Corporate and pass-through returns use approved filing software or paper; the Tax Portal accepts payments but does not file those income-tax returns. The forms and the single-member date are in the next section. Owners who report the business on their own return use the personal brackets and the April 15³ due date.
6. Register for withholding when you pay wages for work in Rhode Island. File and remit using the Tax Portal. Have each employee complete Form RI W-4, in addition to the federal Form W-4. The schedule depends on how much you withhold: weekly, if withholding is 600 dollars or more in a calendar month; monthly, if withholding is 50 dollars or more and under 600 dollars in a calendar month; or quarterly, if withholding is under 50 dollars in any calendar month⁹. A weekly payment is due the next banking day after the week ends. A larger business may have to pay electronically even on the monthly or quarterly schedule. The booklet states that test. Read it before you mail a check.
7. Open an unemployment account when you hire. Registration for unemployment and TDI is part of the state business registration application. The account is with the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training. Only a business or individual that has hired someone as an employee must register. A sole proprietor or partnership with no workers other than the owners does not register. The account cannot be opened before the first date wages were paid in Rhode Island. Reports are due January 31, April 30, July 31, and October 31. A quarterly report is still due when no wages were paid¹². For calendar year 2026, the wage base is $30,800, or $32,300 for the higher experience-rate group named on that page. The new employer rate printed under employment security is 1%. The job development assessment is a separate 0.21%¹¹ on the same wage base. Employers are told their own rate in late December.
8. Withhold temporary disability insurance. It is paid by employees, through a payroll deduction the employer must make. For 2026 the wage base is $100,000 and the rate is 1.1%¹¹. If you do not deduct it when you pay the wages, the employer-tax questions say you can become liable for the contribution yourself. Read that answer before you skip the deduction.
9. Report every new hire and rehire within 14 days. The new hire page is the Office of Child Support Services. A miss can cost $20 for each violation. If you report electronically, you send two monthly transmissions, if needed, not less than 12 and not more than 16 days apart. On contractors, the page says the employer decides whether there is an employer-employee relationship, and work done under a specific contract generally does not have to be reported¹³. The hiring guide covers the federal side.

Rates and income tax

Individual income tax for 2026, for an owner who reports the business on a personal return: 3.75 percent up to 82,050 dollars, 4.75 percent to 186,450 dollars, and 5.99 percent above that⁴. Starting with tax year 2027, the state adds a 1% surtax on personal income over 1 million dollars, rising to 3% from tax year 2029¹⁶. File Form RI-1040 for a resident by April 15³. The rate schedule says not to compute your own tax from the schedule when it tells you to use the tax table instead. Use the table in that PDF.

A C corporation pays 7%¹ of Rhode Island net income, or $400¹⁵, whichever is greater. File Form RI-1120C. The due date is the 15th day of the fourth month after the year ends, for a calendar-year filer and for a fiscal year that does not end June 30, or September 15 for a June 30 fiscal year².

A pass-through LLC that is not a corporation files Form RI-1065 and pays $400. The statutory date on the 2026 notice is March 15 for a calendar-year pass-through LLC. For 2026, that date is March 16, 2026, because March 15 falls on a Sunday. An LLC taxed as an S corporation files Form RI-1120S by March 15 and pays the same annual charge. An LLC taxed as a C corporation files Form RI-1120C by April 15 and pays the 7%¹ corporate tax or $400¹⁵, whichever is greater.

For the entity return, a general partnership files Form RI-1065 and is the exception to the annual charge². The costs chart agrees: a general partnership shows no minimum corporate tax.

A single-member LLC files the same return and pays the same charge, but on its owner’s due date. Notice 2026-01 says a single-member LLC uses the same due date and extended due date as its owner¹. For an owner who is a calendar-year individual, that is April 15, and the 2026 filing advisory prints April 15, 2026³ for that owner. The filing-requirements page does not mention the owner and gives the 15th day of the fourth month after the year ends, for a single-member LLC on a calendar year or on a fiscal year that does not end June 30². For an individual owner on a calendar year, that is the same day.

If the annual charge is not paid by the due date, the 2025 RI-1065 instructions add a delinquency charge of $100¹⁰.

Notice 2026-01 says an LLC with a nonresident member generally must withhold Rhode Island tax and file RI Schedule PTW. It also says a pass-through entity can elect to pay income tax at the entity level on RI Schedule PTE¹. If the entity elects that tax, it does not also have to file the withholding schedule. Whether the election helps depends on your numbers. Ask a CPA. This page does not pick it for you.

What you get back

An EIN from the IRS if you applied and were approved, a sales permit if you registered, a withholding account if you have employees, and an account number from the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training¹² once you are liable. The unemployment account number is not issued before the first Rhode Island wages are paid. Write down the sales-tax filing schedule. Monthly is the default. Quarterly is only if the Tax Administrator allows it.