While the settlor was alive the trust used their Social Security number. At death the trust becomes a separate taxpayer and needs its own employer identification number, and every dollar should move through an account opened in the trust's name under that number.
This is administrative, it takes an afternoon, and skipping it causes problems that take months to unwind.
You apply to the IRS as the trustee of the now-irrevocable trust. The online application issues the number immediately in most cases. You will need the trust's name as it appears in the document, the date it became irrevocable, and your own identifying information as the responsible party.
Use the trust's actual name. If the document says the Ramirez Family Trust dated June 3, 2011, that string is what goes on the account, the deed, and the tax return. Institutions match on it and a mismatch generates weeks of correspondence.
Banks will want the EIN, a certification of trust, a death certificate, and identification. A certification of trust is a short document summarizing the trustee's authority without exposing the distribution terms, and it is the right thing to hand a bank rather than the whole trust.
Do not keep using the decedent's checking account
The debit card still works. That is a trap, not a convenience. Every transaction on a dead person's account after the date of death is a problem, both for the bank relationship and for your own accounting. Move the money, close the account, and get a statement showing the date-of-death balance before you do.
What the account is for
- Receiving the balances swept from the decedent's individual accounts and any trust-titled accounts being consolidated
- Paying final expenses, property carrying costs, professional fees, and taxes
- Holding sale proceeds if real property is sold during administration
- Making distributions, traceably, so each beneficiary's share is documented
“A trustee in Culver City once paid nine months of trust expenses from her personal card because it earned points. She was completely honest and she had every receipt. It still took my paralegal eleven hours to reconstruct a clean reimbursement schedule, billed to the trust, which cost the beneficiaries more than the points were worth.”
Delia Vasquez-HartTax filings that follow
There is generally a final individual income tax return for the decedent covering the year of death, filed under their Social Security number. Then the trust files its own fiduciary income tax return under the new EIN for income earned after death, if it crosses the filing threshold. Beneficiaries may receive a schedule reporting income distributed to them.
Federal estate tax is a separate matter and, for the overwhelming majority of Los Angeles families, a non-issue. The exemption is $15 million per person in 2026, roughly $30 million for a married couple using portability, and California imposes no state estate tax. When a firm implies your $1.4 million house has an estate tax problem, they are selling you something.
Questions we get asked
Does every trust need an EIN after death?
Effectively yes for administration purposes, because banks will require one to open an account in the trust's name and the trust has become its own taxpayer.
How long does the trust keep the EIN?
For the life of the trust. A trust that continues for years, for instance for a minor beneficiary, keeps filing under it.
Can I use one account for several sub-trusts?
You should not. Where a trust splits into separate shares or sub-trusts, keep the money separate, because commingling across sub-trusts creates exactly the accounting problem you are trying to avoid.
What if the trust has no income?
Filing obligations depend on income thresholds and there may be no return due in a given year. Ask your accountant rather than guessing, because a missed fiduciary return is a penalty you pay for personally if you were careless.
Apply for the EIN online before your next bank appointment, and ask us to prepare a certification of trust to bring with you. Most banks will not open the account without one.