Driving with an LLC or Corp? How to send your EIN to Uber or Lyft

Most Uber and Lyft drivers are sole proprietors who will report their ride share earnings on their Schedule C tax form, but some of you may have an LLC or corporation that your prefer to operate under. It’s a smart move — by taking your Uber and Lyft earnings under the umbrella of a corporation, you can lower your tax bill.

But neither Uber nor Lyft makes it totally clear how to have your earnings filed under your Employer ID Number (EIN) rather than your personal SSN. And after you do figure out how to navigate each company’s tax reporting system, there’s often not a lot of reassurance that you’ve done it right and everything will be correctly reported at tax time.

I’ve operated as an Uber and Lyft driver under my S-Corp for two years now, so I’ll walk you through how you can let Uber and Lyft know that you are operating under an EIN. And I can tell you what happens at tax time each year.

How to submit your EIN to Uber

You can let Uber know that you are operating as a business entity by going to vault.uber.com. It’s a nice system that lists all banking and tax options in one form. It immediately displays all of your changes, so you can be sure that Uber correctly received your EIN.

1. Log in at vault.uber.com
2. Click the edit button next to “Bank Account Details”
3. Select your tax classification from the drop down
4. Enter your EIN in the “Employer ID Number” box
5. Click save, and if prompted to enter a pin, check your text messages to retrieve the pin

How to submit your EIN to Lyft

Lyft’s banking features aren’t as fully-developed as Uber’s, but you can still successfully give Lyft your EIN from the Lyft dashboard in the “Tax Info and Payments” section. Here’s how.

1. Log in at Lyft.com
2. On the left menu, click “Tax Info and Payments”
3. Scroll down to Tax Info and click “Edit Tax Info”
4. This will open up a new form. Select Corporation/LLC from the drop down and enter your EIN
5. Enter your electronic signature and submit

Click this button in your profile to open up a hidden form

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I don’t like Lyft’s system because you never get to see any part of your EIN displayed on screen after you submit it, and if you re-click “Edit Tax Info,” the EIN field is blank. It makes you feel like Lyft hasn’t correctly received or stored your info, which is not reassuring. But in my experience, Lyft does receive and use the info you input.

What happens at tax time?

One of my fears when I first created my S-Corp was that Uber and Lyft would file a 1099 under my SSN, and I’d either have to spend time correcting that with Uber and Lyft or pay the higher tax rate of a sole proprietor.

Neither company spells it out in huge letters that you’ve correctly listed your EIN, and they don’t specifically say that your income will be reported to your EIN. For a new corporation holder, that might be scary. It was for me.

In my experience, despite the lack of reassurance, both companies sent me a 1099 in January that listed my EIN and corporation name rather than my SSN. I’ve learned that companies don’t need to send a 1099 to a corporation, but Uber and Lyft do anyway. I appreciate getting the 1099s because they reassure me that the income has been properly attributed to my EIN.

So when you file your taxes or have someone else prepare your taxes, you can be assured that the IRS knows that your income is tied to your EIN, not your SSN.