Choosing a business name is one of the first steps of your entrepreneurial journey. Another early step is applying for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). A common question that arises is whether or not you can use the word “THE” at the beginning of your business name.
According to the IRS, “THE” is allowed in a business name. They will, however, eliminate common THE from the beginning of a business name when assigning EIN’s if your business name is longer than 2 words. This is because they use the first several letters of a business name as a security check to cross reference various electronic tax filings. The IRS term for this is “name control”. If they did not eliminate leading “THE”, there would be too many businesses using the same leading letters in the entity name to suit their purposes. You can use THE when it is followed by only one word.
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