Certified Acceptance Agent (CAA): how it works for your ITIN

The official term: Certifying Acceptance Agent

A Certifying Acceptance Agent, or CAA, is an individual or organization, such as an accounting firm or a university, that has a formal agreement with the IRS to help people get ITINs. Unlike a plain Acceptance Agent, a CAA is also authorized to verify your identity and foreign status by checking your documents itself. Most people search for “certified acceptance agent”; it’s the same thing.

A CAA doesn’t work for the IRS. The IRS says a CAA doesn’t act as its agent and may not present itself as one, and no acceptance agent can issue an ITIN. Only the IRS does that, after it processes your Form W-7.

To join the program, everyone named as a responsible party on a CAA’s application has to complete the IRS’s ITIN acceptance agent training and its forensic document training, and the business and those people undergo a suitability check.

CAA vs Acceptance Agent vs IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center

All three can take your application, but only a CAA and an IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC) can check your documents and give them straight back.

Some Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites in the US have CAAs on staff who do this for free, and can prepare your tax return free if you qualify. The IRS says VITA sites with ITIN services are in limited US locations.

What a CAA does with your passport

The CAA interviews you, examines your original documents or certified copies from the issuing agency, and hands them back once it has checked them. It then sends the IRS your Form W-7, your tax return if one is needed, copies of your documents and a Form W-7 (COA), Certificate of Accuracy. On that form the CAA certifies that it has reviewed your documents and that, to the best of its knowledge, they’re authentic, complete and accurate.

Every applicant has to be interviewed, including your spouse and each child. The interview can be face to face or by video. Either way, the IRS requires the agent to have your original documents, or certified copies, in its possession during the interview, so it can see the security features.

After the IRS issues your ITIN, the CAA receives the number directly and gets copies of your ITIN notices. It can also work with the IRS to sort out problems with your application.

Which documents a CAA can certify

A CAA can verify every document on the IRS list for you and your spouse (the IRS calls you the primary and secondary applicants) except foreign military ID cards. Those can still be used, but you have to send them to the IRS by mail or take them to a Taxpayer Assistance Center.

For dependents, a CAA can only verify passports and civil birth certificates. Everything else for a child, such as a national ID card or the US school and medical records many dependents need to prove US residency, has to go to the IRS as an original or a certified copy from the issuing agency. A TAC can verify a dependent’s national ID card as well.

If a dependent’s passport is used on its own, it must show a date of entry into the US. The ITIN document checklist covers which documents each applicant needs.

How to find and check a CAA on the IRS list

The IRS publishes a list of authorized acceptance agents, sorted by US state and by country. Use it to find an agent and to check any agent you’re offered.

1. 1

   Open the IRS list

   Go to the IRS page “ITIN acceptance agents” and choose your US state or your country. It covers every state plus Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, and more than 60 countries and territories abroad.

2. 2

   Find the agent’s name and address

   Each entry shows the agent’s name, address and phone number. Agents marked with an asterisk are plain Acceptance Agents, so they can’t verify your documents.

3. 3

   Contact the agent

   Ask about the fee, whether it covers each family member and a tax return, whether they interview by video, and how your documents will travel if you aren’t nearby.

4. 4

   Bring everything to the interview

   The IRS tells applicants to bring their supporting documents and any family members who are applying, with their documents.

The IRS also lists five international accounting firms with agents in the US and abroad: Deloitte and Touche, Ernst & Young, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and BDO. Check any agent who offers to verify your documents against the list before you hand anything over.

What CAAs charge

The IRS charges nothing to issue an ITIN. Acceptance agents set their own prices, and the IRS says only that fees vary. Get the full price in writing before you book, including anything extra for each family member, a tax return or couriering your documents.

Compare that with the free routes:

The IRS doesn’t publish a faster processing time for applications sent through a CAA. The standard times apply: 7 weeks, or 9 to 11 weeks if you apply from abroad or between January 15 and April 30. See ITIN processing time.

Using a CAA from outside the US

CAAs work abroad as well as in the US, and the IRS list includes agents in many countries, including India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the UK. Interviews can take place by video. But because the IRS requires the agent to hold your original documents or certified copies during the interview, a video interview with an agent in another city or country still means getting your passport, or a certified copy, to them. Ask how they’ll send it back.

If there’s no CAA near you, the other options are to mail your original passport to the IRS or to send a copy certified by the agency that issued it.

Where TheITINapp fits

TheITINapp prepares Form W-7, reviews your documents and submits your application. We aren’t a Certifying Acceptance Agent ourselves; we work with a partner CAA, an agent authorized by the IRS, who can verify your passport where that route suits your case, so the original stays with you. We tell you which of the three routes fits before you send anything (see pricing). For the full picture of your options from abroad, see the ITIN guides.