Data methodology
Source
Every listing on Preparer Index is drawn from the IRS's public PTIN (Preparer Tax Identification Number) holders extract, published under the Freedom of Information Act at irs.gov/tax-professionals/ptin-information-and-the-freedom-of-information-act. The extract used to build this directory is dated February 23, 2026 and was retrieved on July 24, 2026. The IRS states this file is updated bi-annually; this directory does not auto-refresh and has no other update cadence claim.
What's on the page vs. what's in the extract
Each listing renders these extract fields: last name, first name, middle name, suffix, business/DBA name, business city, business state code, IRS credential/profession code(s), and AFSP (Annual Filing Season Program) participation. A blank field in the extract is omitted from the page — it is never guessed or filled in.
The extract also contains street address, ZIP code, country code, website, and phone number fields for each PTIN holder. None of those fields are displayed anywhere on this site. They are read in during the build only to determine US-vs-international grouping (business state/country code) and are not rendered, stored for display, or exposed via any page, feed, or script.
Grouping & formatting
Listings are grouped by business state code into the 50 states, DC, five US territories (PR, VI, GU, AS, MP), and three military codes (AA, AE, AP). Rows whose state code doesn't fall in that set are grouped under International by business-country code; an unrecognized country code is shown as-is, and a blank code is shown as “Not specified.”
Within a state, rows are grouped into a city page by a normalized slug (lowercase, non-alphanumeric characters collapsed to a hyphen) of the business city. This means two spellings of the same city that normalize to an identical slug are grouped onto one page — the page heading uses whichever raw spelling appears most often in the extract for that group. This is a presentation grouping only; no city names are corrected, merged by judgment, or guessed, and the underlying rows retain their original values. A handful of rows have no city on file; those are grouped into a state's “City not specified” page rather than dropped.
Credential codes are rendered exactly as they appear in the extract (comma-separated values are split into separate badges): CPA, EA, SRTP, ATTY, CAA, ERPA, EAC. Where the underlying credential name is directly verifiable on an irs.gov page, we show it: CPA (Certified Public Accountant), EA (Enrolled Agent), ATTY (Attorney), CAA (Certifying Acceptance Agent), and ERPA (Enrolled Retirement Plan Agent). SRTP and EAC are shown as bare codes with no expansion, because irs.gov does not spell out either abbreviation on any page we could find — we default to the code rather than guess. AFSP participation is a separate yes/no field in the extract, not a credential code, and is shown as its own badge when present.
What this directory does not do
No records are invented, estimated, or gap-filled. No two rows are merged or deduplicated, even if two entries look similar — two similar names are two separate PTIN holders. No specialty, years-of-experience, fee-range, language, or contact-detail claims are made anywhere, because the extract does not contain that information; the previous version of this site displayed fields like these as sample data, and they have been fully removed. There are no individual preparer profile pages in this version of the directory.
Listing ≠ endorsement
Appearing on this directory is not an endorsement, ranking, or certification of any kind. The order preparers appear on any page (alphabetical by last name, then first name) is not a quality signal.
Corrections
Because every row here is a direct pass-through of the IRS's own public extract, corrections to a preparer's underlying credential, name, or location happen with the IRS — not with this site. See Contact for how we handle correction and removal requests in the meantime.