IRS Enrolled Agent Part 2: Businesses exam help guide

IRS Enrolled Agent Part 2: Businesses is the business-tax section of the three-part Special Enrollment Examination required for most candidates seeking enrolled agent status. The IRS states that, effective March 1, 2026, the EA-SEE is no longer developed and administered by Prometric; PSI Services is the current vendor, and registration and scheduling for the 2026 cycle are handled through PSI. The revised PSI Candidate Information Bulletin lists the current testing window as July 1, 2026, through February 28, 2027, with no testing in March and April while the exam is updated. Part 2 contains 100 multiple-choice questions, including 85 scored questions and 15 unscored experimental questions, with 3.5 hours of exam time and a four-hour appointment block for the tutorial and survey. The Part 2 scored outline covers Business Entities and Considerations 30 questions, Business Tax Preparation 37, and Specialized Returns and Taxpayers 18. Candidates should prepare business entity classification and elections, sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, S corporations, LLCs, tax-exempt entities, reporting requirements, basis, distributions, income, deductions, credits, depreciation, amortization, section 179, QBI, employment taxes, accounting periods, filing requirements, penalties, and specialized business returns. For exams in the July 2026-February 2027 window, references are based on Internal Revenue Code, regulations, IRS forms, instructions, and publications amended through December 31, 2025, and questions generally relate to calendar year 2025 unless stated otherwise. Candidates need a PTIN to schedule, may take the SEE parts in any order, may attempt each part up to four times in the testing window, and must pass all three parts within three years. PSI reports results on a 200-800 scaled score range, with 500 as the passing score.