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What is an FEI number?

An FEI number — FDA Establishment Identifier — is the number FDA uses to identify one physical facility. It is assigned per establishment, not per company, so a firm operating three plants has three FEI numbers, and it stays with the site across ownership changes.

It is the identifier that ties together your registration, your drug listings, and your inspection history. When FDA publishes anything about a facility, it is keyed on the FEI.

Where to find yours

  • Your registration confirmation. FURLS/eDRLS shows the FEI on the establishment record and on the confirmation returned after a successful registration or renewal.
  • Correspondence from FDA. Inspection reports, Form 483s, and establishment inspection reports all carry it.
  • FDA's public files. The registration file lists every registered establishment with its FEI, firm name, and address.

What it is not

  • Not a DUNS number. DUNS is Dun & Bradstreet's commercial identifier. FDA records both, and they are unrelated numbering systems.
  • Not a registration number. Older FDA systems issued separate registration numbers; the FEI is the durable identifier for the facility itself.
  • Not an NDC labeler code. The labeler code identifies who markets a drug. The FEI identifies where an operation physically happens.

Why yours might look too short

FEI numbers are commonly seven or ten digits, but older establishments were assigned shorter ones, and FDA's published files often pad them with leading zeros — so the same facility can appear as 0000001073 in a file and 1073 on your paperwork. They are the same number. Any system that rejects the short form is wrong, not your record.

Confirming it

The quickest check is against FDA's own file, which is rebuilt every business day. Enter the number here and you will see the firm name and current expiration date FDA has on record for it. If the firm name that comes back is not yours, the number is not yours — that is usually a transcription error rather than anything alarming.

The lookup is free, needs no account, and does not touch your FURLS credentials. It reads the same public file that anyone can download.