Let R be a unital ring with involution. We first show that the EP elements in R can be characterized by three equations. Namely, let a ∈ R, then a is EP if and only if there exists x ∈ R such that (xa) * = xa, xa 2 = a and ax 2 = x. Any EP element in R is core invertible and Moore-Penrose invertible. We give more equivalent conditions for a core (Moore-Penrose) invertible element to be an EP element. Finally, any EP element is characterized in terms of the n-EP property, which is a generalization of the bi-EP property.