Outline of the eviction process in Illinois

Illinois evictions are governed by the Eviction Article of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/9-101 and following) and are filed in the circuit court of the county where the property sits. Statewide the procedure is short: a five-day notice for unpaid rent, a summons with a court date as little as a week out, and an eviction order that only the sheriff may enforce. What makes Illinois harder than it looks is local law. Chicago’s Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance (RLTO) and Fair Notice Ordinance, and the Cook County ordinance that covers the suburbs, add cure rights, longer notices, fee caps and penalties that the state statute does not contain. Work out which set of rules applies before you serve anything.

1. Grounds

Illinois has no statewide just-cause requirement and state law prohibits local rent control. A landlord may evict for nonpayment of rent, for a breach of the lease, for certain criminal activity on the premises, or because the tenancy has ended. As of September 2026 Chicago does not have a just-cause eviction ordinance either, although tenant-protection proposals are regularly before the City Council; check the current position if your property is in the city.

Retaliation is the defense to plan around. The Landlord Retaliation Act (765 ILCS 721), in force since January 1, 2025, bars a landlord from terminating a tenancy, raising rent, cutting services or refusing to renew because the tenant complained to a government agency, asked for repairs, joined a tenant organization or exercised another legal right, and creates a rebuttable presumption of retaliation where the landlord acts within one year of the tenant’s protected activity. A tenant who proves it can recover the greater of two months’ rent or twice the actual damages, plus attorney’s fees. Source of income, including housing vouchers, has been a protected class under the Illinois Human Rights Act since 2023.

Separately, the Immigrant Tenant Protection Act bars a landlord, unless required by law or court order, from bringing an eviction based solely or in part on a tenant’s immigration or citizenship status, or from threatening to disclose or disclosing that status to harass the tenant, retaliate, or pressure the tenant to leave. A tenant can recover actual damages, a civil penalty of up to $2,000 per violation, and attorney’s fees (765 ILCS 755/10, 755/15).

2. Notices

• Nonpayment: five days (735 ILCS 5/9-209). A written demand stating the rent due and giving not less than five days after service to pay. Only rent belongs in the demand. The statute supplies language that landlords should include: “Only FULL PAYMENT of the rent demanded in this notice will waive the landlord’s right to terminate the lease under this notice, unless the landlord agrees in writing to continue the lease in exchange for receiving partial payment.” With that language, accepting a partial payment during the notice period does not invalidate the notice. If the tenant pays in full within the five days, the tenancy continues.
• Lease violation: ten days (5/9-210). A ten-day notice to quit is sufficient for a default in any term of the lease. The state statute gives the tenant no right to cure. In Chicago the RLTO does: the notice must give the tenant ten days to remedy the breach, and the tenancy continues if it is remedied.
• Criminal activity: five days (5/9-120). Where the lease is voided for the kinds of criminal conduct the section lists, the landlord gives a written five-day notice to vacate before filing.
• Ending a periodic tenancy. Seven days for week-to-week and 30 days for month-to-month or any other term under a year (5/9-207); 60 days for year-to-year (5/9-205).
• End of a fixed-term lease. Under the state statute no notice is required: when the term expires the tenant must surrender possession (5/9-213). Chicago and suburban Cook County override this. Chicago’s Fair Notice Ordinance requires written notice of non-renewal, termination or a rent increase of 30 days where the tenant has been in the unit up to six months, 60 days for more than six months and up to three years, and 120 days for more than three years.
• Federally backed or subsidized properties add the CARES Act 30-day notice.

How notices are served (5/9-211). Deliver a copy to the tenant; or leave it with a person aged 13 or older who lives at or is in possession of the premises; or send it by certified or registered mail with a return receipt. Posting on the door is valid only when no one is in actual possession of the premises. Landlords lose cases on this point constantly, because posting is a recognized way to serve a summons and they assume it works for the notice too. It does not. Complete the affidavit of service on the notice when you serve it.

3. Filing

File an eviction complaint in the circuit court. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 139 requires you to attach, at filing, the eviction notice or demand with its proof of service (or an affidavit if you do not have the notice), and, in a lease-violation case under 735 ILCS 5/9-210, the lease or its relevant portions. You may join a claim for rent. Fees vary widely by county and Cook County’s is several hundred dollars, so check the clerk’s current schedule. A corporation or LLC generally must appear through an attorney in Illinois circuit court.

Do not name a child as a defendant. Since January 1, 2026 (Public Act 104-317), a complaint that names a minor must be dismissed in its entirety and the court file is sealed immediately, and a minor who was named willfully and wantonly may recover attorney’s fees, actual damages and $1,000 in liquidated damages (5/9-106). Name the adult tenants and “unknown occupants” instead.

4. Summons and service

The summons in an eviction case sets an appearance date not less than seven and not more than 40 days after it is issued (Supreme Court Rule 101(b)), and it must be served at least three days before that date (Rule 102). The sheriff or a licensed private process server may serve it, by personal delivery or by leaving it at the home with a household member aged 13 or older and mailing a copy. If the tenant cannot be served after a diligent attempt, the court may allow service by posting and mailing under 5/9-107, but a case served that way can proceed for possession only, not for a money judgment.

The tenant does not have to file an answer. Under Rule 181(b)(2) the tenant need only appear on the date in the summons; unless the court orders an answer, the allegations of the complaint are treated as denied. Expect the first date to be a status or settlement date in the larger counties. Cook County runs an Early Resolution Program that connects both tenants and small landlords with free legal help, mediation and rental assistance, and judges routinely continue a first appearance so the parties can use it.

5. Trial and the eviction order

Bring the lease, the ledger, the notice with its affidavit of service, and a witness with personal knowledge. Either side may demand a jury. The defenses you will meet most often are a defective notice or defective service of it, acceptance of rent after the notice, retaliation, and in Chicago a failure to comply with the RLTO. If you win, the court enters an eviction order (the statute no longer calls it an order of possession or a writ) and usually stays enforcement for a short period, commonly one to two weeks, to give the tenant time to move.

Chicago’s right to pay and stay. Under the Fair Notice Ordinance a Chicago tenant sued for nonpayment may stay in the unit by paying all the back rent plus the landlord’s court filing fees at any time before the judge issues the eviction order.

Sealing. The court may seal an eviction file where the case was without a basis in fact or law, and must seal files in certain foreclosure-related cases and cases dismissed for naming a minor (5/9-121). This is state law and applies everywhere, not just in Chicago.

A notice of appeal is due within 30 days of the final judgment. An appeal does not by itself stop the eviction; the tenant has to obtain a stay, which the court will normally condition on a bond or on continued payment for use and occupancy.

6. Enforcement: only the sheriff

Only the county sheriff may enforce an eviction order in Illinois. Place the order with the sheriff promptly and pay the enforcement fee. Two things catch landlords out:

• The order goes stale. An eviction order cannot be enforced more than 120 days after it is entered unless you file a motion, on notice to the tenant, and the court extends it (5/9-117). In Cook County, where the sheriff’s queue and the winter and holiday moratoriums can run for weeks, this is a real deadline.
• The sheriff removes people, not property. The Cook County Sheriff’s own guide says deputies will remove all persons ordered evicted but will not remove personal property, and they do not give the tenant an advance date. Have a locksmith and a crew ready on the day. State law imposes no storage duty after a sheriff’s eviction, but local ordinances and common sense favor giving the tenant a short, documented window to collect belongings.

Squatters. Public Act 104-29, effective January 1, 2026, added 5/9-102(e): nothing in the Eviction Article prevents police from enforcing criminal trespass or removing trespassers. A person who never had a tenancy is a police matter, not an eviction.

Self-help is unlawful everywhere and expensive in Chicago. Lockouts, removing doors, and cutting utilities are prohibited. Under RLTO 5-12-160 a Chicago tenant recovers the greater of two months’ rent or twice the actual damages, and the landlord faces a fine of $200 to $500 for each day the violation continues.

7. Chicago and Cook County at a glance

• Chicago RLTO (Municipal Code ch. 5-12) covers most rental units in the city other than owner-occupied buildings of six or fewer units. It requires the RLTO summary to be attached to every lease, gives the ten-day cure right described above, and caps late fees at $10 a month on the first $500 of rent plus five percent of the rent above $500.
• Fair Notice Ordinance: the 30, 60 and 120-day notices and the right to pay before the order.
• Cook County Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance (2021) applies similar rules, including a lockout ban and late-fee limits, in suburban Cook County. Evanston, Mount Prospect and some other municipalities have their own ordinances.

Recent law changes landlords should know

• Minors may not be named (January 1, 2026). P.A. 104-317: dismissal, immediate sealing and $1,000 liquidated damages.
• Squatter clarification (January 1, 2026). P.A. 104-29, 5/9-102(e).
• Summary of Rights for Safer Homes Act (January 1, 2026). The Illinois Department of Human Rights’ summary of housing protections for survivors of domestic and sexual violence must be attached as the first page of every written residential lease, with each tenant signing the acknowledgment at the bottom of each page; a landlord who fails to comply is liable for the greater of the tenant’s actual damages up to $2,000 or $100, plus attorney’s fees and costs (765 ILCS 752/15, 752/20, 752/30).
• Landlord Retaliation Act (January 1, 2025). One-year presumption; two months’ rent or double damages plus fees.
• Private process servers in Cook County (January 1, 2025). P.A. 103-671 lets a licensed private detective serve process in Cook County without first going through the sheriff.
• On the horizon. A rental fee transparency law signed in 2026, reported to take effect January 1, 2027, will require non-optional fees to be disclosed on the first page of the lease and will ban a list of add-on fees. Confirm the details before relying on them.

What actually goes wrong

• Posting the five-day notice on the door while someone is living there.
• Putting late fees, utilities or attorney’s fees in the five-day demand. Demand rent only.
• Taking a partial payment on a notice that lacks the full-payment language.
• Using the state rules on a Chicago property: no cure period in the ten-day notice, no Fair Notice non-renewal notice, no RLTO summary on the lease.
• Naming children in the complaint.
• Letting the eviction order pass 120 days without an extension.

When to bring in an attorney

Outside Cook County an individual landlord with a clean five-day notice can often handle an uncontested nonpayment case. Use counsel for anything in Chicago or suburban Cook County, for lease-violation cases, whenever the tenant raises retaliation or has a lawyer, for subsidized housing, and whenever the owner is an entity. The Illinois attorneys listed below represent landlords in the circuit courts, with many concentrated in Cook and the collar counties.

Sources

• 735 ILCS 5/9-101 and following (Eviction Article), including §§ 9-102, 9-106, 9-107, 9-117, 9-120, 9-121, 9-205, 9-207, 9-209, 9-210, 9-211 and 9-213; Public Acts 103-671, 104-29 and 104-317.
• Illinois Supreme Court Rules 101, 102, 139, 181 and 303; Immigrant Tenant Protection Act, 765 ILCS 755.
• Landlord Retaliation Act, 765 ILCS 721; Summary of Rights for Safer Homes Act, 765 ILCS 752; Illinois Human Rights Act (source of income).
• Municipal Code of Chicago ch. 5-12 (RLTO), including §§ 5-12-130, 5-12-140 and 5-12-160; City of Chicago RLTO and Fair Notice summary; Cook County Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance.
• Cook County Sheriff, eviction procedure guide for plaintiffs; Cook County Legal Aid for Housing and Debt (Early Resolution Program); Illinois Legal Aid Online.

This guide is general information about Illinois procedure and is not legal advice. Local ordinances frequently add to or override the state rules described here. Confirm the current text before relying on any deadline.