Illinois Landlord-Tenant Law: Deposits, Leases, and Rights

Illinois landlord-tenant law comes from several short statutes rather than one unified code, plus local ordinances that can add stronger rules in some cities. This page orients you to the statewide rules in Chapter 765 of the Illinois Compiled Statutes, explains the vocabulary the more detailed articles assume, and points to the procedures that come up most: returning a security deposit, paying deposit interest, responding to retaliation, and keeping utilities on. It covers residential tenancies under state law. It does not replace a local ordinance, and where a city like Chicago has its own landlord-tenant ordinance, that local rule can control.

What Illinois landlord-tenant law covers

Most statewide rights and duties between Illinois landlords and tenants sit in 765 ILCS, the “Property” chapter of the Illinois Compiled Statutes. That chapter is a set of separate acts, each handling one subject: the Landlord and Tenant Act, the Security Deposit Return Act, the Security Deposit Interest Act, the Landlord Retaliation Act, and the Rental Property Utility Service Act, among others.

Illinois has no single statewide “warranty of habitability” statute and no statewide rent-control law. The implied warranty of habitability in Illinois comes from court decisions rather than a numbered statute, and a 1997 state law bars most Illinois municipalities from enacting rent control. The Illinois Attorney General publishes a plain-language overview of these rights in its Landlord and Tenant Rights and Laws fact sheet, and notes that its office does not have authority over most individual rental disputes.

Local ordinances fill many of the gaps. Chicago, Evanston, Mount Prospect, and Cook County have their own residential landlord-tenant ordinances that often set shorter deadlines, higher penalties, and extra disclosure duties than state law. When a local ordinance applies, it generally governs alongside or instead of the state statute, so the address of the rental unit matters as much as the state rule.

This page treats the statewide statutes as the baseline and notes where local rules typically diverge. The deposit deadlines, interest thresholds, retaliation protections, and utility rules below all come from state acts in Chapter 765. A tenant or landlord working through a specific dispute generally checks the state rule first, then the city or county ordinance for the unit’s address, because the stricter rule usually wins.

Key terms in an Illinois tenancy

A few terms recur across every Illinois landlord-tenant topic. A lease is the rental agreement; it can be written or oral, though leases longer than one year must be in writing to be enforceable. A security deposit is money the tenant pays up front that the landlord holds against unpaid rent or damage beyond normal wear. Normal wear and tear is the ordinary deterioration of a unit from everyday living, which a landlord cannot charge against the deposit.

Retaliation is a landlord action, eviction, a rent increase, reduced services, taken to punish a tenant for exercising a legal right, such as reporting a code violation. Forcible entry and detainer, often just called eviction, is the court process a landlord uses to recover possession; it is governed by the Eviction Article of the Code of Civil Procedure rather than by Chapter 765. An exculpatory clause is a lease term that tries to excuse the landlord from liability for its own negligence.

Security deposits: the 30-day and 45-day rules

The Security Deposit Return Act controls how and when a residential landlord must account for and return a deposit. Under 765 ILCS 710/1, a landlord who intends to keep any part of the deposit for property damage must give the tenant an itemized statement of the damage, with the estimated or actual repair cost and paid receipts, within 30 days after the tenant moves out. A landlord who does not provide that itemized statement on time must return the full deposit within 45 days of the move-out date, as set in 765 ILCS 710/1.

As of 2026, the 30-day and 45-day deadlines apply to residential leases generally. The earlier version of the Act limited these rules to buildings with five or more units, but Public Act 103-224, effective January 1, 2024, removed that unit-count threshold from 765 ILCS 710/1. The Illinois Attorney General summarizes these deposit duties for renters in its Landlord and Tenant Rights and Laws fact sheet.

Interest on security deposits

Larger buildings carry an added duty. Under the Security Deposit Interest Act, 765 ILCS 715/1 requires a landlord of a residential building or contiguous complex with 25 or more units to pay interest on any deposit held for more than six months. The interest rate is tied to the rate paid on minimum-deposit passbook savings accounts at the state’s largest commercial bank, fixed each year.

The landlord must pay accrued interest within 30 days after the end of each 12-month rental period once the interest reaches $5 or more, under 765 ILCS 715/2. A landlord who willfully fails to pay the interest owes the tenant an amount equal to the full deposit, plus court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. The interest duty does not apply to deposits held under public housing programs.

Retaliation and utility protections

Illinois law bars a landlord from punishing a tenant for using a legal right. The Landlord Retaliation Act, 765 ILCS 721/5, effective January 1, 2025, prohibits a landlord from terminating a tenancy, raising rent, cutting services, or bringing a possession lawsuit because the tenant complained of a code violation to a government agency, requested a repair, or exercised another protected right. This act replaced the older Retaliatory Eviction Act, which the legislature repealed.

Utility service has its own protection. The Rental Property Utility Service Act, 765 ILCS 735/1, applies when a landlord is responsible for paying for water, gas, or electric service to a unit. It bars a landlord from cutting off or failing to keep that service available during the tenancy and gives the tenant remedies when service is wrongfully interrupted. The Illinois Attorney General’s rental issues guidance summarizes these protections and points tenants to local legal aid for individual help.

How eviction fits in

Eviction in Illinois is a court process, not a self-help remedy. A landlord cannot change the locks, remove a tenant’s belongings, or shut off utilities to force a tenant out; doing so can expose the landlord to liability. To recover possession, the landlord files an eviction case (the statute calls it forcible entry and detainer) and the court decides.

The eviction procedure lives in the Code of Civil Procedure rather than in Chapter 765, and the required notice period depends on the reason. Nonpayment of rent generally requires a written demand giving the tenant a set number of days to pay before the case can be filed, while other lease violations and no-cause terminations carry their own notice rules. After the notice period passes without a cure, the landlord files in the circuit court for the county where the property sits, the tenant is served, and a judge hears the case. Only a court order, enforced by the sheriff, can remove a tenant. Because the timelines, notice forms, and service rules are specific, eviction is handled in its own detailed articles rather than on this overview page.

Where local ordinances change the rules

State law is the floor, not the ceiling. A city or county ordinance can give tenants more protection than 765 ILCS provides, and several Illinois jurisdictions do exactly that.

The Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, for example, sets its own security-deposit interest rules, shorter response deadlines, and larger penalties than the state acts, and it requires specific disclosures at lease signing. A Chicago landlord who mishandles a deposit can face penalties that exceed the statewide twice-the-deposit figure. Cook County’s Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance extends similar protections to many suburban rentals outside Chicago that the county ordinance reaches. Evanston, Mount Prospect, and Urbana have their own ordinances as well, each with local variations on notice, deposits, and disclosures.

Because these local rules can override the statewide deadlines described here, the address of the unit determines which set of rules applies. A tenant in a covered city follows the city ordinance for deposit deadlines and interest; a tenant in an unincorporated area or a town without an ordinance relies on the state acts. The state statutes linked throughout this page remain the default, and the specific procedure articles note where a major local ordinance changes the outcome.

Specific procedures and topics