Illinois is the third state in this series where the license is not the thing that decides whether you get paid, and it is the one where a supreme court has said so directly.
There is no statewide Illinois general contractor license. Roofing and plumbing are licensed trades, and Chicago runs its own scheme, but nothing at state level licenses a builder as such.
What Illinois has instead is a written contract rule: over $1,000, the contract has to be in writing. Break it and the Act calls that a violation. For years the appellate courts disagreed about what that violation did to your right to be paid, and in 2010 the Illinois Supreme Court settled it in a way most people still get wrong.
The written contract rule
The Home Repair and Remodeling Act, 815 ILCS 513/15:
"Prior to initiating home repair or remodeling work for over $1,000, a person engaged in the business of home repair or remodeling shall furnish to the customer for signature a written contract or work order that states the total cost, including parts and materials listed with reasonable particularity and any charge for an estimate."
The contract must also give the business name and address, and where the business uses a post office box or a mail receiving service, the residence address of the person running it.
Two related duties sit alongside it. Section 20 requires the "Home Repair: Know Your Consumer Rights" pamphlet to be handed over before the contract is signed on jobs over $1,000, with a signed acknowledgment form retained by the contractor. Section 25 requires public liability and property damage insurance to be carried throughout the life of the business.
The Act reaches "the fixing, replacing, altering, converting, modernizing, improving, or making of an addition to any real property primarily designed or used as a residence", excluding maintenance, service or repairs under $500. It does not apply to original construction of a single or multi family residence.
⚠️ Note the two different figures. The $500 floor in the definition and the $1,000 written contract threshold are different numbers doing different jobs, and conflating them is the most common mistake made about this Act.
What breaking it does not cost you
This is the part worth reading twice.
In K. Miller Construction Company, Inc. v. McGinnis, 238 Ill. 2d 284 (2010), decided 23 September 2010, a contractor had done remodeling work under an oral agreement on a job well over $1,000, and was owed a substantial balance. The homeowners argued that because the Act made that unlawful, the contractor could recover neither on the contract nor in quantum meruit. The appellate court had held he could not enforce the oral contract but could pursue quantum meruit.
The Supreme Court went further than the appellate court, in the contractor's favor:
"At issue here is whether a home remodeling contractor who violates this provision and enters into an oral contract for home remodeling work over $1,000 may enforce the oral contract or seek recovery in quantum meruit against a homeowner who has refused to pay for a completed home remodeling project. The appellate court concluded that such a contractor may not enforce the oral contract but may seek recovery in quantum meruit. For the reasons that follow, we hold that recovery is available under both theories."
So: the oral contract is enforceable, and quantum meruit is available. Illinois is the most forgiving state in this series on that question, and the gap between it and New York, where contract and quantum meruit both go, is about as wide as the topic gets.
Why: the legislature knows how to void a contract, and did not
The reasoning matters more than the result, because it is the part that generalizes.
The appellate court had reasoned that because the Act called the conduct "unlawful", the contract was automatically unenforceable. The Supreme Court called that error and explained why:
"In other words, according to the appellate court, because there was a statutory violation or 'unlawful' act, the contract was, ipso facto, unenforceable. This was error. The General Assembly is capable of stating when a contractual term that violates a statute is unenforceable."
And then it gave examples from the statute book, showing the legislature doing exactly that elsewhere: gambling contracts are "null and void" (720 ILCS 5/28-7); contracts in which a public official has a financial interest and may be called to vote on are "void" (50 ILCS 105/3); indemnity agreements in motor carrier transportation contracts are "void and unenforceable" (625 ILCS 5/18c-4105).
"The General Assembly did not do so here."
The same argument has a second illustration the court did not use. Illinois does have a California-style payment bar on its books, in the Water Well and Pump Installation Contractor's License Act, 225 ILCS 345/25, which states that no action or counterclaim may be maintained by a contractor "without alleging and proving that such contractor had a valid license". It applies to water well and pump installation contractors and to nobody else. The drafting pattern exists in Illinois. It was simply not applied to home repair, roofing or plumbing, and that is a choice rather than an oversight.
The amendment that confirmed it
The court did not have to balance competing policies, because the legislature had moved first. Quoting the Supreme Court:
"Public Act 96-1023, effective July 12, 2010, has entirely rewritten section 30 of the Act, removing all references to the word 'unlawful' and indicating that the remedy for violations of the Act is to be had under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. The section now reads:
'Sec. 30. Action for actual damages. Any person who suffers actual damage as a result of a violation of this Act may bring an action pursuant to Section 10a of the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.'"
Section 30 used to be the provision that made it "unlawful" to work before obtaining a signed contract. It is now a single sentence pointing at the Consumer Fraud Act. Any source still quoting the "unlawful" wording is quoting a codification that was replaced in July 2010, and there are plenty of them about.
What the customer gets instead
The remedy did not disappear, it moved. Under 815 ILCS 505/10a, a consumer who suffers actual damage from a violation may bring an action, and "the court, in its discretion may award actual economic damages or any other relief which the court deems proper". The court may grant injunctive relief and award reasonable attorney's fees and costs to the prevailing party. Any action for damages must be commenced within three years after the cause of action accrued.
So the Illinois position, end to end: the contractor keeps the right to be paid, and the customer gets a consumer fraud claim. Neither side's remedy runs through the license.
The trades that are licensed
Two Acts matter, and neither is a general contractor license.
Roofing, 225 ILCS 335. Section 9 makes it unlawful "to engage in the business or act in the capacity of or hold himself or herself out in any manner as a roofing contractor" without a license, and provides that no roofing or waterproofing work may be done except by a licensed roofing contractor. Sellers of roofing services may subcontract only to licensed roofing contractors.
Plumbing, 225 ILCS 320. Section 3(1) requires all planning, design and plumbing work to be performed only by licensed plumbers or supervised licensed apprentices. Section 29.5 imposes a civil penalty on unlicensed practice "in an amount not to exceed $5,000 for each offense", assessed by the Department after a hearing, payable within 60 days, and enforceable as a judgment. Section 29.5(d) sets a separate escalating scale for unregistered irrigation contractors, starting at $1,000 for a first offense where no Plumbing Code violations are found and rising to $5,000 with a referral for prosecution on a third.
⚠️ We are not giving you the roofing penalty figure. Sources disagree between $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000 for the civil penalty on unlicensed roofing under 225 ILCS 335/10a, and we could not pin the current figure or the amending public act to the official text. An uncertain number is worse than no number, so there is none here.
Chicago runs its own scheme
Outside the state Acts, Chicago licenses home repair contractors directly under Municipal Code § 4-6-280. It exempts people repairing their own property, employees of licensees acting within their employment, and holders of a valid Chicago general contractor license under Chapter 4-36. Penalties run from $500 to $5,000 for each offense, with each day a violation continues counting as a separate offense, and the section carries an express private right of action for anyone aggrieved.
If the job is in Chicago, the municipal license is the one that matters, and the state Acts sit on top of it rather than instead of it.
Ten states, ten different questions
| State | What the law actually tests |
|---|---|
| Illinois | Whether the contract was written, over $1,000. But breaking that rule leaves both the contract and quantum meruit intact |
| Texas | Nothing, for payment. No state license exists and no chapter bars suing |
| Ohio | Nothing either, and houses sit outside the licensing chapter by definition |
| New York | Whether you pleaded a valid local license. It is an element of the claim, not a defense |
| Virginia | Your actual knowledge, plus good faith substantial performance (§ 54.1-1115(C)) |
| Arizona | Two dates: contract formation and when the cause of action arose (ARS 32-1153) |
| Florida | The contract date only (§ 489.128(1)(c)) |
| Washington | The contract date only (RCW 18.27.080) |
| North Carolina | Throughout, but severable (Brady v. Fulghum) |
| California | Every day of performance (§ 7031(a)) |
Where this came from
| Source | What it gave us | Transport, retrieved 2026-08-05 |
|---|---|---|
| K. Miller Construction Company, Inc. v. McGinnis, 238 Ill. 2d 284, 938 N.E.2d 471 (Ill., 23 Sep 2010), No. 109156 | The holding that recovery is available on both the contract and in quantum meruit; the "General Assembly is capable" reasoning and its three statutory examples; the verbatim text of Public Act 96-1023 and of the rewritten section 30 | Full slip opinion read via CourtListener. ilga.gov refuses connections from our network entirely |
| 815 ILCS 513/15, 513/35 | The $1,000 written contract requirement and its contents; the enforcement section | ilga.gov, official, retrieved through deep research because the host is unreachable from here |
| 815 ILCS 505/10a | The Consumer Fraud Act remedies, including the three year limitation | ilga.gov, official, retrieved through deep research |
| 225 ILCS 320/3, 320/29.5 | The plumbing license requirement and the $5,000 civil penalty scale | ilga.gov, official, retrieved through deep research |
| 815 ILCS 513/10, 513/20, 513/25; 225 ILCS 335/9; 225 ILCS 345/25 | The definitions and $500 floor, the brochure duty, the insurance duty, the roofing license requirement, the water well payment bar | Third-party reproductions, labeled as such. The water well provision is offered only as a second illustration of a point the Supreme Court had already made from its own examples, never as the foundation for it |
| Chicago Municipal Code § 4-6-280 | The municipal home repair license, exemptions, penalties and private right of action | Third-party codification of the municipal code |
⚠️ What is not here. The civil penalty figure for unlicensed roofing, because three different figures appear in the available sources and none could be tied to the current official text with an amending public act. Also absent: the verbatim amendatory language of Public Act 96-1023 as enacted, since what is quoted above is the Supreme Court's reproduction of it rather than the public act itself.
⚠️ This page is Illinois only, and it is general guidance rather than legal advice. If the work is in Chicago, the municipal licensing scheme applies in addition to state law, and the city's own rules should be checked first.
Common questions
Does Illinois have a state contractor license?
No. Illinois licenses roofing contractors (225 ILCS 335) and plumbers (225 ILCS 320), but there is no statewide general contractor or home improvement license. Chicago operates its own municipal licensing scheme separately.
When does an Illinois home repair contract have to be in writing?
For work over $1,000 (815 ILCS 513/15). The contract must state the total cost with parts and materials listed with reasonable particularity, plus the business name and address.
Can an Illinois contractor be paid if there was no written contract?
Yes. In K. Miller Construction v. McGinnis (2010) the Illinois Supreme Court held that a contractor who breached the written contract requirement may recover both on the oral contract and in quantum meruit.
What happened to the "unlawful" wording in the Home Repair Act?
Public Act 96-1023 removed it, effective 12 July 2010. Section 30 now simply directs a person suffering actual damage to bring an action under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.
Does Illinois bar unlicensed contractors from suing for payment?
Not for home repair, roofing or plumbing. Illinois does have such a bar, at 225 ILCS 345/25, but it applies only to water well and pump installation contractors.
How long does an Illinois consumer have to bring a claim?
Three years after the cause of action accrued, under 815 ILCS 505/10a(e). That period is suspended while the Attorney General or a State's Attorney brings its own action, plus one year after.
Related: California section 7031: when a customer can take back every dollar · Florida unlicensed contracting: what it costs you · North Carolina unlicensed contracting · Arizona unlicensed contracting: the two dates · Washington: registration is a prerequisite to suing · Virginia: the good faith escape hatch · New York: the license you have to plead · Ohio: no section 7031 here · Texas: no state license at all · What happens if you work without a contractor's license · Do I need a contractor license · Working in Illinois
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