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Illinois Concealed Carry Permit

Illinois requires a Concealed Carry License to carry. It is shall-issue, the minimum age is 21, and 16 hours of training is required.

Requirements at a glance

Permit name Concealed Carry License
Issuing authority Illinois State Police, Firearms Services Bureau
System shall-issue
Minimum age 21 — 430 ILCS 66/25(1) requires the applicant to be at least 21 years of age. There is no lower age tier for military members. A FOID card (a prerequisite) may be obtained under 21 only with a parent/guardian sponsor, but the CCL itself has a hard 21 floor.
Training required Yes — 16 hours, live fire required
State fee $150 initial / $150 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 5 years
Processing time 90 days with fingerprints; 120 days without (430 ILCS 66/10(e), 66/30(b)). The clock is tolled while the Concealed Carry Licensing Review Board considers a law enforcement objection.
Fingerprints Required
Non-resident permit Available

What it actually costs

The state fee is rarely the whole bill. Fingerprinting is usually charged by a private vendor, training is bought from an instructor, and several states add photographs, notarisation or other requirements on top.

State fee $150
Fingerprinting $15–$45 — our estimate; no vendor publishes a rate
Training course $150–$350 (private instructor)
Non-resident surcharge $300 — non-residents pay $300 rather than $150
Realistic total $315–$545 — includes an estimated component

430 ILCS 66/60. The $150 is the state fee only; the mandatory 16-hour course and Livescan fingerprinting are separate private costs. Illinois requires more training hours than all but a handful of states, which is why the course is the largest component.

430 ILCS 66/60: $150 for a new license or renewal for Illinois residents; $300 for non-residents (new or renewal). $75 for a replacement/duplicate license under Section 55. All fees are non-refundable. These are state fees only - fingerprinting through a licensed Livescan vendor and the 16-hour training course are separate private costs not set by statute.

How to apply

  1. Obtain (or concurrently apply for) a valid Illinois FOID card - it is a prerequisite for the CCL. Non-residents from the six approved states apply for a non-resident CCL instead.
  2. Complete 16 hours of concealed carry firearms training with an ISP-approved instructor using ISP-approved curriculum, including the live-fire range qualification (30 rounds, 70% accuracy). Obtain an electronic copy of the training certificate.
  3. Get electronically fingerprinted through an Illinois licensed Livescan vendor (ORI IL920707Z, Purpose Code CCW) and keep the Transaction Control Number (TCN). Fingerprints are technically optional but omitting them extends processing from 90 to 120 days.
  4. Create an Illinois State Police user ID and password at https://www.ispfsb.com/Public/Login.aspx.
  5. Gather required items: valid driver's license or state ID, a head-and-shoulders color photo taken within the last 30 days, the training certificate, and a 10-year residency history. Non-residents also need a notarized affidavit and a copy of their home-state carry license/permit.
  6. Complete and submit the online application, affirming eligibility and signing the records-access waiver.
  7. Pay the fee by credit card or electronic check ($150 resident / $300 non-resident, non-refundable).
  8. Wait for ISP to issue or deny within 90 days (120 without fingerprints). Law enforcement agencies may object, which sends the application to the Concealed Carry Licensing Review Board and tolls the deadline.
  9. Renew before expiration: submit a renewal application, 3 hours of training, and the renewal fee; fingerprints are not required again.

Apply on the official Illinois site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Illinois publishes an official list of certified instructors. That list is authoritative — a certificate from an instructor who is not on it may not be accepted. View the official instructor list

Training providers in Illinois

Businesses in our directory that offer firearms training. These are not state-verified as certified permit instructors — check against the official list above, or ask the provider directly.

All firearms training in Illinois →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Illinois

Illinois recognizes no out-of-state carry permits. A permit from another state does not authorize you to carry here.

26 jurisdictions honor a Illinois permit

Derived from what each of those states officially publishes.

Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin

Official Illinois reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Illinois

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
Yes

Illinois does not flatly outlaw assembling a firearm for personal use, but it has effectively closed the unserialized-build route, and getting this wrong is felony exposure. 720 ILCS 5/24-5.1 makes it unlawful for any person to knowingly possess, transport, or receive an UNFINISHED FRAME OR RECEIVER that is not serialized, and unlawful to knowingly possess, purchase, transport, or receive A FIREARM THAT IS NOT IMPRINTED WITH A SERIAL NUMBER. There is NO personal-use or hobbyist exception. Critically, an individual may NOT apply the serial number themselves: the statute provides that an unserialized unfinished frame or receiver and an unserialized firearm 'shall be serialized by a federally licensed firearms dealer or other federal licensee,' using the licensee's abbreviated FFL number (first 3 and last 5 digits) plus a hyphen and a suffix, marked to the federal permanence/placement standards of 27 CFR 478.124. So a lawful personal build in Illinois means starting from a frame/receiver that already bears an FFL-applied serial number, or having an FFL serialize it. Penalties: unlawful possession is a Class A misdemeanor for a first offense and a Class 3 felony for a subsequent offense; unlawful sale/transfer of an unserialized frame, receiver, or firearm is a Class 4 felony first offense and a Class 2 felony for a subsequent offense. Limited exceptions cover antique firearms as defined in 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(16), firearms manufactured before October 22, 1968, permanently inoperable firearms, and inherited firearms (short grace period to serialize). 3D-printed firearms carry a 30-day serialization window. There is no separate state firearm registration database for ordinary firearms, but a valid FOID card is required to possess any firearm or ammunition in Illinois, and Illinois's assault weapons and large-capacity magazine restrictions (Protect Illinois Communities Act, P.A. 102-1116) independently prohibit building certain configurations.

720 ILCS 5/24-5.1 (added by Public Act 102-0889, eff. May 18, 2022); 430 ILCS 65 (FOID Act)

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • Renewal fee: 430 ILCS 66/60 states 'An applicant for a new license or a renewal shall submit $150' (residents) / $300 (non-residents), so renewal costs the same as initial. The ISP CCL web page does not separately restate a renewal amount, so this comes from the statute rather than an ISP fee schedule.
  • Whether the six 'substantially similar' states (AR, ID, MS, NV, TX, VA) remain unchanged as of August 2026 - ISP sets this by rule and the list has changed over time. The ISP CCL page and FAQ both currently list these six, but re-check before relying on it.
  • I could not locate any ISP-published reciprocity page, because Illinois has none - Illinois recognizes no out-of-state permits. The 'honors: []' value is an inference from the absence of any recognition provision in 430 ILCS 66 plus the ISP FAQ's statement that everyone carrying concealed on the person in Illinois needs an Illinois CCL. It is not a quote from a page titled 'reciprocity'.
  • Fingerprints: 430 ILCS 66/30(b) lists fingerprints among required application contents but also says ISP 'may accept an application submitted without a set of fingerprints,' in which case the decision deadline extends from 90 to 120 days. I marked fingerprintsRequired: true because they are the default and practically expected, but they are not strictly mandatory.
  • Illinois is classified 'shall-issue' because 430 ILCS 66/10 directs ISP to issue to a qualified applicant, but the Concealed Carry Licensing Review Board can sustain a law enforcement objection on a preponderance-of-the-evidence public-safety finding (430 ILCS 66/15, 66/20). Some observers treat that as a residual discretionary element. I did not independently verify current Board grant/denial rates.
  • I did not verify the current litigation posture of 720 ILCS 5/24-5.1 (unserialized-firearm law) or of the Protect Illinois Communities Act assault weapons ban as of August 2026. A search result referenced a July 2026 Seventh Circuit opinion in a firearms case (No. 24-3063) that I did not read. Anyone relying on the assault-weapon or serialization provisions should check for an injunction or reversal.
  • The full list of statutorily prohibited places (430 ILCS 66/65 - schools, government buildings, public transit, bars, hospitals, parks, etc.) was not enumerated here; it is extensive and violations carry criminal penalties.
  • Illinois's FOID card is a separate prerequisite with its own application, fee, and 10-year validity; its detailed requirements and current litigation status were not independently verified in this research.

Sources