What permits do you need to open a contractor or trade in Chicago?

There is no single figure, and any site quoting one is rounding away the part that matters. Of the 12 records listed for a contractor or trade in Chicago, IL, 4 apply to every business of this type and 8 are conditional. Adding every fee on the page together would overstate what most operators pay, because it would include permits they never need.

4 of the 12 are charged as a range or a formula set by the issuing agency, and 4 have no fee published at all. The ones that vary:

General Contractor Licence: $300–$3,500 a year, by class — Class E (up to $500,000 in work) $300 up to Class A (unlimited project value) $3,500

Business Licence: $500–$1,000 for a 2-year term — $500 for a Limited Business Licence, $1,000 for a Regulated Business Licence; specific trades are often priced on their own separate schedule instead

Commercial Building Permit: Floor area multiplied by a construction factor of $0.23 to $1.06 per square foot, set by occupancy group and construction type, multiplied again by a scope-of-review factor of 0.25 to 1.25 — subject to a minimum fee, typically $2,450 to $3,650 for an initial tenant build-out depending on occupancy group, with an overall floor of $602 on any commercial permit.

Annual Report: Fee not established — no primary source could be reached, and no amount is published here rather than repeat an unverified one

Permits for a contractor or trade in Chicago, IL come from 7 separate offices: Chicago Department of Buildings, Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, Illinois Secretary of State, Department of Business Services, Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Illinois Department of Revenue, Central Registration Division, Illinois Department of Public Health, Plumbing Program, Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Professional Regulation. No single office issues them all, which is why an opening means filing in several places rather than one.

• Chicago Department of BuildingsIssues 3 permits on this page: General Contractor Licence, Certificate of Occupancy, Commercial Building Permit121 N. LaSalle St., Room 900, Chicago, IL 60602 · (312) 744-3449www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/bldgs.html
• Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer ProtectionIssues 1 permit on this page: Business Licence121 N. LaSalle St., Room 800, Chicago, IL 60602 · (312) 744-6249www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/chicago-business-licensing/home.html
• Illinois Secretary of State, Department of Business ServicesIssues 3 permits on this page: Annual Report, Articles of Organization (LLC), Articles of Incorporation501 South Second Street, Room 351, Springfield, IL 62756 · (217) 524-8008www.ilsos.gov/departments/business_services
• Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic OpportunityIssues 1 permit on this page: General Business Licence (city, not state)(800) 252-2923dceo.illinois.gov/smallbizassistance/beginhere/stepbystepguide.html
• Illinois Department of Revenue, Central Registration DivisionIssues 1 permit on this page: Certificate of Registration (Form REG-1)Central Registration Division, Illinois Department of Revenue, PO Box 19030, Springfield, IL 62794-9030 · (217) 785-3707mytax.illinois.gov
• Illinois Department of Public Health, Plumbing ProgramIssues 1 permit on this page: Plumbing Contractor Registration525-535 West Jefferson Street, Springfield, IL 62761 · (217) 782-4977dph.illinois.gov/topics-services/environmental-health-protection/plumbing.html
• Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Professional RegulationIssues 2 permits on this page: Roofing Contractor Licence, General Contractor Licence (local, not state)320 West Washington Street, 3rd Floor, Springfield, IL 62786 · (888) 473-4858idfpr.illinois.gov

Unlike almost every other Chicago business licence, which runs two years, this one renews annually. Liability insurance scales with the class — $5,000,000 per occurrence for Class A down to $1,000,000 for Class E — and the licence automatically deactivates if that insurance policy lapses. Issued by the Department of Buildings rather than BACP, and administered through a third-party firm, Continental Testing Services.

Chicago has no single flat business licence fee — most specific trades either fall into the Limited or Regulated category shown here, or carry their own dedicated licence entirely, as the salon, restaurant, contractor, auto repair and animal care records below show.

No fee — there is no standalone issuance charge, because the cost sits inside the building permit fee itself. Required for construction or substantial alteration of more than 10,000 square feet of non-residential space, any change of occupancy, or construction or rehabilitation of assembly, educational, institutional or hazardous occupancy space regardless of size — which reaches every child day care center other than a small home-based one.

This multi-factor formula genuinely resists reduction to one number — the city itself provides an official online calculator rather than a simple printed table, because the answer depends on occupancy classification, construction type, exact square footage and scope all at once.

The obligation is certain and the consequence is severe — the Secretary of State's own accepted filings carry the warning that failure to file on time may result in penalty and dissolution — but the amount is genuinely unresolved and is left unresolved here. The commonly republished figure of $75 appears only in secondary sources and in one twenty-three-year-old document too badly scanned to read, and ilsos.gov is blocked from every route tried. A corporation's cost is in any case not a single number: its annual report form carries four separate money fields, for franchise tax, filing fee, penalty and interest.

Illinois issues no general business licence, and the state says so from the other direction as well as this one — its own 2026 start-up handbook lists general business licences under local requirements, not state ones, and enumerates every state licensing body without one among them. That is not the same as needing no licence. Most Illinois municipalities issue their own, and the handbook singles Chicago out: a City of Chicago business licence is required for most business types. Registering the entity with the Secretary of State grants no permission to operate.

No amount is shown because the Department charges none — its registration page and its own step-by-step publication walk every stage of the process without a payment step. That is an absence-based finding: no Illinois page states "free" in words, so no sentence is quoted for it. Register online and the account number arrives in one to two business days; on paper it takes four to six weeks. The certificate must be displayed at the place of business it covers. Several add-on schedules — liquor, cigarette and tobacco, motor fuel — attach to the same form and do carry their own licence fees.

Registered by the Department of Public Health, not by the professional regulation department — a common misattribution that sends applicants to the wrong agency. Any licensed plumber doing plumbing work for another person must register. The $150 is the smaller part of the cost: a $20,000 surety bond or letter of credit is required, and it cannot be a continuous bond — it must expire on 30 September like the registration itself — along with $100,000 general liability, $300,000 bodily injury, $50,000 property damage and $500,000 workers' compensation cover, though a contractor with no employees may elect out of the last. Registrations do not survive a change of ownership. The fee is read from the department's own application form, which is dated 2016, so confirm it before budgeting.

Roofing is one of the few construction trades Illinois licenses at state level, and the licence belongs to the business while the exam belongs to a person: every applicant must nominate a qualifying party who passes it, at $226 payable to the testing company rather than to the state. Two classes exist — limited, for residential work up to eight units, and unlimited, which adds commercial and industrial. The exam must be passed within three years of applying or the fee is forfeited. The renewal fee and expiry date are not published, because roofing is not currently inside a renewal window and the department's live renewal table therefore omits it.

Illinois licenses no general contractors and no home improvement contractors at state level, and this is established positively rather than by failing to find one: the professional regulation department publishes its complete list of regulated professions, about a hundred and fifty entries from acupuncturist to wholesale drug distributor, and it contains roofing, private security and structural engineering but no general contractor, home improvement, HVAC, electrical or carpentry entry. The state's own start-up handbook confirms that many contractor licences are issued at municipal or county level. Chicago is the obvious example, and a contractor working across municipal lines can need several.

$150, down from $500 — the reduction is old enough now that it is settled, but old guidance quoting $500 is still in circulation. The figure here is read off the face of an accepted Secretary of State filing rather than from the fee schedule, because ilsos.gov refuses every automated route including a real browser, and the statute host refuses connections outright. A 2017 revision of the form prints $500; filings accepted in 2019 and 2023 print $150. The recurring obligation is the annual report, due before the first day of your anniversary month each year, and failure can dissolve the company.

Two charges, not one, and the second is not flat. The $150 filing fee is joined by an initial franchise tax computed at fifteen hundredths of one per cent of the capital represented in Illinois with a $25 minimum — so a corporation capitalised above roughly $16,667 pays more than $175. The figures are read off an accepted Articles of Incorporation, which prints all three lines. Be aware the newest accepted filing obtainable is from 2018, because the Secretary of State's own site cannot be reached from any route; a franchise tax exemption said to begin in 2025 could not be verified and is not relied on here.