To file a petition for adoption in Illinois, you submit a verified petition to the circuit court under 750 ILCS 50/5 that lays out who you are, who the child is, how you came to have or expect to have custody, and what the child’s legal parentage looks like. The petition starts the case; a judge finishes it after an investigation, any required consents or terminations, and a hearing on the child’s best interests. What has to be in the petition, and how much scrutiny follows, depends on whether the child is related to you.
Confirm You Qualify Before You Draft
Illinois sets eligibility rules in 750 ILCS 50/2. You must be at least 18. A minor can petition only with special court permission and a showing of good cause. You cannot be under a legal disability that would prevent you from caring for a child; blindness by itself does not count.
Residency matters. You need six continuous months of Illinois residency before filing. Active-duty military members need 90 days of Illinois domicile. The residency requirement is waived entirely for kinship adoptions — grandparents, aunts, uncles, stepparents, siblings, or first cousins.
Marital status affects who signs. A single person can adopt. If you are married or in a civil union and have not been living apart from your spouse or partner for at least 12 months, your spouse or partner must join the petition, and the two of you adopt jointly.1Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 50/2 – Who May Adopt a Child
What the Petition Must Contain
Section 5 of the Adoption Act tells you exactly what to include, and the required content splits based on the child’s relationship to you.
Petition for a Non-Related Child
For a child who is not related to you, the petition must state:
- Your full name, address, and length of Illinois residency
- When you acquired or plan to acquire custody of the child, and from whom
- The child’s name, birthdate, sex, and birthplace if known
- The names and addresses of the biological parents, with exceptions if parental rights have already been terminated, the child was surrendered to an agency, or a putative father failed to respond to notice
- Any prior court orders affecting the child
- Whether the person authorized to consent has done so
- The new name you want to give the child
The petition has to be verified, and it needs to say enough to show the court, on the face of the document, that the statute is being followed.2Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 50/5 – Petition
Petition for a Related Child
If the child is related to you by blood, marriage, or civil union, the required content is shorter: your identifying details, the child’s details, the family relationship, the biological parents’ information, the proposed name, and any prior court orders affecting the child.
Filing for Multiple Children
A single petition can cover more than one child when you are adopting siblings. You do not need separate cases.
When You Can File
A petition to adopt a related child or an adult can be filed at any time. There is no pre-filing waiting period. For unrelated adoptions, filing typically follows placement of the child and the beginning of the home study process, because the court will need investigation results before it can finalize.
Consent or Termination Has to Be Squared Away
A petition alone cannot detach a child from their biological parents. Either those parents consent, or the court terminates their rights. If neither has happened, the adoption will not be granted, so this piece needs to be moving in parallel with the petition.
How Consent Works
Under 750 ILCS 50/10, a parent’s consent must be acknowledged before a judge, a representative of a licensed agency, or another person designated by the court. The attorney for the prospective adoptive parents cannot serve as the witness. Illinois allows remote acknowledgment by phone or video, but only when a court has entered an order approving that method and designating someone to be physically present with the signing parent.
Timing is strict. A parent who consents to the adoption of an unborn child has 72 hours after the birth to revoke in writing; after that, the consent is final. For a child already born, consent is irrevocable the moment it is properly executed, unless the parent proves fraud or duress, and that challenge itself must be filed within 12 months of signing.3Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 50/10 – Forms of Consent and Surrender
Before signing, the biological parent must read (or have read to them) a Birth Parent Rights and Responsibilities form. The biological mother must also execute a sworn affidavit identifying the biological father.
When a Parent Will Not Consent
If a biological parent refuses, the court can terminate rights involuntarily on a finding of unfitness supported by clear and convincing evidence. The Adoption Act lists more than a dozen grounds, including abandonment, desertion for more than three months before the proceeding, failure to maintain a reasonable degree of interest, concern, or responsibility, substantial and repeated neglect, extreme or repeated cruelty, habitual drunkenness or drug addiction for at least a year, depravity (including certain criminal convictions), and failure to protect the child from harmful conditions.
Two or more findings of physical abuse, or a conviction or not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity finding for the death of any child by physical abuse, creates a presumption of unfitness that only clear and convincing evidence can overcome.4Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 50/1 – Definitions
The Putative Father
When the biological mother is unmarried, a separate notice procedure protects any man who may be the child’s father. Under 705 ILCS 405/3-31, a putative father is served with notice and has 30 days to file a declaration of paternity or a request for future notice. If he does neither in that window, the adoption can proceed without naming him as a party, and the court can terminate all his rights. If he files a disclaimer, he is deemed not to be the father for adoption purposes. If he files a declaration, he must be given notice of the proceeding.5Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 705 ILCS 405/3-31 – Notice to Putative Father
What Happens After You File
For a non-related child, the court has 10 days after filing to appoint an investigator. That is usually a DCFS-approved child welfare agency, though the court can appoint another competent person or, in Cook County, the Court Services Division. If no agency is available or you cannot afford one, DCFS itself investigates. The report covers the claims in your petition, your character, reputation, health, and standing in the community, and whether you are a proper person to adopt.6Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 50/6 – Investigation
The statute also requires fingerprint-based criminal background checks through both the Illinois State Police and the FBI. DCFS Rules 385 expand on that: every prospective adoptive parent 18 or older submits fingerprints, and DCFS runs checks against the Child Abuse and Neglect Tracking System (CANTS), the National Child Abuse Registry, and both the Illinois and National Sex Offender Registries. If you lived in another state at any point during the preceding five years, that state’s child abuse registry gets checked as well.7Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. DCFS Rules 385 – Background Checks
The home study evaluates your living environment, parenting readiness, and ability to support a child. A licensed social worker visits, interviews household members, and prepares a written report for the court file. Home studies are current for one year. If your case runs longer, you should expect an update. For related adoptions, investigation is often narrower and can be limited at the judge’s discretion, though it is not automatically skipped.
The Hearing and the Six-Month Wait
After the petition is filed and the investigation is complete, the case goes to hearing. The judge reviews the petition, the investigation report, and supporting documents, and typically asks about the child’s background, your plans for the child’s care, and whether every statutory requirement has been met. If the biological parents are present, the court hears from them. In most unrelated cases, the court appoints a guardian ad litem to represent the child’s interests, and that person may testify as well.
Illinois builds in a six-month waiting period between filing and entry of the final adoption judgment, giving the court time to evaluate the placement through post-placement supervision. The judge can waive the wait if the investigation report supports it and the court finds the waiver serves the child’s welfare. Waivers show up more often in stepparent and kinship cases where the child has already lived with the petitioner for an extended period.
The legal standard for the final order is the child’s best interests. If the court is satisfied, it enters a written order of adoption that is final as to all findings and creates a permanent legal parent-child relationship.
Federal Rules That Can Override the Illinois Process
Two federal statutes can change or block finalization even when everything on the state side looks right.
Indian Child Welfare Act
If the child is or may be a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe, ICWA applies. Any involuntary foster care placement or termination of parental rights must be preceded by notice sent by registered mail with return receipt to the child’s parents, any Indian custodian, and the designated agent for each tribe in which the child is or may be enrolled.8U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. ICWA Notice No termination hearing can be held until at least 10 days after those parties receive notice, and any of them can request up to 20 additional days to prepare.
ICWA also raises the evidentiary bar. Instead of clear and convincing evidence, the court needs proof beyond a reasonable doubt, supported by qualified expert testimony, that continued custody by the parent is likely to seriously harm the child. The court must also find that active efforts were made to keep the Indian family together and that those efforts failed.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 25 Section 1912 – Pending Court Proceedings
Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children
If a child is being placed across state lines for adoption, ICPC requires both the sending and receiving states to approve the placement before the child physically moves. The DCFS Interstate Compact Administrator reviews a referral packet including a home study no more than a year old, background clearances no more than two years old, consent or relinquishment documents, an ICWA acknowledgment, medical records, and a post-placement supervision statement. A missing document delays the whole placement, and the Administrator notifies the sending agency or attorney of deficiencies by email.10Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. DCFS Procedures 328 – Interstate Placement of Children