Illinois Ban the Box Law: Employer Rules and Chicago Penalties

The Illinois ban the box law, formally the Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act (820 ILCS 75/), bars most employers from asking about your criminal record on a job application or during early screening. Questions about your history are delayed until after you’ve been selected for an interview or, if there’s no interview, until after a conditional job offer. A second state law, the Illinois Human Rights Act, then controls what an employer can actually do with a conviction record once they learn about it.

When an Employer Can Ask About Your Record

Under the Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act, an employer cannot inquire about, consider, or require you to disclose your criminal record until two things have happened: you’ve been found qualified for the position and you’ve been notified that you’re selected for an interview.¹ If the employer doesn’t conduct interviews at all for that position, the inquiry can only come after a conditional offer of employment.²

That restriction covers every form of asking. Written questions on paper or online applications, verbal questions during a phone screen, a request that you volunteer the information upfront — none of it is allowed early in the process. The purpose is simple: keep your record out of the room while an employer forms a first impression of your skills and experience.

One wrinkle applicants often miss. The law does let an employer tell you in writing, up front, about specific offenses that would disqualify you from a particular position because of a legal requirement or company policy.¹ That’s a one-way disclosure, not a question. It lets you decide whether continuing with the application makes sense.

Which Employers Are Covered

The Act covers any private employer with 15 or more employees in the current or preceding calendar year.³ Smaller businesses sit outside this specific timing rule. Employment agencies that recruit or refer candidates on behalf of covered employers follow the same rules.²

The Illinois Human Rights Act’s protections on how a conviction record can be used apply more broadly, regardless of employer size. So even where the timing rule doesn’t technically reach a small employer, the rules on using your record still do.

Positions Exempt From the Timing Rules

Three categories of positions sit outside the standard timing requirements:

Positions where federal or state law requires the employer to exclude applicants with certain convictions. Jobs in schools and roles involving care for vulnerable populations often fall here.
Positions requiring a standard fidelity bond where a specific conviction would disqualify you from obtaining the bond. The employer can ask on the initial application about those particular offenses.
Positions licensed under the Emergency Medical Services Systems Act.

These exemptions are narrow and tied directly to the statute.¹ A general sense that a role is “sensitive” is not enough. The exemption has to trace to a specific legal mandate, a bond requirement, or EMS licensing.

What Happens After an Employer Sees Your Record

The timing rule is only half the picture. Once an employer actually reviews your criminal history, the Illinois Human Rights Act (775 ILCS 5/2-103.1) controls what they can do with it. This is where the real protection lives, and where most people’s understanding of ban the box falls short.

An employer cannot use a conviction record to deny you a job unless one of two conditions is met: there is a substantial relationship between the past offense and the position, or hiring you would create an unreasonable risk to property or to the safety of specific people or the public.⁴ A substantial relationship means the job would give you the opportunity to commit the same or a similar offense, and the circumstances that led to the conviction could realistically recur in the role.

Before reaching a conclusion, the employer must weigh six factors:

How much time has passed since the conviction.
The number of convictions.
The nature and severity of the offense.
The circumstances of what actually happened.
Your age at the time.
Your rehabilitation efforts since, including education, training, steady work, and community involvement.

These are not optional. The statute requires the employer to evaluate all six before making a decision.⁴

The Interactive Assessment Process

If, after weighing those factors, the employer still preliminarily decides the conviction disqualifies you, they cannot simply send a rejection. The law requires a written preliminary notice that includes three things: which conviction is the basis for the decision and why the employer considers it disqualifying, a copy of the conviction history report if one was used, and an explanation of your right to respond before the decision is finalized.⁴

You get at least five business days to respond.⁵ Your response can challenge the accuracy of the report or present evidence of rehabilitation: certificates from completed programs, employment references, anything that shows you’ve moved past the offense. The employer cannot finalize the rejection until the response window closes and they’ve actually considered what you submitted.

A bare rejection with no written explanation and no chance to respond is a red flag. Employers who skip the interactive step are violating the Illinois Human Rights Act, and the rejection is legally vulnerable.

Sealed and Expunged Records

If your record has been sealed or expunged, Illinois law prohibits any public or private employer from considering it in employment decisions. You are not obligated to disclose a sealed or expunged conviction or arrest on an application or during an interview. For hiring purposes, those records should be invisible. If an employer somehow discovers a sealed record and uses it against you, that is a separate violation.

Chicago’s Stricter Rules

If you’re applying in Chicago, the city’s fair-chance ordinance sets a higher floor. It applies to employers of any size with a business facility in the city, eliminating the 15-employee threshold entirely. Covered employers must conduct the same type of individualized assessment as state law and must issue both a pre-adverse action notice and a final adverse action notice that include specific reasoning for the disqualification. The final notice must inform you of your right to file a charge with the Chicago Commission on Human Relations. Penalties under the ordinance can reach $1,000 per violation, plus potential license-related discipline for the employer.

Penalties Employers Face

The Illinois Department of Labor enforces the Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act through an escalating structure:

First violation: a written warning with 30 days to fix the problem.
Second violation, or the first violation not corrected within 30 days: a civil penalty of up to $500.
Third violation, or the first violation not corrected within 60 days: an additional penalty of up to $1,500.
Subsequent violations, or the first violation persisting past 90 days: up to $1,500 for every 30-day period the employer remains out of compliance.

The Director of Labor imposes these penalties after investigation.⁶ An employer who leaves an illegal question on a job application for months can face thousands in accumulated fines. Violations of the Illinois Human Rights Act’s conviction record rules run on a separate track through the Illinois Department of Human Rights and carry their own remedies.

How To File a Complaint

If an employer asked about your criminal record too early in the process, file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor’s Fair Labor Standards Division. The complaint form is available on the IDOL website.² You’ll need the employer’s legal name, business address, and contact information, along with the date of the violation and what happened.

The strongest evidence is a copy of the job application itself showing the prohibited question. If the violation was verbal, write down the date, time, who asked, and what they said as soon as you can. Contemporaneous notes carry more weight than memories reconstructed weeks later.

After you submit the form online or by mail, the department confirms a file has been opened and assigned to an investigator. The investigator contacts the employer, reviews hiring materials and policies, and determines whether a violation occurred. Expect a status update within roughly 30 to 60 days of filing.²

If the employer learned your record at the right time but then rejected you without the required individualized assessment or interactive process, that is an Illinois Human Rights Act issue. File that complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights instead.

1
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Compiled Statutes 820 ILCS 75/15 – Employer Pre-Screening
2
Illinois Department of Labor. Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act – Fair Labor Standards Division
3
Justia Law. Illinois Code 820 ILCS 75 – Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act
4
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Compiled Statutes 775 ILCS 5/2-103.1 – Conviction Record
5
Illinois Department of Human Rights. Conviction Record Protection – Frequently Asked Questions
6
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Compiled Statutes 820 ILCS 75/20 – Administration of Act and Rulemaking Authority