Illinois Tier II Reporting: Requirements, Exemptions, and Penalties

If your Illinois facility stores hazardous chemicals above federal threshold quantities, Illinois Tier II reporting requirements oblige you to file an annual inventory report by March 1 covering the previous calendar year.¹ The obligation comes from Section 312 of the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and is administered in Illinois by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and Office of Homeland Security (IEMA-OHS). Miss the deadline or file inaccurately and you face federal civil penalties up to $28,619 per violation per day, with Illinois penalties stacking on top.

Who Has to File

You are a Tier II filer if your facility must keep a Safety Data Sheet for any hazardous chemical under OSHA rules and you store that chemical at or above the reporting threshold.² Two thresholds apply:

For most hazardous chemicals, 10,000 pounds or more present at any point during the calendar year.
For extremely hazardous substances (EHS), 500 pounds or the chemical’s threshold planning quantity (TPQ), whichever is lower. Many TPQs sit well below 500 pounds, so small amounts can trigger reporting.

TPQs for each EHS are listed in 40 CFR Part 355, Appendix A. Check the TPQ for any listed chemical before assuming you fall below the trigger. Illinois follows the federal thresholds without modification.

Retail Fuel Stations

Gas stations get different numbers. For gasoline stored entirely underground in tanks that meet all underground storage tank requirements, the threshold is 75,000 gallons across all grades. For diesel under the same conditions, it is 100,000 gallons. If any tank is above ground or had a UST compliance issue during the year, the standard 10,000-pound threshold applies instead.

What Goes on the Tier II Form

For every reportable chemical, EPCRA Section 312 requires you to provide the chemical name or common name as it appears on the SDS, an estimated range for the maximum amount present at any time during the previous calendar year, an estimated range for the average daily amount on site, a description of how and where the chemical is stored, and your election on whether to withhold the specific storage location from public disclosure.² Illinois administrative rules reinforce the federal requirement and separately require facilities to provide specific Tier II data on request from the SERC, any local emergency planning committee (LEPC), or the fire department.³

Keep your facility contact information current. In an emergency, responders need to reach someone who knows what is on site and where. Stale contacts defeat the entire purpose of the report.

How to File in Illinois

Illinois requires electronic submission through Hazconnect, the IEMA-OHS online filing system. It is the only accepted method.⁴ Submission instructions, field requirements, current LEPC contact lists, and release reporting lists are posted on the IEMA-OHS Tier II webpage. After each submission you can print hard copies for your records.

The annual deadline is March 1 for the previous calendar year’s inventory. For the 2025 reporting year, the deadline falls on Sunday, March 1, 2026.⁴ Federal law requires three recipients: your LEPC, the State Emergency Response Commission (housed within IEMA-OHS), and the fire department with jurisdiction over your facility.² Hazconnect handles distribution to the SERC and LEPC, but confirm with your local fire department whether they access reports through the system or need a separate copy.

Emergency Coordinator for EHS Facilities

If your facility stores an extremely hazardous substance above its threshold planning quantity, EPCRA Section 303 adds a separate obligation: designate a facility emergency coordinator and notify your LEPC of that person’s identity. The coordinator is expected to participate in local emergency planning, attend LEPC meetings, and help responders understand your chemical risks.⁵ Make sure your designation is current before filing.

What’s Exempt

Not every chemical on your property triggers a filing obligation. EPCRA Sections 311 and 312 exempt several categories regardless of quantity:

Consumer products in the same form and concentration packaged for personal, family, or household use.
Food, food additives, color additives, drugs, and cosmetics regulated by the FDA.
Substances used in routine agricultural operations.
Substances used in research under controlled conditions.
Articles, meaning manufactured items that don’t release the chemical or expose workers under normal use.

The key qualifiers are “routine” for agricultural operations and “same form and concentration” for consumer products. A hardware store selling cans of paint doesn’t file. A facility buying those same chemicals in bulk drums for industrial use does.

If every chemical on site stays below its threshold for the full year, you owe no report for those chemicals. The burden of proving that falls on you, so keep inventory records that can demonstrate it.

Trade Secret Protection

If disclosing a specific chemical identity would reveal a trade secret, EPCRA lets you substitute a generic class or category name on the form. You cannot skip reporting; quantities, storage methods, and locations must still be disclosed in full.⁶

Claiming the protection requires submitting an explanation to the EPA that satisfies all four statutory factors: you have kept the identity confidential and have not disclosed it to unauthorized persons; no other law already requires its public disclosure; release would cause substantial competitive harm; and the identity is not easily discoverable through reverse engineering.⁶ Facilities that assert the protection without a genuine basis invite enforcement on top of the underlying reporting violation.

One carveout matters in the moment: a trade secret claim cannot block disclosure of the chemical identity to a health professional who needs it for diagnosis or treatment. In a medical emergency, the specific identity must be provided immediately.

Who Can See Your Report

Tier II reports are not confidential. Any member of the public can request Tier II information about a specific facility by sending a written request to the SERC or LEPC. If the committee does not already have the data, it must obtain it from the facility on the requester’s behalf. For chemicals present below 10,000 pounds, the SERC and LEPC have discretion over release and may consider the requester’s stated justification. At 10,000 pounds or more, disclosure is not discretionary.⁷ Assume anything you report may eventually become public.

Penalties for Noncompliance

Reporting failures can draw penalties from two separate systems at once: federal EPCRA enforcement and the Illinois Chemical Safety Act. A single mistake can generate fines under both.

Federal

EPCRA sets a statutory maximum of $25,000 per violation for Section 312 reporting failures.⁸ Each day a violation continues counts as a separate violation. After inflation adjustments under 40 CFR Part 19, the current maximum sits at $28,619 per violation per day for penalties assessed on or after January 8, 2025.⁹ A facility that misses March 1 and does not file for three months could face a theoretical maximum well into six figures.

Illinois

The Illinois Chemical Safety Act adds up to $10,000 per violation, plus $1,000 for each day the violation continues. IEMA-OHS can investigate and refer violations to the State’s Attorney or Attorney General for prosecution, including injunctive relief forcing compliance.¹⁰

Citizen Suits

Regulators are not the only enforcers. EPCRA Section 326 lets any person sue a facility owner for failing to submit required inventory forms, and lets citizens sue a governor or SERC that fails to respond to a Tier II information request within 120 days.¹¹ These suits often surface after a chemical incident, when community members discover a facility never filed.

If You Already Missed a Filing or Got It Wrong

The EPA’s Audit Policy offers a path to reduce penalties sharply for facilities that catch their own mistakes. Voluntary disclosure that meets all nine policy conditions brings a 100% reduction of gravity-based penalties, leaving only the economic benefit the facility gained from noncompliance. Meeting every condition except systematic discovery still earns a 75% reduction.¹²

The nine conditions:

Systematic discovery through an environmental audit or compliance management system.
Voluntary discovery, not through legally mandated monitoring.
Prompt disclosure, meaning written notice to the EPA within 21 days of discovery through the EPA’s eDisclosure System.
Independent discovery, meaning you disclosed before regulators or third parties would have flagged it.
Correction within 60 days of discovery in most cases.
Steps taken to prevent recurrence.
No repeat of the same violation at the facility within three years, and no pattern across commonly owned facilities within five.
No actual serious harm or imminent endangerment caused by the violation.
Full cooperation with the EPA.

Qualifying disclosures also shield facilities from criminal prosecution recommendations. For a genuine missed deadline or miscounted inventory, this is almost always the right first move. Quietly fixing the problem and hoping no one notices is the worst option, because the penalty for a late filing you disclose is far smaller than the penalty for one regulators find on their own.¹²

1
Illinois Emergency Management Agency and Office of Homeland Security. SERC/LEPC/Tier II Reporting
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 11022 – Emergency and Hazardous Chemical Inventory Forms
3
Legal Information Institute. Illinois Administrative Code Title 29 Section 620.240 – Tier II Information
4
Illinois Emergency Management Agency – Office of Homeland Security. Illinois Tier II Reporting Instructions
5
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Chapter 3 – EPCRA Section 303: Comprehensive Emergency Response Plans
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 11042 – Trade Secrets
7
US EPA. How Will Citizens Have Access to Tier I or Tier II Inventory Forms
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 11045 – Civil Penalties
9
eCFR. 40 CFR Part 19 – Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalties for Inflation
10
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Compiled Statutes 430 ILCS 45 – Illinois Chemical Safety Act
11
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Chapter 10 – EPCRA Section 326: Civil Actions
12
U.S. EPA. EPA’s Audit Policy