Free Illinois Rent Increase Notice

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Illinois preempts rent control statewide, so there is no cap on how much you can raise the rent (50 ILCS 825) — but for a month-to-month tenancy you must give proper written notice. Illinois has no dedicated rent-increase notice statute; the practical floor is the 30 days’ written notice that 735 ILCS 5/9-207 requires to end a month-to-month tenancy (7 days week-to-week), and you cannot raise rent in retaliation. Generate a clean notice below.

30-day (month-to-month) 735 ILCS 5/9-207 Illinois Free PDF

This Illinois Rent Increase Notice raises the rent on a month-to-month tenancy anywhere in Illinois. The state preempts rent control (50 ILCS 825), so there is no cap on the amount — and there is no statewide statute that fixes a rent-increase notice period. Because raising the rent on a month-to-month tenancy is a change of terms, the practical floor is the notice to end that tenancy: 30 days’ written notice under 735 ILCS 5/9-207 (7 days week-to-week). Keep the increase out of the retaliation bar of the Landlord Retaliation Act (765 ILCS 721). If your rental is in Chicago or another city with its own ordinance, longer local notice applies — see our Chicago rent increase notice. Our how to raise rent guide covers the timing, and the tenant screening laws by state hub helps you place reliable tenants in the first place.

Complete the fields below to generate a Illinois rent increase notice. The new rent and effective date must give the tenant the full statutory notice period. Service should comply with applicable Illinois law; retain proof of service.

An Illinois rent increase notice is the written notice a landlord gives to raise the rent on a tenancy anywhere in the state. Illinois is a market-rate state: there is no rent control and no cap on how much the rent can go up. That is not a local choice but a state mandate — the Rent Control Preemption Act (50 ILCS 825), enacted in 1997, forbids every unit of local government in Illinois, including home-rule cities, from adopting or enforcing any ordinance that controls the amount of rent. A landlord may therefore raise the rent by any amount. What the law regulates instead is when and how an increase can take effect, and why.

Unlike some states, Illinois has no statute that sets a dedicated notice period for a rent increase. The timing instead comes from how a periodic tenancy is changed. Raising the rent on a month-to-month tenancy is a change of terms, and the way a landlord changes the terms of a periodic tenancy is to end the existing tenancy with proper notice and offer the tenant a new arrangement at the new rent. The statutory notice to end a periodic tenancy is therefore the practical floor for a rent increase: under 735 ILCS 5/9-207(b), a month-to-month (or other periodic tenancy of less than a year) ends on at least 30 days’ written notice, and under 735 ILCS 5/9-207(a) a week-to-week tenancy ends on at least 7 days’ written notice (9-206, by contrast, is a separate 4-month rule for year-to-year farm land and does not apply to a city apartment). So a landlord raising the rent on a month-to-month tenancy gives at least 30 days’ written notice before the increase takes effect at the start of the next rental period. For an ordinary apartment or house there is no statewide 45- or 60-day rent-increase rule; claims of one are not grounded in Illinois statute, and a landlord should rely on the 30-day floor (or a longer lease or local period), not an invented number. (A lot in a mobile home park is the exception — a separate Act sets a 90-day rule, covered below.)

The tenancy type controls the rest. On a fixed-term lease the rent is locked for the term and cannot be raised mid-lease unless the lease itself contains an escalation clause; any increase takes effect at renewal, with the 9-207-style notice given before the term ends if the tenancy will continue periodically. A written lease can also set its own, longer notice period for a change in rent, and where it does, the lease controls over the statutory floor. The notice, however it is given, should be in writing and state the current rent, the new rent, and the effective date plainly.

Even without a cap, an increase can still be unlawful because of its motive. The Landlord Retaliation Act, 765 ILCS 721 — effective January 1, 2025, which repealed and replaced the older Retaliatory Eviction Act (765 ILCS 720) — bars a landlord from raising the rent, terminating or refusing to renew, decreasing services, or bringing or threatening a possession action in retaliation for a tenant’s protected conduct. Protected conduct includes reporting a building, health, or housing code violation to a government agency or official, complaining to a community organization, requesting repairs required by code or the lease, organizing or joining a tenants’ union, testifying about conditions at the premises, or exercising any legal right or remedy. The Act creates a rebuttable presumption: if the landlord takes an adverse action — including a rent increase — within one year of the protected conduct, the action is presumed retaliatory unless the landlord proves a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason. Federal fair housing law and the Illinois Human Rights Act independently bar an increase aimed at a tenant because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, disability, or another protected characteristic.

A statewide Illinois increase is also distinct from the local ordinances that sit on top of it. The no-cap, 30-day-floor rule is the statewide default, but several jurisdictions require more. Chicago’s Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance imposes a Fair Notice rule (Section 5-12-130(j)) with tiered notice of 30, 60, or 120 days depending on how long the tenant has lived in the unit — that is a Chicago ordinance and does not apply elsewhere in Illinois. Cook County’s own Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance covers suburban Cook County but excludes Chicago, Evanston, Oak Park, and Mount Prospect, each of which has its own local rules. A landlord must confirm the rule for the property’s exact location before relying on the 30-day statewide floor — this statewide form is the right tool outside those local jurisdictions, and our Chicago rent increase notice handles the Fair Notice tiers for a Chicago rental.

Because Illinois sets no required method to serve a rent-increase notice, the practical standard is provable written delivery within the notice period. Personal delivery to the tenant, a copy left with a person 13 or older at the premises plus a mailed copy, certified mail with a return receipt, or first-class mail all work; email or a tenant portal is fine only when the lease authorizes electronic notice, and mailing adds days for receipt. Whatever the method, the notice should state the current rent, the new rent, and the effective date, and the landlord should keep a signed, dated copy with proof of delivery. Our how to raise rent guide walks through the timing, and screening applicants with verified reports keeps tenancies stable so the increases you serve actually stick.

Put together, a clean Illinois increase is simple but exact: confirm the tenancy is month-to-month or at renewal, check the property’s city or county for a local ordinance, give at least 30 days’ written notice on a month-to-month tenancy (7 days week-to-week) or the longer lease or local period, keep the timing outside the one-year retaliation presumption of 765 ILCS 721, deliver the notice in writing with proof, and never let the increase track a tenant’s protected complaint. None of this replaces the screening you do at move-in — a tenant chosen for steady income and a clean payment history is the one most likely to absorb a lawful increase without a dispute.

Because Illinois has no rent control, no statute limits how often the rent can be raised — the common claim that a landlord “can only raise rent once a year” is not Illinois law. What actually controls frequency is the tenancy itself. During a fixed term, the rent is locked and cannot be raised at all until the term ends, so a one-year lease effectively yields one increase per year. On a month-to-month tenancy the rent can be changed as often as the landlord chooses, but each change is its own change of terms and needs its own 30-day written notice under 735 ILCS 5/9-207(b) before it takes effect. Frequent increases can also strengthen a retaliation or bad-faith argument if they track a tenant complaint, and a local ordinance in Chicago, suburban Cook County, Evanston, or Oak Park may set its own timing. Practically, most Illinois landlords raise rent once per lease cycle, at renewal.

Several rent-increase guides quote a “45-day” notice for month-to-month tenancies or a “60-day” notice for leases of a year or more. Neither is a statewide Illinois requirement. Illinois has no dedicated rent-increase notice statute at all; the only statewide numbers that come from statute are the 30-day (month-to-month) and 7-day (week-to-week) termination-notice periods in 735 ILCS 5/9-207. The “60-day” figure is almost always a Chicago rule bleeding into statewide advice — Chicago’s Fair Notice ordinance (Section 5-12-130(j)) requires 60 days’ notice when a tenant has lived in the unit six months to three years and 120 days beyond three years — but that ordinance governs only Chicago. The “45-day” figure has no Illinois statutory basis anywhere. Outside a local ordinance, rely on the 30-day floor for a month-to-month tenancy, or a longer period your written lease sets, not a number borrowed from another city or state.

Illinois caps nothing on the amount, but the Landlord Retaliation Act (765 ILCS 721), effective January 1, 2025, makes a rent increase illegal when its motive is retaliatory. Section 5 bars a landlord from raising the rent, terminating, refusing to renew, or decreasing services because a tenant, in good faith, reported a building, housing, or health code violation to a government agency or official, complained to a community organization, requested repairs required by code or the lease, organized or joined a tenants’ union, testified about the condition of the premises, or exercised any legal right or remedy. Section 20 supplies the teeth: if the adverse action falls within one year of the protected conduct, that timing creates a rebuttable presumption the increase was retaliatory. Under Section 15 a landlord overcomes the presumption only by proving a legitimate, non-retaliatory basis, or that the action began before the protected activity. If retaliation is established, Section 10 lets the tenant assert it as a defense and recover damages of up to two months’ rent or twice the actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney’s fees. The 2025 Act repealed and replaced the older Retaliatory Eviction Act (765 ILCS 720). The safe practice is to document a neutral, market reason for every increase and never time one to a tenant’s complaint.

This statewide form is for a conventional apartment or house. A lot in a mobile home park is governed instead by the Mobile Home Landlord and Tenant Rights Act (765 ILCS 745), which sets its own, longer rules. The park owner must give at least 90 days’ written notice of any rent increase, and the increase cannot take effect until 90 days after that notice; the tenant then has 30 days to accept or reject it (765 ILCS 745/6). The owner must also offer each tenant a written lease of at least 24 months, and every park lease automatically renews unless an exception applies — so when the only change at renewal is the rent, a letter notice stating the new rent amount, delivered by first-class mail or personal service and offering the tenant a free copy of the lease on request, satisfies the Act (765 ILCS 745/8). There is still no statewide dollar cap on park rent, but these Mobile Home Act rules — the 90-day increase notice and the lease-term and renewal requirements, not the 30-day notice of 735 ILCS 5/9-207 — are what a park owner follows, so a park operator should rely on that Act rather than this general form. This is why the commonly cited “90 days for mobile home parks” figure applies only to park lots, never to a standard apartment.

A tenant who receives an increase in Illinois has a defined set of options. During a fixed lease term, the tenant does not have to pay any increase — the rent is locked until the term ends unless the lease itself allows a change. On a month-to-month tenancy, the tenant can accept the new rent, try to negotiate it, or give notice and move out before the increase takes effect; because there is no cap, “the rent is too high” is not, by itself, a legal defense. What a tenant can challenge is an increase that skips the required notice, that raises the rent mid-term on a fixed lease, that is retaliatory under 765 ILCS 721, or that is discriminatory under the federal Fair Housing Act or the Illinois Human Rights Act — for example, an increase aimed at a tenant because of race, disability, familial status, or another protected characteristic. A tenant who believes an increase is retaliatory or discriminatory can raise it as a defense and, for retaliation, seek the damages and attorney’s fees provided by 765 ILCS 721/10. Tenants in Chicago, suburban Cook County, Evanston, or Oak Park also get the longer local notice their ordinance requires.

• No rent cap and no rent control — the Rent Control Preemption Act (50 ILCS 825) bars every Illinois city and county from limiting the amount of rent, so a landlord may raise it by any amount.
• No dedicated rent-increase notice statute — for a month-to-month tenancy the practical floor is the 30 days’ written notice that 735 ILCS 5/9-207(b) requires to end the tenancy (7 days week-to-week under 735 ILCS 5/9-207(a)).
• Follow the lease and the local rule — a written lease may set a longer notice period, and Chicago, suburban Cook County, Evanston, and Oak Park have their own ordinances that can require more.
• No mid-term increase on a fixed-term lease unless the lease expressly allows it; the increase applies at renewal.
• No retaliatory increase under the Landlord Retaliation Act (765 ILCS 721/5); an increase within one year of a tenant’s protected action is presumed retaliatory (765 ILCS 721/20), rebuttable only by a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason (765 ILCS 721/15).
• Retaliation remedies — a retaliatory increase is a tenant defense and exposes the landlord to damages of up to two months’ rent or twice the tenant’s actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney’s fees (765 ILCS 721/10).
• No statutory limit on frequency — with no rent control, Illinois does not cap how often rent may rise, but each month-to-month increase needs its own 30-day notice and a fixed-term rent cannot change until renewal.
• No discriminatory increase based on a protected class (federal Fair Housing Act and the Illinois Human Rights Act).

• Illinois sets no single mandatory method to serve a rent-increase notice — the goal is provable written delivery of the full notice period.
• Personal delivery to the tenant, or a copy left with a person 13 or older at the premises plus a mailed copy.
• Certified mail with a return receipt, or U.S. first-class mail, gives a dated paper trail; allow added days for receipt when you mail.
• Email or a tenant portal works only if the lease authorizes electronic notice; keep the send record either way.

• Giving less than 30 days on a month-to-month tenancy (or less than 7 days week-to-week) when 735 ILCS 5/9-207 sets the practical floor.
• Applying Chicago’s 30/60/120-day Fair Notice tiers to a property outside Chicago — those tiers are a Chicago ordinance, not statewide Illinois law.
• Ignoring a local rule — suburban Cook County, Evanston, and Oak Park have their own ordinances that can require longer notice.
• Raising the rent mid-term on a fixed-term lease that does not allow it.
• Raising the rent within a year of a tenant’s repair request or code complaint — 765 ILCS 721 presumes that is retaliation — or relying on a verbal notice with no proof of delivery.

• Pin down the tenancy type and the property’s city or county first — it sets whether the 30-day floor or a longer local rule controls.
• Give at least 30 days’ written notice on a month-to-month tenancy (7 days week-to-week), or the lease/local period if longer, before the new rent starts.
• State the current rent, the new rent, and the effective date plainly, and set the effective date to the next rental period.
• Deliver by a method you can prove, and avoid timing an increase within a year of a tenant complaint.

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