The Illinois State Police background checks page states the rule in one paragraph. On January 1, 1991 the Uniform Conviction Information Act became law, mandating that all criminal history record conviction information collected and maintained by the Bureau of Identification be made available to the public under 20 ILCS 2635, and the act permits only conviction information to be disseminated to the public. An employer, landlord or neighbor who orders a UCIA inquiry therefore gets convictions, not the arrests that never became one. The bureau itself, described on its home page, holds records tied to more than five million fingerprint files in its biometric identification system and works from a restricted access building at 260 North Chicago Street, Joliet, where entry is by appointment, Monday to Friday from 8 am to 4 pm, booked through customer support at 815-740-5160.
The price of that inquiry is on the bureau's fee schedule, whose fee applicant section carries fees effective October 1, 2026 while its Uniform Conviction Information Act section carries no date of its own. A UCIA name based inquiry is $16 on a manual form and $10 submitted electronically; a UCIA fingerprint card inquiry is $20 on paper, $15 by Live Scan and $10 for a resubmission with the previous transaction control number. Fee applicant checks for licensing and employment run $20 on paper or $15 electronically for the state only, $15 either way for the FBI only, $35 or $30 for state and FBI, and $28 electronically for National Child Protection Act and Adam Walsh volunteer checks. Fingerprints for employment, licensing or immigration are taken at Live Scan vendors found through the state licensing department's vendor list. The county sheriffs and police departments whose prints feed the file are on the Illinois county pages.
- $10 or $16: a UCIA name based inquiry submitted electronically or on paper, returning conviction information only.
- Free: Access and Review of your own complete record, and the Record Challenge that comes with it, though the fingerprint vendor may charge.
- $60: the state police fee to process a court order to expunge or seal; the petition itself is processed at no charge.
- 45 days: how long a police station or jail keeps your Access and Review transcript for pickup before it is destroyed.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Illinois's own systems: the Bureau of Identification home page of the Illinois State Police, the Bureau of Identification background checks page, the Bureau of Identification fee schedule, the Bureau of Identification page on viewing your own record, the adult expungement and sealing information and forms of the Office of the State Appellate Defender, section 5.2 of the Criminal Identification Act, 20 ILCS 2630/5.2, on the Illinois General Assembly site, the Office of the Illinois Courts home page with the re:SearchIL link, the Illinois Department of Corrections individual in custody search, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Access and Review: the whole record, for nothing
The bureau's page on viewing your own record follows the administrative rules it links on the General Assembly site. Any individual may walk into any Illinois law enforcement or correctional facility, or any licensed fingerprint vendor, during business hours to obtain their criminal history transcript through Access and Review. The facility or vendor takes fingerprints and identifying information and forwards them to the state police, which mails the transcript, with a Record Challenge form, or a written statement that no history was found, to the address the person gave, which may be their home or the facility.
A transcript sent to a facility is released only to the person, and if it is not collected within 45 days of notification the facility destroys it. The state police charge nothing to process an Access and Review or a Record Challenge, though the vendor or agency taking the prints may charge a processing fee. A challenge brings a written reply saying what was corrected or that nothing needed correction, and a notarized copy of any response can be requested by email with the transaction control number.
CHIRP and the status of a submission
Name based inquiries from account holders run through the bureau's portal, CHIRP, and the response is retrieved there by entering the transaction control number issued when the search was started. Anyone checking the status of a fingerprint or name submission emails customer support, and vendors settle their accounts with the bureau's fiscal unit. The bureau publishes a Background Check Guide, a long manual that walks through the UCIA forms, the fee applicant process, Live Scan certification, how the name search routine works and how to read a rap sheet; employers who need to understand a no hit response or the difference between an arrest and a conviction record will find it covered there and in the Illinois background check guide on this site.
Expungement and sealing under section 5.2
Section 5.2 of the Criminal Identification Act governs expungement, sealing and immediate sealing in Illinois. Expungement means physically destroying the records or returning them to the petitioner and striking the name from any official index, with the circuit court file impounded rather than destroyed. The section expressly covers arrests after which the person was released without charging, and it treats a charge not initiated by arrest as its own category.
Minor cannabis offenses committed before June 25, 2019 are expunged automatically by law enforcement agencies on a statutory timetable, and citations for civil cannabis and paraphernalia violations are expunged twice a year, on or before January 1 and July 1. The state police fee schedule shows the cost of the paperwork: a petition to expunge or seal is processed free, and a court order to expunge or seal is $60.
The Office of the State Appellate Defender, working with the Supreme Court's Access to Justice Commission, publishes the forms every Illinois courthouse must accept: the request to expunge and impound or seal, the orders granting and denying it, additional arrest sheets, and a fee waiver application, with Spanish versions on the Supreme Court site and a free guided interview from Illinois Legal Aid Online. The office warns that the PDFs must be saved before filling in Chrome, Firefox or Safari and flattened before e filing.
Questions about a filed order go to the state police expungement unit by email, and the bureau's own answer to how do I expunge or seal my records is simply to use those forms.
Illinois court cases: re:SearchIL and the clerks
Illinois has 102 circuit clerks and no single criminal case search run by the Supreme Court, but the Office of the Illinois Courts links re:SearchIL, described there as an online portal to access documents filed through eFileIL, alongside a page of high profile cases. The court record is the place to confirm the disposition of an arrest that a UCIA response omits, and the Illinois court records guide lists each clerk and which of them post dockets online.
Who the Department of Corrections lists
The individual in custody search of the Illinois Department of Corrections finds people serving state sentences, with a separate parolee sex registrant search and a wanted fugitives list on the same menu. People awaiting trial are in a county jail, so an arrest search usually starts with the sheriff's roster; the Illinois inmate search guide covers both. The department also posts its policies on incoming mail and its constituent services number for families.
What the local agency keeps
The Bureau of Identification holds the fingerprint based summary and, for the public, discloses convictions. The arrest report, the booking photograph and the jail file remain with the police department or sheriff, and an incident report from the state police itself is requested through its Freedom of Information officer at 801 South 7th Street, Suite 1000-S, Springfield. The Illinois public records law guide explains the exemptions for ongoing investigations.
The expungement forms reach those local files through the court order, which is why the statute names the law enforcement agencies as well as the clerk. Registered sex offenders are listed separately and publicly, as the Illinois sex offender registry guide describes.
Juvenile reports and notarized copies
Two smaller services sit on the bureau's quick links. Juvenile records reports have their own page, since juvenile law enforcement records are confidential and reach only the people the Juvenile Court Act allows. And any response that must be notarized, for a visa or a foreign employer, is requested by emailing customer support with the transaction control number; the notarized copy is mailed. Out of state fingerprint submissions and cannabis expungement each have a page as well, and the bureau answers anything not on its list through the same customer support address.
Questions about Illinois arrest records
Related Illinois records
Illinois readers can follow the record through the Illinois court records guide for the circuit clerks, the Illinois background check guide for UCIA and fee applicant checks, the Illinois inmate search guide for state prisons and county jails, the Illinois sex offender registry guide, the Illinois public records law guide for police reports, and the Illinois county pages.