Illinois Carry Guide

Illinois runs on two cards. The FOID card lets you own a gun or ammunition. The concealed carry license lets you carry a loaded handgun in public, concealed. There is no carry without the license, and no open carry at all. The banned-places list is long, a small sign on the door has the force of law, and magazines and some guns are limited. This page is the whole book on one sheet. Every line points to the chapter that explains it.

To own a gun in Illinois you need a FOID card, which has no set minimum age: under 21 needs a parent's consent or active military service. To carry, you need a concealed carry license, which starts at 21. Both are for people not on the prohibited-persons list in section 8 of the FOID Card Act, and the license adds a few bars of its own. Police can object to a license, and a review board decides. The Illinois State Police say legal cannabis use won't cost you either card, though no statute we read says so, and federal law still bars an "unlawful user." Talk to an attorney first.

First the FOID card: $10, apply online to the Illinois State Police, decided within 30 days (a renewal gets up to 60 business days), good for 10 years. Then the license: a 16-hour class with a live-fire test, an online application with a recent photo, $150 for a resident, and electronic fingerprints if you want it faster. The ISP has 90 days to decide, or 120 without fingerprints. The license lasts five years. Renewing takes a 3-hour class and another $150.

Illinois has no permitless carry and no open carry. Without a license, a handgun that is loaded, uncased and within reach, in public or in a car, is a felony the first time. A FOID holder may keep a gun at home, at their fixed place of business, or as a welcome guest. A FOID holder may also move it when it's broken down, not immediately accessible, or unloaded and cased. The license covers handguns only. Rifles and shotguns follow the transport rule even for a licensee.

Illinois bans licensed carry in 23 kinds of places, named in section 65 of the Concealed Carry Act. They include schools, colleges, government buildings, hospitals, buses and trains, bars, parks, stadiums, airports, museums and more. Federal places, from post offices to Army Corps lakes, add their own rules. A private owner can add their property with a 4-by-6-inch sign. At most banned places, the parking-lot rule lets you drive in and lock the gun, cased, in your car. Walking past on a public sidewalk is fine. Breaking the rule is a misdemeanor for a licensee, and three times costs the license for good.

With a license, your handgun may ride loaded and concealed, on you or near you in the car, anywhere in Illinois except the banned places. At most banned places, the parking-lot rule lets you lock it in the car, but not at nuclear sites or federal no-gun areas, and we can't promise it at a CTA or Metra station lot. Without a license, the gun rides unloaded and cased, broken down, or out of reach, and a locked case also covers the federal school zone. Rifles and shotguns ride unloaded and cased either way. Buses and trains are off limits, and at the airport your carry ends at the car, so ask the airline and the airport how to get a checked gun to the counter.

Illinois limits magazines: more than 15 rounds for a handgun or more than 10 for a long gun is a "large capacity ammunition feeding device." Buying one has been illegal since January 10, 2023. One owned before then may be kept, but only at home, at a range or a few other places, never carried on the street. Some guns, including a semiautomatic pistol with a detachable magazine and a threaded barrel, are "assault weapons," legal to keep only with an endorsement affidavit. A federal appeals court upheld the law on July 9, 2026. Armor piercing bullets and three kinds of shell are banned, and you need a FOID card to buy any ammunition.

You don't have to announce your gun in Illinois. But when an officer at a stop asks, you must say you're carrying, or hand over your license. If asked, you must also say where the gun is and let the officer secure it for the stop. Carry the license, or a phone copy, whenever you carry, with a few exceptions such as your own land or home. Breaking the duty is a Class B misdemeanor.

Every sale in Illinois runs through the FOID card: the buyer shows a FOID card or a license, and there's a 72-hour wait for any gun. A private seller must run the buyer's card through a dealer or the Illinois State Police first, and keep a record for 10 years. Since January 1, 2026, the Safe Gun Storage Act requires a locked container wherever a child, an at-risk person or a barred person (someone the law bars from having guns) is likely to get to the gun. Lock it up whenever anyone else in the home could reach it. And a lost or stolen gun must be reported to local police within 48 hours.

For a licensee, handguns and handgun ammunition are the State's business alone, so as a rule a city can't add carry rules of its own. The one to plan around: Chicago tells every business with an on-premises liquor license not to allow concealed carry, and we couldn't read that ordinance, so treat those places as closed to your gun (see Chicago's drinking places, later in this chapter). Whether that also overrides a local magazine limit is not settled in anything we read, so we advise ten rounds or fewer in Cook County and Highland Park. For anyone with a FOID card, the State alone governs how you transport a gun. But local bans on assault weapons and large magazines passed in a short 2013 window still stand. Chicago, Cook County and Highland Park all have one. Cook County's and Highland Park's magazine line is ten rounds. We couldn't read the current text of any of them.

Illinois honors no other state's carry license. A visitor from another state may keep a concealed gun inside their car in Illinois under a narrow rule, but can't carry it on foot. Residents of six states the Illinois State Police calls "substantially similar" may apply for a non-resident Illinois license. Going the other way, your Illinois license and FOID card are Illinois documents: whether they count anywhere else is each other state's decision. The Illinois Regional Carry Guide covers those crossings. Find it at www.sneakypeteholsters.com/illinois-regional-carry-guide, or search "Illinois Regional Carry Guide" at www.sneakypeteholsters.com.

In general, Illinois allows deadly force only when you reasonably believe it's necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to you or someone else, or a forcible felony, a legal term with its own list of crimes. In your home, a separate rule also allows it against a violent entry or to prevent a felony in the dwelling. Start the fight and you lose that defense, unless you've tried every reasonable way to escape or you withdraw in good faith and say so. Carrying while under the influence, by the drunk-driving tests, is a crime, and the third time costs the license for good. If you ever use your gun, call 911, then a lawyer.

The Illinois State Police, Firearms Services Bureau, issues both the FOID card and the concealed carry license, and runs the online application portal. The Illinois General Assembly publishes the law for free. The book was checked on September 29, 2026. The court cases, the 2026 statute changes, the ISP kiosk list and a few web addresses were checked again on October 27, 2026.