A guide for Illinois public bodies

Illinois FOIA: the five-business-day clock, the four request tracks, and the Public Access Counselor

What 5 ILCS 140 requires of a FOIA officer — the five-day response and its five-day extension, the commercial, recurrent, and voluminous tracks, the denial notice, fees, annual training, binding review by the Attorney General's Public Access Counselor, and the civil penalties that attach to bad faith.

By Steve Goodyear, founder of Realizer Services Published September 4, 2026

Illinois rewrote its Freedom of Information Act in 2010 and built in two things most state records laws lack: a named, trained officer in every public body who must compute and record the response deadline on each request, and a binding administrative review in the Attorney General's office that sits between a denial and the courthouse. Around them sit a five-business-day clock, a single five-day extension with seven enumerated reasons, a presumption of openness rebuttable only “by clear and convincing evidence,” mandatory attorney's fees for a prevailing requester, and civil penalties of $2,500 to $5,000 per occurrence for willful noncompliance. The Act's policy statement tells courts how to read all of it: it “shall be construed to require disclosure of requested information as expediently and efficiently as possible and adherence to the deadlines established in this Act.”

This guide covers 5 ILCS 140 as amended effective January 1, 2026: who it binds, the five-business-day response and extension, the three tracks with their own clocks, fees, exemptions and the denial notice, Public Access Counselor review, court enforcement and penalties, and the FOIA officer's training duty. Citations link to the official text. This is general information, not legal advice.

Who the Act binds, and what a request needs

“Public body” under section 2(a) means all legislative, executive, administrative, or advisory bodies of the State, its universities and colleges, counties, townships, municipalities, school districts, and all other municipal corporations, boards, bureaus, committees, or commissions, with their subsidiary bodies. “Public records” in section 2(c) reaches every documentary material “pertaining to the transaction of public business, regardless of physical form or characteristics,” prepared by or for, used by, received by, in the possession of, or under the control of a public body; junk mail is excluded. Section 1.2 sets the presumption: all records “are presumed to be open to inspection or copying,” and a public body asserting an exemption “has the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that it is exempt.”

Under section 3(c), requests are made in writing by personal delivery, mail, telefax, or any other means available to the public body; oral requests may be honoured; no standard form may be required; and purpose may not be asked except to identify a commercial request or decide a fee waiver. Two provisions effective January 1, 2026 respond to how requests now arrive: an electronic request “must appear in its entirety within the body of the electronic submission,” so a public body need not open attachments or links (and must say so within five business days where necessary); and under section 3(j) a public body that reasonably believes a request was not submitted by a person may, within five business days, require verification, tolling the deadline. Every request received anywhere in the public body “shall immediately be forwarded to its Freedom of Information officer or designee.”

The five-business-day clock (section 3(d))

“Each public body shall, promptly, either comply with or deny a request for public records within 5 business days after its receipt of the request, unless the time for response is properly extended under subsection (e).” Three consequences of missing the window are written into the same subsection: failure to comply, extend, or deny within five business days “shall be considered a denial of the request”; a public body that responds late and then provides copies “may not impose a fee for such copies”; and a public body that fails to respond “may not treat the request as unduly burdensome.”

Counting the days

The Act counts business days, so weekends and holidays on which the public body is closed do not consume the clock, and it assigns the arithmetic to a named person: under section 3.5(a), on receiving a request the FOIA officer must note the date received, “compute the day on which the period for response will expire and make a notation of that date on the written request,” keep a copy of the request, and open a file for the response and correspondence. The statute does not say whether the day of receipt counts; the conservative practice is to treat receipt as day zero and the next business day as day one. Whichever convention the public body adopts, the computed date belongs on the request, in writing, on day zero.

The five-business-day extension (section 3(e) and (f))

The time for response may be extended once, “for not more than 5 business days from the original due date,” for any of seven reasons:

Records stored in whole or in part at other locations.
A substantial number of specified records to collect.
A categorical request requiring an extensive search.
Records not found in a routine search, with additional efforts under way.
Records requiring examination by personnel competent to judge section 7 exemptions or deletions.
Inability to comply in time “without unduly burdening or interfering with the operations of the public body.”
Consultation, “with all practicable speed,” with another public body or among components of the same one.

Section 3(f) governs the notice: within five business days after receipt — inside the original window, not after it — the public body must state the reasons for the extension and the date by which the response will be forthcoming. Missing the extended date is again a denial, with the same fee and burden consequences. The release valve is agreement: the parties “may agree in writing to extend the time for compliance for a period to be determined by the parties,” and where they do, earlier missed deadlines are not treated as denials.

Section 3(g) requires compliance with categorical requests unless compliance would be unduly burdensome, the request cannot be narrowed, and the burden outweighs the public interest. The public body must first offer the requester a chance to confer and narrow; the written response must specify why and to what extent compliance would burden operations; and it “shall be treated as a denial.” Repeated requests from the same person for records already provided or properly denied are deemed unduly burdensome.

Three tracks with their own clocks

Section 3(i) removes three kinds of request from the ordinary time limits.

Commercial-purpose requests (section 3.1). A “commercial purpose” under section 2(c-10) is use of a record “for sale, resale, or solicitation or advertisement for sales or services,” excluding news media and non-profit, scientific, or academic requests made for news, opinion, or research. The public body responds within 21 working days with one of four things: a time and fee estimate (payable in full before copying); a denial; an unduly-burdensome notice; or the records. Compliance follows within a reasonable period, “giving priority to records requested for non-commercial purposes.”

Recurrent requesters (section 3.2). Section 2(g) defines a recurrent requester as a person who, in the 12 months before the request, submitted to the same public body at least 50 requests, or 15 within 30 days, or 7 within 7 days, with the same exclusions. Within five business days of receipt the public body must notify the requester that it is treating the request under section 2(g), why, and that an initial response will follow within 21 business days in the same four forms.

Voluminous requests (section 3.6). Section 2(h) defines a voluminous request as more than five individual requests for more than five categories of records within 20 business days, or more than 500 letter- or legal-sized pages to compile unless a single record exceeds 500. The procedure is a sequence: within five business days, a notice with the eight statutory elements (including 10 business days for the requester to amend, that section 6 fees will apply, that the public body may take a further 10 business days, and that the determination is reviewable by the Public Access Counselor); then, if the request remains voluminous, a response within five business days of the requester's reply or of the end of their time to reply, extendable by up to 10 business days for a section 3(e) reason.

Fees (section 6)

Section 6 is tightly drawn. No fee may be charged for the first 50 pages of black-and-white letter- or legal-sized copies; further pages may not exceed 15 cents each; colour or other sizes cost no more than actual reproduction cost; electronic records cost no more than the medium; and fees must follow “a standard scale of fees, established and made public.” For any request that is not commercial or voluminous, the public body “may not charge the requester for the costs of any search for and review of the records or other personnel costs.” Section 6(c) requires a waiver or reduction where a stated purpose is principally to disseminate information about the health, safety, welfare, or legal rights of the general public, and section 6(d) makes a fee inconsistent with the section “a denial of access” for the purposes of judicial review.

Two tracks carry extra charges. For commercial requests, section 6(f) allows up to $10 for each hour of personnel time spent searching for, retrieving, or reviewing records for redaction after the first 8 hours, which are free. For voluminous requests for electronic records, section 6(a-5) sets a banded scale: for files not in PDF, up to $20 for 2 megabytes or less, $40 for more than 2 up to 4, and $100 above 4; for PDF, up to $20 for 80 megabytes or less, $40 for more than 80 up to 160, and $100 above 160. Both require an accounting of all fees, costs, and personnel hours, which is only possible if the hours were logged as they were spent.

Exemptions and the denial notice (sections 7 and 9)

Section 7(1) opens with the redaction rule: where a record mixes exempt and non-exempt information, the public body “may elect to redact the information that is exempt” and “shall make the remaining information available.” The exemptions a FOIA officer applies most often are information specifically prohibited from disclosure by federal or State law (7(1)(a)); “private information” as defined in section 2(c-5), such as social security numbers, personal contact details, home addresses, and medical records (7(1)(b)); personal information whose disclosure “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” which never covers information bearing on the public duties of public employees and officials (7(1)(c)); and preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda, and other records “in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated” (7(1)(f)).

Section 9 prescribes the denial notice. It must be in writing and give the reasons, “including a detailed factual basis for the application of any exemption claimed,” and the names and titles or positions of each person responsible. Where a section 7 exemption is invoked, it must specify the exemption and give “a detailed factual basis and a citation to supporting legal authority.” Every notice must inform the requester of the right to review by the Public Access Counselor, with the PAC's address and phone number, and of the right to judicial review under section 11, and copies of all denials must be retained “in a single central office file that is open to the public and indexed according to the type of exemption asserted.” Under section 9(c), a public body that misses the section 3 time limits has exhausted the requester's administrative remedies; they may go straight to court.

Review by the Public Access Counselor (section 9.5)

The Public Access Counselor is an attorney in the Office of the Attorney General who oversees the Public Access Bureau, mediates and resolves FOIA disputes, issues binding opinions, and provides the training the Act requires of FOIA officers. Under section 9.5, a person whose request is denied may file a written, signed request for review “not later than 60 days after the date of the final denial,” attaching the request and the responses. Commercial-purpose requesters may seek review only of whether the request was properly treated as commercial; a voluminous determination is likewise reviewable.

If the PAC decides further action is warranted, it forwards the request for review to the public body within 7 business days and specifies the records to be furnished. The public body must provide them, and otherwise fully cooperate, within 7 business days — the Attorney General may subpoena them otherwise — and may answer the allegations in the same period; the requester may respond within 7 business days after that. Then, “unless the Public Access Counselor extends the time by no more than 30 business days” by written notice with reasons, or resolves the matter without a binding opinion (mediation is expressly available), the Attorney General issues an opinion within 60 days of receipt. The opinion binds both parties, subject to administrative review in the circuit court under section 11.5; a public body found in violation must comply immediately or seek that review; and a public body that discloses in accordance with an opinion “is immune from all liabilities by reason thereof and shall not be liable for penalties under this Act.” Operationally, a request for review is a package the public body has 7 business days to assemble: the request, every response, the records at issue, and a position on each withholding. If the denial was written to section 9 and the redaction log cites a subsection per mark, the package already exists.

Court enforcement and civil penalties (section 11)

Under section 11, a person denied access may sue for injunctive or declaratory relief in the circuit court, or to enforce a binding opinion. The court considers the matter de novo, examines records in camera as it sees fit, holds the public body to the clear-and-convincing standard, and on the plaintiff's motion “shall order the public body to provide an index of the records to which access has been denied,” with the exemption claimed for each. If the requester prevails, “the court shall award such person reasonable attorney's fees and costs.” Section 11(j) carries the penalty: where a public body “willfully and intentionally failed to comply with this Act, or otherwise acted in bad faith,” the court “shall also impose upon the public body a civil penalty of not less than $2,500 nor more than $5,000 for each occurrence,” considering its budget and any previous penalties, and may add up to $1,000 for each day a violation continues once the public body has failed to comply with the court's order for 30 days, the order is not on appeal or stayed, and no additional time has been granted. A computed deadline, a timely extension notice, and a section 9 denial with a detailed factual basis are, in that paper, most of the answer to an allegation of bad faith.

FOIA officers, training, and posting duties

Section 3.5 requires every public body to designate one or more FOIA officers who receive requests, ensure timely responses, and issue them, and who must “develop a list of documents or categories of records that the public body shall immediately disclose upon request.” Section 3.5(b) attaches the training duty: FOIA officers must complete the electronic curriculum developed by the Public Access Counselor and thereafter “successfully complete an annual training program”; a newly designated officer must complete it “within 30 days after assuming the position”; and completion “shall be a prerequisite to continue serving.” The PAC delivers the curriculum through its training portal. Separately, section 4 requires each public body to post a description of itself — structure, budget, offices, headcount — on its website; the Attorney General's own FOIA page publishes the office's posting.

What a defensible Illinois FOIA operation looks like

Route every request to the FOIA officer the day it arrives, note the received date, and compute and record the fifth business day on the request itself, as section 3.5(a) requires.
Classify the track at intake — ordinary, commercial, recurrent, or voluminous — because the recurrent and voluminous notices are due inside the same five business days, and track requester history across twelve months so a recurrent requester is recognized on day one.
Reserve the extension for the seven section 3(e) reasons, name the reason and the new date, send it before day five, and prefer a written agreed extension on anything that will take longer than ten business days.
Cite a section 7 subsection on every redaction as it is made, with the factual basis, so the section 9 notice and the request-for-review package write themselves.
Write denials to section 9: detailed factual basis, legal citation, named decision-makers, the PAC's address and phone number, and the right to judicial review — then file a copy in the indexed central denial file.
Publish the fee schedule and log hours as they are spent, so the section 6(f) and 6(a-5) accountings can be produced and the 50-free-page and 8-free-hour rules are applied.
Keep the 7-business-day PAC package ready, complete annual PAC training, keep the certificates with the designation record, and onboard a new FOIA officer within 30 days.

Where AccessPoint fits

Illinois FOIA is a set of clocks that start on receipt, letters that must contain specific things by specific days, and a review body that expects a complete file within a week. AccessPoint runs that workflow inside your own Microsoft 365 and Azure tenant — requests and records never leave your environment — and the Illinois FOIA jurisdiction pack supplies the statute-specific configuration so the platform speaks 5 ILCS 140 from the first request.

Five business days, computed for you

The statutory clock starts when a request is activated, the received date follows your local calendar day rather than the server's, and the pack ships Illinois business-day math and the five-business-day due-date rules. The computed due date sits on the request, on the dashboard's overdue and due-this-week tiles, and in the reminders sent before it passes.

Section 3(e) extensions with their citation

The pack preloads the seven section 3(e) extension reasons with citations and the five-business-day limit. Recording an extension requires a configured reason, agreed extensions and clock pauses are recorded with their basis, and the closure check flags any extension left without one.

The commercial track, and your own tracks

The pack ships the 21-business-day commercial-purpose request track. Request types, their day basis, and their clocks are configured per tenant, so an administrator can add types for the recurrent and voluminous procedures with their own notices and due dates.

Section 7 on every redaction

The pack's section 7(1) exemption catalogue is colour-coded in the redaction viewer; each mark carries its exemption and alternates, the response package can include an exemption summary and a redaction index, and the Activity feed records who applied what and when — the material a section 9 notice and a section 11(e) index are built from.

Fees within section 6

The Fee panel assesses, itemizes, waives, records payment against, and finalizes fees under the pack's statutory copy-fee categories and commercial labor-charge rules, and the hours ledger separates fee-eligible time so the 8-free-hour rule and the required accounting can be shown.

Request for review, as a case

The Complaints & Appeals module tracks a PAC request for review on its own statutory clock, linked to the request it contests, with a representations track for the public body's answer, purpose-typed letters that stamp the clock, and named evidence sets that export Bates-stamped and hashed. The pack ships the request-for-review and binding-opinion workflows and correspondence templates with statutory wording.

Illinois FOIA questions

How long does an Illinois public body have to respond to a FOIA request?

Five business days after receipt, under 5 ILCS 140/3(d): the public body must promptly either comply with or deny the request within that time, unless it properly extends the period under subsection (e). Failure to comply, extend, or deny within five business days “shall be considered a denial of the request,” a public body that responds late may not charge for the copies it then provides, and it may not later treat the request as unduly burdensome.

When can the five business days be extended, and by how much?

By not more than five business days from the original due date, for one of the seven reasons in section 3(e): records stored at other locations; a request requiring collection of a substantial number of records; a categorical request needing an extensive search; records not found on routine search; records needing review by personnel competent to judge exemptions; inability to comply in time without unduly burdening operations; or the need to consult another public body or components of the same one. Within five business days of receipt the public body must tell the requester the reasons for the extension and the date by which the response will be forthcoming (section 3(f)). The requester and the public body may also agree in writing to a longer period.

What are the commercial, recurrent, and voluminous request tracks?

Section 3(i) takes three kinds of request off the ordinary clock. A request for a commercial purpose is answered within 21 working days with a time and fee estimate, a denial, an unduly-burdensome notice, or the records (section 3.1). A recurrent requester — 50 or more requests to the same public body in 12 months, 15 in 30 days, or 7 in 7 days, with news media and non-profit, academic, and scientific requests excluded — gets a notice within five business days and an initial response within 21 business days (sections 2(g) and 3.2). A voluminous request — more than five individual requests for more than five categories of records in 20 business days, or more than 500 pages to compile — triggers a five-business-day notice, a ten-business-day window for the requester to narrow it, and a response five business days after that, extendable by ten (sections 2(h) and 3.6).

What must an Illinois FOIA denial contain?

Under section 9, a written notice of the decision to deny; the reasons, including a detailed factual basis for any exemption claimed; the names and titles or positions of each person responsible for the denial; notice of the right to review by the Public Access Counselor with the PAC's address and phone number; and notice of the right to judicial review under section 11. Where a section 7 exemption is claimed, the notice must specify the exemption and give a citation to supporting legal authority. Copies of every denial must be kept in a single central office file, open to the public and indexed by exemption and record type.

How does Public Access Counselor review work?

A requester may file a written, signed request for review with the Public Access Counselor in the Attorney General's office within 60 days of the final denial, attaching the request and the public body's responses (section 9.5(a)). If the PAC proceeds, it forwards the request to the public body within 7 business days and specifies the records to be furnished; the public body has 7 business days to provide them and may answer the allegations in the same period. Unless the PAC extends the time by up to 30 business days or resolves the matter another way, such as mediation, the Attorney General issues a binding opinion within 60 days of receipt. A binding opinion binds the requester and the public body, subject to administrative review in the circuit court under section 11.5, and a public body that discloses in accordance with an opinion is immune from liability.

What penalties does Illinois FOIA carry?

If a requester prevails in court, section 11(i) requires an award of reasonable attorney's fees and costs. If the court finds the public body willfully and intentionally failed to comply with the Act, or otherwise acted in bad faith, section 11(j) requires a civil penalty of not less than $2,500 nor more than $5,000 for each occurrence, weighing the public body's budget and any prior penalties, and the court may add up to $1,000 for each day a violation continues once the public body has failed to comply with the court's order for 30 days, the order is not on appeal or stayed, and no additional time has been granted.

Sources

5 ILCS 140/1 — Policy and 140/1.2 — Presumption, Illinois General Assembly (accessed September 4, 2026)
5 ILCS 140/2 — Definitions (public body, public records, private information, commercial purpose, recurrent requester, voluminous request; as amended by P.A. 104-438, effective January 1, 2026)
5 ILCS 140/3 — Response, extension, unduly burdensome requests, person verification (as amended by P.A. 104-438, effective January 1, 2026)
5 ILCS 140/3.1 — Requests for commercial purposes, 140/3.2 — Recurrent requesters, and 140/3.6 — Voluminous requests
5 ILCS 140/3.5 — Freedom of Information officers and training and 140/4 — Information to be displayed
5 ILCS 140/6 — Authority to charge fees
5 ILCS 140/7 — Exemptions (text from P.A. 104-438, effective January 1, 2026) and 140/9 — Notice of denial
5 ILCS 140/9.5 — Public Access Counselor; opinions (as amended by P.A. 104-438, effective January 1, 2026)
5 ILCS 140/11 — Judicial review, attorney's fees, and civil penalties
Public Access Counselor, Office of the Illinois Attorney General (responsibilities, decisions, annual reports, and the PAC training portal; accessed September 4, 2026)
FOIA Requests, Office of the Illinois Attorney General (the office's own section 4 posting and fee statement; accessed September 4, 2026)

Last reviewed: September 2026. This guide is general information for records practitioners, not legal advice — rely on the official text of 5 ILCS 140, the Public Access Counselor's guidance, and your public body's counsel.