Illinois Roofing License Requirements

The rule in detail

Local licensing and permits in Illinois

The state roofing licence is required everywhere in Illinois and is not displaced by local rules. Municipalities and counties still issue the building permits for re-roofing and many — Chicago among them — require separate local contractor registration, bonding or licensing on top of the IDFPR licence, so local requirements must be checked in addition to, not instead of, the state licence.

Permitting is a separate system from licensing, and it is almost always local. In Illinois, as nearly everywhere in the United States, a full roof replacement is treated by the adopted building code as work requiring a permit and a final inspection, while small repairs are often exempt below a threshold the local code sets. The building department for the city or county where the house sits is the only body that can tell you which side of that line your job falls on.

If you are hiring a roofer in Illinois

• ●Check the credential at the source. Search the Illinois public register for the exact legal entity that will sign your contract — not the salesperson, and not the name painted on the truck.
• ●Ask for certificates of insurance directly from the insurer or agent. General liability and workers’ compensation both matter, and roofing carries some of the highest comp premiums of any trade — which is exactly why some operators go without. An injury on an uninsured crew can find its way to your policy.
• ●Confirm who is pulling the permit. It should be the contractor, in their own name. An invitation to pull it yourself as the homeowner moves the code liability onto you, and is often a sign the contractor cannot pull it.
• ●Get the scope in writing before any deposit changes hands. Tear-off versus overlay, decking replacement priced per sheet, underlayment and ice-and-water coverage, ventilation, flashing, and who hauls the debris. Most roofing disputes are scope disputes wearing a different hat.
• ●Be careful after a storm. Door-knocking crews follow hail. Before signing anything that assigns your insurance benefits or commits you to a contractor contingent on a claim being approved, read it twice and check the cancellation terms.

If you are a roofing contractor working in Illinois

Illinois holds a state-level requirement, so the first question is whether your work sits inside the classification described above and, where a dollar figure applies, whether the contract value crosses it. Thresholds are normally written against the total value of the contract or the project rather than an individual invoice, so splitting a job into pieces to stay underneath is the specific evasion those statutes exist to catch.

Two consequences of getting this wrong are worth knowing regardless of the state. Contracting without a required credential is commonly a misdemeanour offence, and in most states an unlicensed contractor cannot enforce the contract or file a mechanic’s lien — so an unpaid job simply stays unpaid, with no legal route to collect. Confirm your position with the board before you bid, not after.

Sources

This entry was checked against the following on August 2026. The authority on Illinois licensing is Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR), Division of Professional Regulation — Roofing Advisory Board, not this page — if anything below conflicts with what the board publishes today, the board is right.

• ●IDFPR — Roofing Contractor (licence page, forms, exam, Act and rules)
• ●225 ILCS 335 — Illinois Roofing Industry Licensing Act (full text, Illinois General Assembly)
• ●IDFPR Form RF — Roofing Contractor Licensure application (licence classes, bond forms BD-LRF/BD-URF, RF-INS insurance minimums, $125 fee)
• ●68 Ill. Adm. Code Part 1460 — Roofing Industry Licensing rules (JCAR)
• ●IDFPR — License Look-Up
• ●IDFPR — Check a License landing page

Next steps

Roofing licensing in every other state