Free tool Illinois · 5 ILCS 140
Illinois FOIA response
deadline calculator
Illinois gives public bodies 5 business days to respond to a FOIA request — one of the tightest clocks in the country. Enter the date a request was received and get your deadlines instantly.
How the Illinois FOIA clock works
Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (5 ILCS 140/3), a public body must respond to a request within 5 business days after receipt. The day the request is received does not count; counting starts on the next business day.
- The public body may extend the deadline by 5 additional business days with written notice to the requester stating the statutory reason (5 ILCS 140/3(e)).
- Requests for commercial purposes carry a 21-working-day response period (5 ILCS 140/3.1).
- "Business day" excludes weekends and official state holidays.
- Failure to respond on time is treated as a denial — and opens the door to Public Access Counselor review or litigation.
Why deadlines slip
Most agencies track FOIA deadlines in shared inboxes and spreadsheets. One clerk out sick, one email buried, and a statutory deadline passes silently. FOIA Agent gives every request its own deadline clock with escalating alerts — so nothing goes overdue without a human seeing it coming.
Stop counting business days by hand.
FOIA Agent tracks every request's statutory clock automatically — configured for Illinois FOIA, including extensions, commercial requests, and tolling.
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