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Illinois Criminal Records Online
Choose an Illinois online conviction inquiry or a county court search, understand CHIRP access and fees, and obtain the underlying disposition when needed.
Choose conviction information or a case file
Illinois State Police makes conviction information available to the public under the Uniform Conviction Information Act, or UCIA. CHIRP, the Criminal History Information Response Process, is ISP’s online name-based inquiry route. It does not offer the public an unrestricted record of every arrest or unresolved accusation. Choose it when an Illinois conviction-history inquiry is the required product.
If you need a pending prosecution, a sentencing order or a certified disposition, identify the circuit court and its clerk through the Illinois Courts directory. County court access and ISP repository searches are separate services. A CHIRP response is not the filed judgment, and a county case search does not claim statewide history coverage.
Prepare for CHIRP authentication
CHIRP’s enhanced-authentication page requires a State of Illinois Digital ID through Entrust and describes access for law enforcement or users with an ISP agreement. Begin with ISP’s Name Based Background Checks page and its registration guide, rather than expecting an anonymous guest search. Agency users must follow their organization’s ORI profile and approval process; do not register as a different type of requester simply to bypass an access problem.
Have the subject’s correct name and identifying details, including date of birth where requested, ready before a paid inquiry. Review spelling and possible same-name matches carefully. For a failed login, the troubleshooting guide distinguishes the Digital ID sign-in from the CHIRP account sign-in and warns that activation links expire after use. Start again from ISP’s official CHIRP entry rather than repeatedly opening a saved activation link.
Budget for the exact inquiry
The current ISP fee schedule lists a UCIA name-based inquiry at $10 electronically or $16 on a paper form. A UCIA fingerprint inquiry is listed separately at $15 electronically or $20 on a fingerprint card. These are ISP processing charges, not a promise that a fingerprint vendor’s collection charge is included. Do not substitute a public UCIA inquiry for a screening program that requires its own authorized state or FBI submission.
The schedule also contains fee-applicant prices effective October 1, 2026. Those lines belong to different submission products and should not be confused with the UCIA name-search price. Court-copy and certification charges are set through the relevant court service. Before ordering, tell the circuit clerk which document and copy type you need so that a search fee is not mistaken for the entire cost of obtaining proof.
Save the response and verify what it establishes
The official CHIRP user guide says UCIA responses remain available for 30 days from the result date. View, print or save the completed response before that period expires; resubmitting after expiration incurs the normal processing fee. Monitor the inquiry’s status in CHIRP. The service pages reviewed do not promise a universal instant result or a fixed processing deadline for every submission.
Check the returned identifiers against the intended person before drawing conclusions. A conviction-only response with no match does not establish that there was never an arrest or that no pending case exists. If the result is ambiguous, preserve that uncertainty and obtain the appropriate court record or fingerprint-based personal review instead of selecting a convenient name match.
Turn a court search into the document you need
Choose the county in the official court directory, then use its circuit clerk’s records or case-search service. Record the case number, defendant, court and filing date. Ask for the specific disposition, sentencing order or docket entry that answers the question. Explain whether an ordinary copy is enough or whether the recipient requires certification, and confirm the clerk’s delivery options, price and any restricted-file requirements.
Online access varies by county and by the record’s status. A summary, an unavailable image and a certified court document are different things. If an expected record is absent online, contact that clerk with the known file details before concluding that it does not exist. A portal outage or a sealed record is not a clean-history finding.
Use Access and Review to challenge your own history
ISP’s Access and Review process starts with fingerprints and identifying information taken by an Illinois law-enforcement or correctional facility, or a licensed fingerprint vendor. The provider forwards the submission to ISP. ISP charges no processing fee for Access and Review or Record Challenge, although the fingerprint provider may charge for its service.
ISP sends a transcript with a Record Challenge form, or a no-history statement, to the supplied address or designated facility. If sent to a facility, collect it when notified; the facility destroys an uncollected response after 45 days. Use the challenge form to identify the disputed entry and supporting court evidence. ISP provides a written response explaining a correction or its decision that no change is warranted.