Illinois pay transparency law: the job posting and salary range rules
Illinois has required pay scale and benefits in job postings since January 1, 2025, for employers with 15 or more employees. Three things make it distinctive: employees count toward the 15 whether or not they are in Illinois, postings must describe benefits rather than just pay, and an external posting starts a 14-day clock to tell your own employees about the promotion opportunity.
This page covers coverage, what a compliant posting contains, the remote work test, the 14-day notice, the five-year records duty, and the tiered penalties with their cure periods. Build a defensible range on the right.
Last updated July 2026 / General information, not legal advice
- P25
- $0
- P50 · Median
- $0
- P75
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Suggested posted range
Sample benchmarks derived from public wage data (U.S. BLS OES, May 2024). Early-access customers get live, methodology-documented benchmarks.
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Illinois pay transparency, in one table
| Obligation | Who it covers | What you must do | Exposure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay scale and benefits in postings | 15 or more employees, counted inside and outside Illinois | Include the wage or salary or a range, plus a position-specific description of benefits and other compensation. | $250 to $10,000 depending on tier |
| Disclosure on request | Same | If you recruit without a posting, give the pay scale and benefits to an applicant on request, before any offer or pay discussion. | Same tiers |
| 14-day promotion notice | Same, when an external posting is published | Announce all promotion opportunities to current employees within 14 calendar days of the external posting. | Same tiers |
| Records retention | Same | Keep pay scale and benefits, the job posting for each position, and wage records for at least five years. | Separate violation |
| Posting snapshots | Employers with 15+ employees | Preserve a visual representation of what each posting looked like when published, including ones a third party published. | Separate violation |
Sources: Illinois Equal Pay Act of 2003, 820 ILCS 112, as amended by HB 3129 (Public Act 103-0539), effective January 1, 2025; Illinois Department of Labor pay transparency FAQ and fact sheets; 56 Ill. Adm. Code Part 320. Summarized for planning, not as legal advice.
The 15 employees do not have to be in Illinois
Illinois is explicit on the point most employers get wrong: any employees of the employer, whether inside or outside Illinois, count toward the 15. Part-time employees count the same as full-time. There is no exclusion for apprenticeships, employers under a collective bargaining agreement, student workers or temporary workers.
No Illinois physical presence is required either. You do not need an office or an entity in the state. Coverage turns on whether the posting has an Illinois nexus, which is the remote-work test below.
Third parties are pulled in too. When you engage a recruiter, agent or posting service, the duty follows: you must supply the pay and benefit information, and the third party is liable for omitting it unless it can show you never gave it to them. Aggregators that scraped your listing without being engaged by you are generally outside it.
Compare
Washington counts headcount the same global way, but requires at least one Washington-based employee first. Illinois has no such gate: the posting's Illinois connection is the whole test. New York's threshold is four. Colorado's is one.
Pay scale and benefits, position-specific
01
Pay scale
The wage or salary, or a range, set by reference to your actual pay scale, a previously determined range, what others in equivalent positions actually earn, or your compensation model or budgeted amount. It also covers a general description of anticipated bonuses, stock options and other incentives you reasonably expect in good faith to offer.
02
Benefits
All benefits offered to a person hired into the position: health care, retirement, any benefits permitting paid time off including sick, parental and vacation, job-protected time off, and anything reportable for federal tax purposes. It must be specific to the position, not a generic company-wide blurb.
Not allowed
Open-ended pay, and pointing at the CBA
"$40,000 and up", "up to $60,000" and "depends on experience" all fail. There is no collective bargaining exception either: "see the CBA for wage and benefit information" does not comply. "$80,000 to $90,000 per year based on qualifications and experience" is fine.
Useful flexibility
You may hyperlink to the pay scale and benefits, provided the link goes directly to the information for that specific position. There is no job description requirement in the posting, unlike New York. And offers may deviate from the posted range and benefits, as long as what you posted was created and disclosed in good faith.
You are also not required to post a job at all. But if you recruit or interview without a posting, you must give the pay scale and benefits to an applicant on request, before any offer or any discussion of compensation.
Remote roles, with a foreseeability gloss
The two-prong test matches New York's: covered if the job will be physically performed at least in part in Illinois, or performed outside Illinois but reporting to a supervisor, office or work site in Illinois.
Illinois then adds something the other states do not. For a job that could be done anywhere, the duty attaches only if you had reason to know or could reasonably foresee, at the time you made the posting, that the work would be done at least in part in Illinois or would report into Illinois. The mere possibility that a remote hire happens to live in Illinois is not enough. Occasional visits do not create coverage, and occasional out-of-state travel does not remove it from an Illinois-based job.
The 14-day promotion notice, and what it is not
This requirement is widely misdescribed, so it is worth being precise about what it actually says.
The rule
Publish a specific job posting externally, and within 14 calendar days you must announce, post or otherwise make known all opportunities for promotion to all current employees.
Trigger
Only external postings trigger it, whether you or an engaged third party made them. An internal-only posting does not. There is no exception for confidential openings.
Method
No prescribed channel. Use whatever you normally use for work information: bulletin board, email, intranet. It should carry the same information the posting did, and you should keep a record that you sent it.
The myth
The Act does not require you to keep the external posting open for 14 days, or for any period. Plenty of summaries say otherwise. You can post externally and hire quickly; you just still owe your employees the announcement.
Five years of records, and tiered fines with cure periods
Recordkeeping
Keep, for at least five years, each employee's name, address and occupation, the wages paid, the pay scale and benefits for each position, and the job posting for each position. Employers with 15 or more employees must also preserve a visual representation of what each posting looked like when published, internal or external, including ones made by an agent or engaged third party, plus records of the promotion announcements.
That last duty falls on the employer, not the third party, which has a practical consequence: you need to retain both what you sent your recruiter and when, and what they actually published and when. The state's complaint form has a checkbox for failure to preserve these records, so it is enforced on its own, not just as evidence in another claim.
Penalties
The Illinois Department of Labor issues a written determination that identifies whether the posting is still active, which offense number it is, and whether there is a cure opportunity. Cure periods apply to active postings only: 14 days for a first offense, 7 days for a second, none for a third.
| Offense | Posting active | No longer active |
|---|---|---|
| First | Up to $500, after a 14-day cure period | Up to $250, no cure |
| Second | Up to $2,500, after a 7-day cure period | Up to $2,500, no cure |
| Third or more | Up to $10,000, no cure | Up to $10,000, no cure |
Two things to note. Once you have three or more violations, you incur automatic penalties with no cure period for active postings for five years, and any further violation in that window restarts the five years. And complaints must be filed within one year of the alleged violation, may be filed by anyone, and may be anonymous. Under a policy effective January 1, 2026, an anonymous pay transparency complaint may be treated as a report the department can investigate, though an anonymous report against a company not previously named goes on hold until a second one arrives.
Penalties are discretionary. The department weighs the size of the business, the gravity of the violation, the violation history and the number of employees affected. Retaliation is separately prohibited: you cannot refuse to interview, hire, promote or employ someone for exercising these rights.
How to build an Illinois posting you can defend
Step 01
Build the band from market data
Anchor the pay scale to wage percentiles for the occupation and market, and record the source and date. Good faith is a documentation standard.
Step 02
Write the benefits block per position
Health care, retirement, paid time off, job-protected leave, anything federally reportable. Build it into the template, but keep it accurate for the specific role.
Step 03
Fire the 14-day notice
Wire the internal announcement into the same workflow that publishes the external ad, so it cannot be forgotten. Keep the record that it went out.
Step 04
Screenshot and file it
Capture what the posting looked like when published, including the recruiter's version, and keep it five years. This is the duty nobody has a process for.
The pay scale is the part that needs real data behind it. The salary bands guide covers the structure, and job posting salary ranges covers turning a band into a number you can publish and defend five years later, which is exactly how long Illinois expects you to be able to produce it.
Illinois pay transparency questions
Does Illinois require salary ranges in job postings?
Yes, since January 1, 2025. Employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale and benefits in every specific job posting, internal or external. Pay scale means the wage or salary or a range, plus a general description of bonuses, stock options and other incentives you expect in good faith to offer.
How many employees do you need for Illinois pay transparency to apply?
Fifteen or more, counted whether they are inside or outside Illinois, with part-time counting the same as full-time. No Illinois physical presence is required, and there is no carve-out for union-covered, student, apprentice or temporary workers.
What is the Illinois 14-day promotion notice rule?
Publish a job posting externally, and within 14 calendar days you must make all promotion opportunities known to current employees. Only external postings trigger it. Importantly, the Act does not require you to keep the posting open for 14 days, which is a common misstatement.
Do Illinois job postings have to include benefits?
Yes, and they must be position-specific. Cover health care, retirement, benefits permitting paid time off including sick, parental and vacation leave, job-protected time off, and anything reportable for federal tax purposes. A generic company-wide benefits paragraph does not comply.
Does the Illinois pay transparency law apply to remote jobs?
It applies if the work will be performed at least partly in Illinois, or performed elsewhere while reporting to an Illinois supervisor, office or work site. For a work-from-anywhere role, it attaches only if you had reason to know or could reasonably foresee an Illinois connection when you posted.
How long must Illinois employers keep job postings?
At least five years. Keep the pay scale and benefits and the job posting for each position, and if you have 15 or more employees, a visual representation of what each posting looked like when published, including versions a recruiter published for you, plus records of your promotion announcements.
Keep going
Pay transparency software
The pillar: US and EU obligations, what defensible means, and the compliance math.
New York pay transparency law
The same two-prong remote test, a 4-employee threshold, and a separate NYC rule on top.
Colorado pay transparency law
One-employee coverage, five posting disclosures, and the post-selection notice.
Washington pay transparency law
The five business day cure period and per-applicant statutory damages.
Pay transparency laws by state
Every US state disclosure rule in one comparison table.
Pricing
Early-access pricing for teams doing this without a comp analyst.