Chicago Fair Notice Ordinance: Notice Tiers, Delivery, and Exemptions

Under the Chicago Fair Notice Ordinance, your landlord must give you 30, 60, or 120 days of written notice before raising your rent, ending your tenancy, or refusing to renew your lease. The exact number depends on how long you’ve lived in the unit. The Chicago City Council added this tiered system to the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance in July 2020, replacing a flat 30-day rule that applied no matter how long a tenant had been there.¹

The Three Notice Tiers

Section 5-12-130(j) of the Chicago Municipal Code sets three deadlines based on continuous occupancy. They apply whether the landlord wants to end a periodic tenancy, decline to renew a fixed-term lease, or raise rent by any amount:²

Less than six months in the unit: at least 30 days of written notice.
Six months to three years: at least 60 days.
More than three years: at least 120 days.

There is no minimum dollar amount that triggers the rules. A $25 increase requires the same notice as a $500 increase, and the timelines apply equally to written annual leases and month-to-month arrangements.¹

How Your Tenancy Length Is Counted

Your tier depends on how long you’ve continuously occupied the same unit, not how many leases you’ve signed. If you moved in five years ago and have renewed a one-year lease every year, you’re in the 120-day tier, not the 60-day tier. Signing a new lease does not reset the clock, and neither does the building changing hands.

Switching between lease types also has no effect. Two years on a written lease followed by fourteen months month-to-month adds up to three years and two months of continuous tenancy, which puts you above the three-year threshold.¹ Hold on to something documenting your original move-in date.

What Happens If the Notice Is Late

This is where the ordinance has real force. If your landlord gives you less notice than required, you can stay in the unit for a set period measured from the date you actually received the notice, no matter what date the notice or the lease says you have to leave:²

If your tenancy is under three years, you may remain for up to 60 days from the date the written notice was delivered.
If your tenancy is over three years, you may remain for up to 120 days from that date.

Your rent during this holdover period stays at the rate you paid the month before the notice. Even if the notice announced a rent increase, the higher rate cannot start until the holdover period runs out.² One wrinkle: if the prior month’s rent was waived or discounted as a move-in promotion, the holdover rate defaults to the last full-price rent you paid.

An example makes the mechanics clearer. Say you’ve lived in your apartment for four years and your landlord hands you a non-renewal notice on March 1 with a move-out date of April 1. That’s 31 days when you were entitled to 120. You can stay for up to 120 days from March 1, which pushes your earliest required move-out into late June, and you keep paying your existing rent the entire time.

How the Notice Must Reach You

Only written notice counts. A phone call, a text, or a conversation in the hallway does not start the clock, however clear the landlord’s intent. The notice has to be a formal document stating the landlord’s intent to end the tenancy, decline to renew, or change the rent.

The two standard delivery methods are personal service (handing the notice to you or to someone of suitable age at your unit) and certified mail, which produces a delivery receipt. The countdown starts on the date you actually receive the notice, not the date it was mailed or signed.

The Ordinance Does Not Cap Rent Increases

The Fair Notice Ordinance gives you time, not price protection. Illinois state law prohibits any local government, Chicago included, from regulating rent amounts on private residential property.³ A landlord who follows the correct notice timeline can raise the rent by any amount. Your 120 days is time to budget, negotiate, or find another place. It is not a limit on the size of the increase.

Buildings Not Covered

The Fair Notice Ordinance runs through the RLTO, so units exempt from the RLTO are also exempt from these notice rules. The most common exemption is owner-occupied buildings with six or fewer units: if your landlord lives in the building and it has six units or fewer, the tiers above do not apply.⁴

Other exempt categories include hotels, motels, and rooming houses when the stay is under 32 days and the building is city-licensed; hospitals, convents, monasteries, extended care facilities, shelters, and substance abuse treatment facilities; dormitories owned and operated by a college or university; employee quarters where the right to live there depends on continued employment at the property; and co-op units occupied by a tenant who is also a co-owner. In these settings, your lease controls how much notice you get.

Retaliation for Asserting These Rights

Staying in your unit during a holdover period triggered by a late notice is a protected activity. Section 5-12-150 of the Municipal Code bars landlords from retaliating against tenants who exercise a legal right, complain about code violations, request repairs, or join a tenants’ organization.⁵

Retaliation can look like an eviction filing, a rent hike, service cuts, or a refusal to renew. A tenant who proves retaliation can recover up to two months’ rent or twice the actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney fees. The ordinance also shifts the burden: if you engaged in a protected activity within one year before the landlord’s action, the landlord has to prove the action was not retaliatory.⁵

1
City of Chicago. Know Your Rights: Fair Notice Ordinance
2
American Legal Publishing. Chicago, IL Code 5-12-130 – Landlord Remedies
3
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 50 ILCS 825 – Rent Control Preemption Act
4
City of Chicago. Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance
5
American Legal Publishing. Chicago, IL Code 5-12-150 – Prohibition on Retaliatory Conduct by Landlord