Guides · July 31, 2026•8 min read

How to Homeschool in Illinois: What You Owe, and What You Do Not

Illinois asks nothing of a homeschooling family. No registration, no notice, no testing, no records to submit, and no qualification to teach. It goes further than that: the state board is barred by statute from registering home-based schools, so you could not sign up even if you wanted to. Which makes the most common mistake here an unusual one. Families in Illinois get into trouble by filing things.

One route, and no register to join

Illinois never wrote a homeschool statute. Home schools are private schools under 105 ILCS 5/26-1, following People v. Levisen, decided in 1950, which held that a private school is a place where instruction is imparted to the young and that the number of people being taught does not determine whether a place is a school. A later case reaffirmed it in 1974. Your kitchen table is a private school, and that is the whole legal basis.

The unusual part is what follows. The state board of education is statutorily prohibited from registering or recognizing home-based schools. Not merely that registration is optional, but that no register exists for you to be on. Illinois is the only state in this series where the answer to how do I register is that nobody is allowed to let you.

The paperwork you may be offered, and what you actually owe

Because nothing is required, the forms that circulate in Illinois are all optional, local, or leftovers from a bill that failed. Each row below is something families are genuinely handed.

The 2025 Homeschool Act did not become law

This deserves stating plainly, because it received more attention than any homeschool bill in the state’s history and a great deal of writing about Illinois has not caught up.

House Bill 2827 would have required registration through a homeschool declaration form, attached truancy penalties for families who did not file, and allowed a truant officer to demand production of a portfolio. It cleared a House committee in March 2025 against record public opposition: the original bill drew 42,393 opposing witness slips, and one amendment drew 51,328, more than any bill since the legislature began using the witness slip system.

It was never called for a floor vote, never reached the Senate, and died when the session adjourned in June 2025. It stayed dead through the veto session that October. Current law is unchanged, and you do not have to register.

Homeschool advocates expect something similar to be reintroduced, which makes Illinois the state in this series most worth watching. But watching is a different activity from complying with a bill that never passed, and a surprising number of families have started doing the second.

What you must teach, and the one word that matters

The statute asks for instruction in the branches of education taught to children of corresponding age and grade in the public schools, and it asks that the instruction be in the English language.

The board lists those branches as language arts, biological and physical science, mathematics, social sciences, fine arts, and physical development and health. That is a broader list than Texas asks for and a far narrower one than New York, and nobody checks it.

The English requirement is worth noticing because it is written down. Most states either say nothing about the language of instruction or gesture at it through history. Illinois puts it in the statute, which makes it one of the few places where it is a rule rather than an assumption. There is no minimum number of days or hours anywhere.

No testing, nothing to submit, and why you keep records anyway

No standardized testing at any grade. No portfolio review, no evaluator, no annual assessment, and nothing that must be submitted to anyone.

Here is the catch, and it is the only real one in Illinois law. The enforcement mechanism is truancy, and in a truancy investigation the burden of proof sits with you. You would need to show that the instruction was at least commensurate with public school standards. Not to a scheduled reviewer, not on a form, but to whoever is asking, at a moment you did not choose.

That is the practical reason to keep records in a state that never asks for them, and it points at a particular kind of record: contemporaneous, ordinary, and boring. A digital homeschool planner records the day as it happens with the subject and the work attached, counts your instruction days, and assembles a transcript from the same entries when high school arrives. Free for 30 days, then $9 a month or $79 a year. Start free. Our guide to homeschool record keeping covers the paper version.

Leaving public school

There is no statutory withdrawal procedure, but order matters more here than in most states. Send a dated withdrawal letter to the principal before your child stops attending, and keep a copy.

The reason is mechanical rather than legal. Truancy is the only enforcement route Illinois has, and it is triggered by absence rather than by anything about your teaching. A child who simply stops turning up accumulates absences, and absences generate a referral to a truancy officer. One letter, sent first, removes the entire problem.

The $750 tax credit, and there is nothing else

Illinois has no education savings account, no voucher and no stipend. The Invest in Kids tax credit scholarship expired at the end of 2023 and was not renewed, and it never funded homeschooling in any case.

What does exist is the K-12 Education Expense Credit, a nonrefundable income tax credit worth 25 percent of qualified expenses above the first $250, capped at $750 per family. Homeschooling families qualify. Qualified expenses are tuition, book fees and lab fees, and the credit phases out above a federal adjusted gross income of $500,000 filing jointly, or $250,000 otherwise.

It is the cleanest money in this whole series. It adds no obligations, no reporting and no change of legal status. You claim it on your state return and nothing else happens. Compare that with the funding programs in other states, where the money usually arrives attached to something.

Sports, driver’s education and college courses

There is no right to public school sports. The state high school and elementary associations limit participation through their own bylaws, and public schools have no obligation to open extracurriculars to students who are not enrolled. Part time enrollment is allowed only in narrow situations, such as a course that carries a required extracurricular component.

Driver’s education is the exception, and it is widely unknown. Homeschooled students may take it through the public school under 105 ILCS 5/27-24.2. You inform the district and show that your child passed at least eight courses across the previous two semesters, with an annual deadline of 1 April. Small, but it is a genuine statutory right rather than a district favor.

Dual enrollment is not addressed by statute at all, so community colleges set their own policies. Ask the specific college rather than looking for a state rule, because there is not one.

High school, diplomas and the MAP grant

Your home-based private school issues its own diploma. Illinois does not accredit it and does not second guess it, which means recognition rests with individual colleges and employers rather than with the state. There are no state requirements on transcripts or credits.

Homeschool graduates are eligible for the Monetary Award Program grant, which is worth knowing because state aid is exactly where homeschool graduates hit walls in other states. The aid commission does not require high school grades or test scores to apply. Eligibility is need-based through the federal aid application or the state alternative application, and requires Illinois residency and enrollment at an approved Illinois college.

Since nothing is issued to you and nothing is validated, the transcript is entirely your document, and it is far easier to build from ninth grade than to reconstruct in twelfth.

If your child has an IEP

Withdrawing ends the full entitlement. Your child becomes a parentally placed private school child, eligible for proportionate share services and an individual services plan rather than a full IEP, and those services are discretionary rather than owed.

The district keeps its Child Find and consultation obligations, so evaluation remains available. And there is one narrow route worth knowing: a homeschooled child enrolled part time in a public school can receive IEP services to the extent they are actually in attendance.

The mistake that causes almost all the trouble

Filing something you did not owe, and not sending the one letter you did.

Returning a district assurance form or the voluntary state form does not make you more compliant, because there was nothing to comply with. What it does is start a correspondence and create an expectation that the next form will come back too. Meanwhile the withdrawal letter, the only paper that actually prevents a problem, is the one families skip.

Illinois gives you more freedom than almost any state and asks you to be precise about exactly one thing, which is the same shape as Texas. New to all of this? Our guide to how to start homeschooling takes over from here.

Bills are reintroduced from session to session, and a similar registration bill is expected to return. Credit amounts, income limits and program rules also change. Confirm the current position with the Illinois State Board of Education, the Department of Revenue, or a homeschool legal organization before you act on it. This guide describes the shape of Illinois law as of July 2026, not the paperwork of any particular year.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to register to homeschool in Illinois? No, and you cannot. The state board is barred by statute from registering or recognizing home-based schools. A voluntary form exists, advocacy organizations generally advise against filing it, and filing it registers nothing.

Did the Illinois Homeschool Act pass? No. House Bill 2827 cleared a House committee in March 2025 against record opposition, was never called for a floor vote, never reached the Senate, and died when the session adjourned. Current law is unchanged.

Does Illinois require testing for homeschoolers? No. No standardized test, no portfolio review and no evaluator at any grade.

What subjects are required in Illinois? The branches of education taught in the public schools at the same age and grade, taught in English. The board lists them as language arts, biological and physical science, mathematics, social sciences, fine arts, and physical development and health. There is no minimum number of days or hours.

Can homeschoolers get money in Illinois? There is no education savings account or voucher. The K-12 Education Expense Credit is worth up to $750 per family and adds no obligations, and homeschool graduates are eligible for the state MAP grant for college.