Every fee read off the clerk's own schedule and dated Updated July 2026

What an eviction actually costs

The filing fee is the number everyone quotes. It is usually less than half the bill. Pick your county and this adds the sheriff's service charge and the cost of executing the order — using only figures we have read off a published schedule.

Leave attorney fees at zero if you are filing on your own. Typical Illinois eviction representation runs several hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on whether the case is contested — but we do not publish a figure for it, because it is not a published fee.

Reading the result honestly

Three things are worth understanding before you use this number for anything.

The sheriff is a separate bill from the court. The clerk's filing fee and the sheriff's service fee are set by different offices under different authority. Across the Illinois counties we have verified, filing fees vary by about 27% outside Cook County — but sheriff service fees vary by a factor of three, and eviction enforcement by a factor of five. The sheriff line is where county-to-county surprise lives.

Enforcement is billed differently in different counties. Some charge a flat fee to execute the order. Others bill an hourly standby rate, which means a difficult eviction costs more than an easy one and you cannot know in advance. Where we know the billing structure, the county page says so.

A judgment is not the same as being paid. Getting possession back and collecting unpaid rent are separate problems, and the second one is usually the harder one.

Common questions

What does this calculator include?
The court filing fee for your county, any county-specific add-on we have verified (such as a mediation fee), the sheriff's charge to serve each defendant, and the sheriff's charge to actually execute the eviction order. Attorney fees are your own input.
What does it deliberately leave out?
Lost rent, property damage, storage of the tenant's belongings, turnover and re-listing costs, and your own time. Those dominate the real cost of an eviction but none of them are published fees, so we do not pretend to know them.
Why does it sometimes say "at least" instead of a total?
Because a missing figure is not a zero. If your county does not publish a sheriff service fee, we will not quietly add $0 and hand you a total that is too low. We show the line, flag it, and label the sum as a floor. A landlord who budgets from a silently-zeroed total gets an unpleasant surprise at the courthouse.
How current are these numbers?
Each county page shows the date we last read its source document and links to that document. Illinois fee schedules changed in waves in October 2025 and again in April through July 2026, so re-check before you file. Read the methodology.
Founder & Editor, County Court Fees

David Scott compiles court filing fees directly from Circuit Clerk and Sheriff fee schedules, records the source document and the date each figure was checked, and re-verifies every county on a fixed schedule. See how the data is sourced, or read the editorial policy.

Not legal advice. This page reports published fee amounts. It cannot tell you whether to file or what to do in your situation — for that, talk to a lawyer or your local legal aid office.