Do job postings need a salary range in Illinois? (2026)
Yes. Since January 1, 2025, an employer with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale and benefits in any specific job posting. A hyperlink to a publicly viewable page carrying both satisfies the requirement. Illinois does not require you to post a job at all, but once you do, the information has to be there.
Who it applies to
Employers with 15 or more employees. The duty attaches to postings for positions that will be physically performed at least in part in Illinois, and to positions performed outside Illinois where the employee reports to a supervisor, office, or other work site in Illinois. It applies only to postings made after January 1, 2025. (820 ILCS 112/10(b-25))
What has to be in the posting
The pay scale and benefits. Illinois is deliberately flexible about how. A hyperlink to a publicly viewable webpage that includes the pay scale and benefits satisfies the requirement outright. For benefits specifically, the statute goes further: a relevant and up-to-date general benefits description kept in an easily accessible, central, public location on the employer's website, referred to in the posting, is deemed to satisfy the benefits requirement. That is a lighter operational burden than Colorado's, where the link is allowed but must be job-specific rather than a shared page.
There is also an internal-notice duty that sits alongside the posting rule: opportunities for promotion must be announced to current employees no later than 14 calendar days after the employer makes an external posting for the position. (820 ILCS 112/10(b-25))
When the job board is liable instead of you
This is where Illinois allocates responsibility differently from the other rules on this site. Elsewhere the duty stays with the employer for postings it authorized, and New York City separately covers employment agencies in their own right. Illinois instead reaches the party that publishes the posting. If an employer engages a third party to announce, post, publish, or otherwise make a job posting known, the employer must provide the pay scale and benefits, or a hyperlink to them, to that third party. The third party must then include it. The statute then places liability on the third party for failing to include it, unless the third party can show that the employer did not provide the information.
The practical consequence is a documentation question rather than a posting question. In Illinois the answer to "who is responsible for this posting" depends on what you handed the third party and whether you can demonstrate it. Compare Colorado, where a site that merely publishes another employer's job is not covered at all and the duty stays with the employer. (820 ILCS 112/10(b-25))
What happens if a posting is missing the pay scale
The Illinois Department of Labor may investigate on a complaint, which must be submitted within one year of the violation, or at its own discretion. If it finds a violation it issues a notice setting out the violation, the penalty, and the cure period. Duplicates do not multiply the exposure: a posting found in violation counts as one violating posting regardless of how many duplicative postings list the same opening.
The ladder then depends on whether the posting is still live when the notice issues. For a posting still active: a first offense carries a 14-day cure period and a fine of up to $500; a second carries a 7-day cure period and up to $2,500; a third or subsequent offense has no cure period and up to $10,000, and once an employer reaches a third offense it faces automatic penalties without a cure period for five years, with the clock restarting on any further notice. For a posting no longer active when notice issues, the ceilings are $250, then $2,500, then $10,000, with no cure periods attached. Every one of these fines is discretionary and the Department may waive it. (820 ILCS 112/30(c-5) to (c-15))
How this shows up across job boards
Two Illinois-specific traps. The first is the link allowance: it is genuinely permitted, but a link only complies while it resolves and while the page behind it is current, so a benefits page that moves or a careers URL that changes turns a compliant posting into a non-compliant one without anyone touching the posting. The second is the active-versus-inactive distinction. A filled role whose posting is still reachable is still a live posting, and the higher penalty tier is the one that applies to postings that are active when the Department looks. Stale postings that nobody took down are exactly the population this rule prices highest.
Sources: 820 ILCS 112/10 (Illinois Equal Pay Act, subsection (b-25)) · 820 ILCS 112/30 (violations, fines and penalties) · P.A. 103-539, effective January 1, 2025
Last verified: September 10, 2026. Written by Kate Rose, Relio.