Choosing a Chicago window contractor

One license governs window replacement work in Chicago, and it is not a state one. The City of Chicago issues a General Contractor License through its Department of Buildings under Municipal Code Chapter 4-36, and it is held by the business rather than by the person on the ladder. Illinois licenses no general contractors at all. The state's own list of regulated professions carries roofing contractors, architects, professional engineers, structural engineers and land surveyors, and no contractor, remodeler, home improvement or window installer license of any kind. So a page telling you to verify your contractor's Illinois license is sending you to check something that does not exist. What does exist is a free public city lookup that returns the license number, its class, its expiration date and the insurance expiration date in about a minute, plus a state statute that puts specific terms into your written contract. Both are below. Read at idfpr.illinois.gov and chicago.gov, 2026-08-11.

This is the hub for everything this site publishes about choosing and checking a window contractor in Chicago, and the two pages under it are linked below. How we source, and what we refuse to publish, is set out on our methodology page.

Two things worth saying before the first table. We do not screen contractors, and this page is not a screening service. Every check below is one you run yourself, on a public government system, in about 10 minutes. And we publish no ranking of Chicago window companies, because we cannot document one. What follows is the part that is actually checkable.

Check the license in three minutes

The city runs a public lookup of licensed trade contractors. It is free, it needs no account, and it is the single most useful link on this page.

• Active licenses only: webapps1.chicago.gov/licensedcontractors/general
• Active and inactive: webapps1.chicago.gov/licensedcontractors/generalAll . Use this one when a name does not come up on the first, because "not found" and "found but inactive" are very different answers.

Search the business name, not the name of the salesperson at your kitchen table. The license is issued to the business, including a sole proprietorship, and it runs for one year. Applications and renewals are processed for the city by Continental Testing Services.

A returned record carries all of this, and each field answers a different question:

Field in the record	What it tells you
License type, with the class in brackets	Which license this is, and the project-value band it covers. See the class table below
License number, beginning TGC	The number to write into your contract, so the license you checked is the entity you signed with
Business name, address, phone	Whether the firm quoting you is the firm holding the license, which is not always the same firm
License expiration date	Whether it is still in force on the day your job is scheduled, not just today
Insurance expiration date	The field most people skip. The city states that "A general contractor license is automatically inactivated if the associated insurance policy expires"
License Inactive flag	A plain yes or no. Inactive is not the same as never licensed, and it is worth asking about rather than assuming

Field names read from a live record returned by the city's lookup, 2026-08-11. The same read returned 11,560 active general contractor records, and the page footer read "Information shown is current as of Tuesday, August 11, 4:00 PM". The insurance sentence is quoted from the Department of Buildings General Contractor License page, read 2026-08-11.

What to check, where, and what it actually proves

Half the value here is knowing which lookups are a waste of your time. Two of the rows below exist to stop you searching a database that structurally cannot hold the answer.

What you want to confirm	Where it lives	What it proves, and what it does not
City of Chicago General Contractor License	Licensed Trade Contractors lookup, Department of Buildings	That the business holds a current city license of a stated class. It proves nothing about workmanship
Insurance in force	The insurance expiration date in the same record, then a certificate of insurance sent to you by the insurer or its agency	The lookup proves a policy was on file and when it lapses. Only the certificate names the coverage and the limits
An Illinois state contractor license	Nowhere. It does not exist	Nothing. IDFPR regulates roofers, architects, engineers, surveyors and home inspectors, and no general contractor or window installer
A Chicago Home Repair license	Chicago Data Portal business licenses dataset, license description "Home Repair"	That the firm holds the other city license. Note that it cannot pull building permits. See the section on the two licenses below
Lead renovation, repair and painting firm certification	EPA lead firm search	That the firm is certified in lead-safe work practices. EPA requires certification of anyone paid to disturb painted surfaces in pre-1978 homes (US EPA, Renovation, Repair and Painting Program, read 2026-08-12). Ask for it in writing as well
An architect or structural engineer on a job that needs drawings	IDFPR License Look-Up	That the individual holds a current Illinois license. This is the one job where IDFPR is the right place to look
A General Contractor License in the Chicago Data Portal	Do not look here	Nothing. We queried the business licenses dataset and it returns no General Contractor records, because that license is a Department of Buildings trade license and not a business license

All read 2026-08-11: the Department of Buildings General Contractor License page; the Licensed Trade Contractors lookup; the IDFPR list of regulated professions and its License Look-Up; the Chicago Data Portal business licenses dataset, queried directly; the EPA lead firm search, confirmed reachable.

License class is a size marker, not a quality marker

Chicago issues the General Contractor License in five classes. The class sets the total project value the firm may take on, whether it may do demolition, and the minimum insurance it must carry. It says nothing about craft, and reading Class A as "better" for a house is the most common mistake people make with this table.

Class	Maximum project value	Demolition allowed	Minimum insurance, per occurrence	CY2026 fee
A	Unlimited	Ordinary or complex	$5 million	$3,500
B	$20 million	Ordinary or complex	$3 million	$1,800
C	$10 million	Ordinary	$2 million	$1,300
D	$4 million	Ordinary	$2 million	$900
E	$500,000	None	$1 million	$300

City of Chicago, Department of Buildings, General Contractor License, read 2026-08-11. The page footnotes that the Class B, C and D insurance figures are "Effective January 1, 2026", and that "For Class C and D licenses issued prior to this date, the increased insurance requirement will be enforced when the policy on file expires".

Now read that against your job. A whole-house window replacement in a Chicago bungalow is nowhere near the Class E ceiling of $500,000, so every class on the table covers your work. A Class E firm is a small firm, not an unqualified one, and small residential specialists are exactly who does this work. What the class genuinely changes for you is the insurance floor behind the crew in your house, which runs from $1 million per occurrence at Class E up to $5 million at Class A. If the number matters to you, ask for the certificate and read the limit rather than inferring it from the class.

Insurance, and the numbers somebody actually sets

Two separate rulebooks put a floor under a window contractor's insurance, and neither of them is the contractor's own brochure.

The city's floor, by license class

The class table above. Beyond the amount, the Department of Buildings sets conditions worth repeating in the contract conversation: policies "must be issued by an insurer authorized to insure in Illinois with a rating of B+ or higher by A.M. Best Company", and the policy "must cover bodily injury, personal injury, property damage, and completed operations". Primary and excess or umbrella cover may be combined above $1 million.

Completed operations is the phrase to notice. It is the part of the policy that responds after the crew has gone home and the problem shows up in a wall. A policy that covers the day of the install and nothing after it is not the same product.

Quoted from the Department of Buildings General Contractor License page, read 2026-08-11.

The state's floor, under the Home Repair and Remodeling Act

Section 25 of 815 ILCS 513 requires "public liability and property damage insurance in the amount of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence of bodily injury and $50,000 per occurrence for property damage, unless the person has a net worth of not less than $1,000,000", plus "$10,000 per occurrence for home repair or remodeling not in conformance with applicable State, county, or municipal codes".

That last clause is unusual and useful: it is coverage specifically for work that does not meet code. Note also the net-worth escape hatch, which means a large firm can satisfy the section without carrying that policy at all. Neither number replaces the city's higher floor for a licensed general contractor.

Illinois Home Repair and Remodeling Act, 815 ILCS 513, Section 25, read at ilga.gov 2026-08-11.

One separate figure, from the other city license: a Chicago Home Repair license carries a $1,000 fee, a two-year term, and insurance of at least $300,000 per occurrence. Read at chicago.gov 2026-08-11. An older city fact sheet circulating in search results shows a different fee; we used the live page.

What Illinois law already puts in your contract

There is no state license, but there is a state statute, and it is more specific than most homeowners expect. The Home Repair and Remodeling Act, 815 ILCS 513, names windows directly: "'Home repair and remodeling' includes the construction, installation, replacement, or improvement of ... storm doors, windows, roofs". It covers residences of six or fewer units, excludes "maintenance, service, or repairs under $500", and does not apply to original construction.

Section	What it requires	Why it matters at the kitchen table
Section 15	Before starting work over $1,000, the contractor "shall furnish to the customer for signature a written contract or work order that states the total cost, including parts and materials listed with reasonable particularity"	"Reasonable particularity" is the phrase that turns "20 vinyl windows installed" into a list you can compare against another bid
Section 20	The "Home Repair: Know Your Consumer Rights" pamphlet must be given, and over $1,000 a signed Consumer Rights Acknowledgment Form is also required	A firm that has never heard of the pamphlet is telling you something about how it runs paperwork generally
Section 22	A buyer age 65 or older has 15 business days to cancel a contract signed at home with a solicitor who was not invited	Nobody has to decide during a doorstep visit. This is the single most useful sentence on the page for an older homeowner
Section 25	The insurance floor quoted above	A minimum, not a benchmark. The city's floor for a licensed general contractor is higher
Section 35	Enforced by the Illinois Attorney General or a State's Attorney. A violation is a violation of the Consumer Fraud Act	Where a complaint goes, since no licensing board exists to complain to

Illinois Home Repair and Remodeling Act, 815 ILCS 513, Sections 10, 15, 20, 22, 25 and 35, read at ilga.gov 2026-08-11.

The honest limitation: no agency issues anything under this Act, there is no registry, and you cannot look a contractor up against it. It is a set of terms to expect in your paperwork and a route for a complaint afterwards, not a credential. Anyone describing it as an Illinois license has misread it.

Lead paint, the question almost nobody asks

Chicago's housing stock is old, and taking a window out commonly disturbs the paint around the opening. Chicago layers its own filing on top of the federal rules.

• What triggers the federal rule. EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Program covers "anyone paid to perform work that disturbs painted surfaces in homes, childcare facilities and preschools built before 1978", and those firms "must be certified in lead-safe work practices". EPA's page does not specifically say window replacement is covered, so neither do we. Window work commonly disturbs paint, which makes this a question to ask the contractor rather than something to assume either way.
• The city says so on its own permit terms. "Work must comply with lead-safe work practices required by city, state, and federal laws. You may be required to file a separate Lead-based Paint Renovation, Repair, and Painting Form with the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) before beginning work involving lead-based paint."
• Chicago's environmental permitting page names the code sections. Contractors doing such work "must comply with certain requirements set forth in the Chicago Municipal Code, including Sections 11-4-2150 - 11-4-2190, and must provide certain notifications to CDPH". The filing is listed as Form LRRP.
• Abatement is a different thing from renovation. The Illinois Department of Public Health licenses "lead paint inspectors, lead risk assessors, lead abatement contractors, lead supervisors, and lead workers" under the Lead Poisoning Prevention Code. That is abatement, not routine window replacement, and IDPH's own resource list points out to the EPA for renovation, repair and painting.
• Firm certification is publicly searchable at the EPA lead firm search, confirmed reachable 2026-08-11.
• What we did not confirm. We did not read the EPA's authorized-state list in full, so we do not state here which body ultimately administers renovation certification in Illinois. Search the firm at the EPA link, ask the contractor for its certification number, and ask whether your job needs the CDPH form.

US EPA, Renovation, Repair and Painting Program, read 2026-08-12. Chicago Department of Buildings permit terms and Chicago environmental permitting overview, read at chicago.gov 2026-08-11. IDPH abatement licensure page read at dph.illinois.gov 2026-08-11.

Where the city's own rules disagree, stated plainly

This is the part a marketing page would smooth over, so here it is unsmoothed. Two official City of Chicago pages point in different directions for the most common window job of all.

Page	What it says	Where it leads
Department of Buildings, General Contractor License	A general contractor license is required for a "regulated activity", which includes work that "Is exempt from obtaining a building permit under Section 402 of the Chicago Construction Codes Administrative Provisions"	Reads as though even permit-free window work needs the General Contractor License
Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, Home Repair license	"A General Contractor license is required instead of a Home Repair license if the work requires a building permit"	Reads as though a Home Repair license is enough where no permit is required

Both were read at chicago.gov on 2026-08-11. For a permit-free in-kind window swap, the two readings do not agree, and we cannot resolve it: the text of Municipal Code Chapter 4-36 sits on a third-party code library that returned an HTTP 403 browser challenge to every attempt this session, so we have not read the ordinance. The Department of Buildings page carries its own disclaimer that where its page differs from the Municipal Code, "the ordinance or rule controls".

What to do with an unresolved rule. A firm holding the General Contractor License satisfies both readings, and the city states that such a firm "must comply with the consumer protection requirements applicable to licensed home repair companies when performing residential work but is not required to obtain a separate home repair license". So asking for the General Contractor License number takes the ambiguity off your table entirely. If a firm holds only the Home Repair license, that may well be lawful for permit-free work, and it absolutely cannot file a permit if your job turns out to need one. Which it is depends on your scope, which is what the permit page is for.

Bonding: we found no requirement, and we will not invent one

"Licensed, bonded and insured" is standard advertising copy. Licensed and insured are both real and both checkable on the city's lookup. Bonded, we could not verify as a city requirement at all.

Neither the Department of Buildings General Contractor License page nor the Trade License Information Center states a surety bond requirement. The word "bond" appears once on the Department of Buildings page, inside a fee footnote about updating required insurance or bond information, and the public lookup labels the relevant column "Insurance Expiration Date". UNVERIFIED: whether Municipal Code 4-36-090 imposes a bond in any circumstance, because that code text could not be read this session. So: do not treat "bonded" as proof of a city credential, and if a firm advertises a bond, ask what it covers and who holds it. A bond that protects a lender is not a bond that protects you.

Read at chicago.gov 2026-08-11. The absence of a bond requirement is reported as unconfirmed, not as a fact.

Who does not need the license at all

The city publishes exemptions, and knowing them stops you from panicking about the wrong thing. The person carrying a sash up your stairs may hold no license personally, and that can be completely normal.

• Subcontractors and employees working under a licensed general contractor. This covers most installation crews. What matters is who your contract is with, and whether that entity holds the license.
• Suppliers of materials only. A firm that sells you windows and installs nothing is not doing the regulated activity.
• City-licensed specialty trades within their own scope, including board-up, drain layer, electrical, elevator, plumbing and mason contractors.
• Illinois-licensed architects, professional engineers, land surveyors and structural engineers within scope. This is where the IDFPR lookup finally earns its place.
• An owner-occupant doing the work at their own primary residence, where the building is three or fewer stories with six or fewer dwelling units and no nonresidential occupancy, claimable for one property per calendar year, excluding excavation and demolition. If you are doing it yourself, this is the exemption you are relying on.
• Government entities on their own property.

City of Chicago, Department of Buildings, General Contractor License, read 2026-08-11.

How to compare two bids without a price list

No agency publishes what window work costs, so a bid can only be judged against another bid for the same scope. Most bids are not for the same scope, which is why they look so different.

Ask every bidder to state these six things in writing, in the same order, on the same page:

• Unit type and operation, and whether the replacement is in-kind in the existing opening. That one word decides your permit answer.
• Frame material, named specifically, not as "premium" or "builder grade".
• Glass package and U-factor, which is the number that matters in a Chicago winter. See glass and U-factor.
• Who files the permit if one is required, and what happens to the price if it turns out none is.
• Interior and exterior trim, and the wrap, because this is the line most often missing from the cheaper bid.
• Disposal of the old units, and lead-safe handling where the house predates 1978.

For an outside anchor, one publisher's read of the Chicago market puts a standard vinyl double-hung at $650 to $1,200 per window installed and an energy-efficient vinyl unit at $700 to $1,250 per window. Source: Modernize, "Window Replacement Cost and Pricing in Illinois (2026)", Isabella Andersen, reviewed by Catie Bonner, updated March 18, 2026, read 2026-08-11. That is one publisher observing a market, not a price list, and it is the only Chicago cost source we found carrying a named author, a named reviewer and a date. The full picture, with every competing source shown rather than blended, is on the cost pillar, and the line-by-line version is on what is actually in a quote.

You may not need any of this

This site is paid a referral fee when a homeowner asks to be matched with a window contractor, which is set out in full on how we make money. So it is worth being direct about the cases where this page ends your research instead of extending it.

• If no permit is required, the permit-pulling question disappears. On an in-kind replacement in the existing openings of a residential building up to four stories, on a property that is not landmark property, Chicago's own published list says no building permit is required. The Home Repair versus General Contractor distinction, which is the thorniest thing on this page, only bites when a permit is in play. Start at the permits pillar before you worry about it.
• A small repair is not a whole-house job, and the statute treats it differently. The Home Repair and Remodeling Act excludes "maintenance, service, or repairs under $500" from its definition, so its contract requirements do not attach to a small job at all. If one sash has failed, price the repair before you price the house. That decision is worked through on repair or replace.
• If a salesperson arrived uninvited and you are 65 or older, you have 15 business days. Section 22 of the Act gives that buyer 15 business days to cancel a contract signed at home with an uninvited solicitor. Nobody has to sign during the visit, and nobody has to decide today.
• If your building is a landmark or sits in a landmark district, the hiring question changes shape. What you can install is constrained before who installs it matters. Read landmark buildings and districts first.

The two pages under this hub

Licensing and insurance, in detail

The long version of everything above: what the General Contractor License is and is not, the full class and insurance table with the January 1, 2026 change, how to read a certificate of insurance, what "completed operations" covers, what the Home Repair and Remodeling Act's insurance section actually requires, and the exemptions that explain why a licensed firm's crew members hold nothing personally.

What to ask before you sign, and the answers worth walking away from

The kitchen-table version. The questions that separate a firm quoting your job from a firm quoting a job, what a compliant Section 15 contract looks like when you read it, the pressure patterns that show up in doorstep window sales, and the specific answers that should end a conversation rather than start a negotiation.

What this site will not tell you

• Who is best. We cannot document a ranking, so we publish none, and no contractor is named or scored anywhere on this site.
• That anyone has been checked for you. We do not screen contractors. Every check described here is one you run yourself on a public government system.
• A Chicago resale-return percentage. A figure attributed to the Journal of Light Construction's Cost vs. Value report circulates widely for this market. Both sources that would confirm it returned 403 to us and were never read, so it is a secondary-source claim and it appears nowhere on this site.
• A Chicago labour rate. Nothing we read publishes one. We will not substitute a national figure and label it local.
• What Chapter 4-36 says. We quote the Department of Buildings' own pages because the ordinance text was unreachable, and we say so rather than paraphrasing a statute we have not read.

Sources

All read on 2026-08-11: Department of Buildings, General Contractor License; the Licensed Trade Contractors lookup and its active-and-inactive version; the Home Repair license page; the IDFPR list of regulated professions and the IDFPR License Look-Up; the Illinois Home Repair and Remodeling Act, 815 ILCS 513; the Department of Buildings permit terms for existing buildings; Chicago environmental permitting; IDPH lead abatement licensure; the EPA lead firm search; and the Chicago Data Portal business licenses dataset, queried directly to confirm what it does not contain. Cost band: Modernize, "Window Replacement Cost and Pricing in Illinois (2026)", Isabella Andersen, reviewed by Catie Bonner, updated March 18, 2026. Two former Business Affairs and Consumer Protection general contractor pages are dead links and are cited nowhere. No competitor page, contractor marketing page, directory or search summary informed any statement above.

If you want quotes to hold against these checks, the form below passes your details to an independent licensed window contractor working in your part of the city. What that relationship is, and is not, is set out on the about page.

Straight answers

Questions Chicago homeowners ask

Does my Chicago window contractor need an Illinois state license?

There is no such thing to hold. We read the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation list of regulated professions from A to W on 2026-08-11, and it carries no general contractor, contractor, construction, remodeler, carpenter or window installer license. The only construction trades on it are Roofing Contractor and Qualifying Party Roofing Contractor, plus Architect, Professional Engineer, Structural Engineer, Land Surveyor and Home Inspection. The license that does apply is the City of Chicago General Contractor License, issued by the Department of Buildings under Municipal Code Chapter 4-36. Any page telling you to check a state contractor license for a window job is describing a credential that does not exist in Illinois.

How do I check a Chicago contractor's license myself?

Use the city's Licensed Trade Contractors lookup at webapps1.chicago.gov/licensedcontractors/general, which lists active licenses, or the generalAll version, which also shows inactive ones. Search the business name, not the name of the person who came to your door. A record returns the license type with its class, a license number beginning TGC, the business name and address, the phone number, the license expiration date, the insurance expiration date, and a flag showing whether the license is inactive. Read live on 2026-08-11, the lookup held 11,560 active general contractor records and its footer read "Information shown is current as of Tuesday, August 11, 4:00 PM". Check both dates, not just the license one.

What license class should a window contractor have?

Class tells you the size of job a firm is licensed to take, not the quality of its work, and it is a common misreading. Chicago sets five classes by total project value: Class A unlimited, Class B up to $20 million, Class C up to $10 million, Class D up to $4 million and Class E up to $500,000. A whole-house Chicago window replacement sits far below the Class E ceiling, so every class covers your job and Class A is not "better" for it. What class does change is the minimum insurance the city requires, from $1 million per occurrence at Class E to $5 million at Class A. Read at chicago.gov, 2026-08-11.

What does Illinois law require to be in my window contract?

The Home Repair and Remodeling Act, 815 ILCS 513, names windows in its definition of covered work and applies to residences of six or fewer units. Section 15 requires that before starting work over $1,000 the contractor "shall furnish to the customer for signature a written contract or work order that states the total cost, including parts and materials listed with reasonable particularity". Section 20 requires the "Home Repair: Know Your Consumer Rights" pamphlet, and a signed Consumer Rights Acknowledgment Form where the job is over $1,000. No agency issues anything under this Act and there is no registry to look up, so treat it as terms you should expect rather than a credential you can verify. Read at ilga.gov, 2026-08-11.

My house is older than 1978. What should I ask about lead?

Ask two things: whether the firm is certified for lead renovation, repair and painting work, and whether your job needs a filing with the Chicago Department of Public Health. Chicago's own permit terms state that "Work must comply with lead-safe work practices required by city, state, and federal laws. You may be required to file a separate Lead-based Paint Renovation, Repair, and Painting Form with the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) before beginning work involving lead-based paint." The city's environmental permitting page ties the same work to Municipal Code Sections 11-4-2150 to 11-4-2190 and names the filing as Form LRRP. Firm certification is searchable at the EPA lead firm search. The federal rule covers "anyone paid to perform work that disturbs painted surfaces in homes, childcare facilities and preschools built before 1978", and those firms "must be certified in lead-safe work practices" (US EPA, Renovation, Repair and Painting Program, read 2026-08-12). EPA does not specifically say window replacement is covered, so we will not tell you it is. Window work commonly disturbs paint and Chicago has a great deal of pre-1978 housing, so ask the contractor whether they are certified.

Is a Home Repair license the same thing as a General Contractor license?

No, and the difference decides who can file your permit. The Home Repair license is a separate business license issued by the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, and the city states plainly that "Home Repair licensees may not pull building permits" and that "A General Contractor license is required instead of a Home Repair license if the work requires a building permit." The reverse also holds: "A home repair license is not required for a business that holds a General Contractor license." If your job needs a permit, the firm you sign with needs the General Contractor License. Read at chicago.gov, 2026-08-11.

Will you tell me which Chicago window company is best?

No. We cannot document a ranking, so we do not publish one, and no contractor is named or scored anywhere on this site. We also do not screen anyone, and this page is not a screening service: the checks it describes are yours to run and they take about 10 minutes. What we do is publish what is checkable and where to check it, and if you ask, we pass your details to an independent licensed window contractor working in your part of the city. We are paid a referral fee by that contractor, and it never increases what you pay.