Illinois runs individual licenses and firm licenses on the same 3-year cycle length, but different expiration months and a different anchor-year picture — and its CPE rule bundles in a training requirement that's easy to miss because it isn't labeled "ethics." Here's exactly how each piece works, sourced to Illinois's own administrative code.
Illinois individual CPA licenses run on a 3-year cycle expiring September 30 (68 Ill. Admin. Code 1420.80(a)). The currently confirmed cycle ends September 30, 2027. Confirm your own next Illinois CPA renewal deadline here.
Firm licenses are governed by the same rule section, just a different subsection (68 Ill. Admin. Code 1420.80(b)): a 3-year cycle expiring November 30. What the rule text doesn't pin down is a specific anchor year for the firm track the way it does for individual licenses. A 2021 IDFPR variance did extend that cycle's firm-license expiration from November 30, 2021 to January 31, 2022 — but that's a one-time administrative order, not codified rule text, so we're not projecting a current cycle from it. If you hold a firm license, confirm your exact renewal date with IDFPR or on your permit itself rather than assuming it lines up with any individual license at the same firm.
Illinois requires 120 CPE hours per 3-year renewal period, including at least 4 hours of professional ethics (68 Ill. Admin. Code § 1420.70(a)(1)). Unlike states that check a chunk of your CPE every single year regardless of license-cycle length, Illinois's rule states no separate annual minimum — the 120-hour count is measured against the 3-year period as a whole.
Illinois also requires a 1-hour sexual harassment prevention training — but the rule keeps this as its own distinct category, separate from the 4-hour ethics requirement. It's easy to read "4 hours of ethics" as the whole compliance picture and miss this second, smaller, differently-labeled requirement entirely. Both are real, both are required, and they don't count toward each other.
Bottom line: if you're an Illinois CPA, track two things separately — your license's 3-year cycle (individual ending September 30, firm ending November 30 with no assumed anchor year), and your 120-hour/3-year CPE count, remembering the 1-hour harassment-prevention training is a second, separate line item from your 4 ethics hours. Set a reminder for your Illinois deadline here so none of these get missed.