Chicago building violations that are still listed open
Of the 126,899 building violations the City of Chicago recorded in 2016, 55.3% are still listed OPEN in its published file today. In every year from 2009 to 2023, more than half of that year's violations still are.
A buyer who pulls a Chicago property's record can find violations marked OPEN that were written many years ago. This page measures how ordinary that is: every violation in the city's file, by the year it was written and the bureau that wrote it. The status is the city's; the file does not say why a violation is still open, and neither can we.
of the 126,899 violations recorded in 2016 are still listed OPEN
violations listed OPEN in the file — 57.2% of all 2,030,308 since 01 Jan 2006
of the open violations were written before 25 Sep 2016, more than ten years before the newest record (757,143)
median time from violation to its recorded compliance date, for 2016 violations marked complied
Violations listed open, by the year they were recorded
Status as the city's file records it today: OPEN, COMPLIED or NO ENTRY. Median days to comply counts only violations marked COMPLIED with a status date on or after the violation date.
| Year recorded | Violations | Listed open | Share open | Complied | No entry | Median days to comply |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 186,189 | 126,787 | 68.1% | 59,329 | 73 | 371 |
| 2007 | 161,454 | 107,919 | 66.8% | 53,435 | 100 | 331 |
| 2008 | 104,428 | 39,316 | 37.6% | 63,591 | 1,521 | 377 |
| 2009 | 119,452 | 61,003 | 51.1% | 57,231 | 1,218 | 361 |
| 2010 | 109,148 | 59,359 | 54.4% | 49,305 | 484 | 330 |
| 2011 | 128,276 | 69,307 | 54.0% | 58,369 | 600 | 287 |
| 2012 | 108,856 | 57,514 | 52.8% | 50,867 | 475 | 316 |
| 2013 | 89,636 | 50,677 | 56.5% | 38,576 | 383 | 326 |
| 2014 | 115,878 | 63,936 | 55.2% | 51,735 | 207 | 428 |
| 2015 | 129,441 | 67,854 | 52.4% | 61,370 | 217 | 322 |
| 2016 | 126,899 | 70,216 | 55.3% | 56,407 | 276 | 344 |
| 2017 | 116,266 | 63,052 | 54.2% | 52,848 | 366 | 351 |
| 2018 | 106,676 | 57,118 | 53.5% | 49,276 | 282 | 338 |
| 2019 | 89,436 | 50,986 | 57.0% | 38,172 | 278 | 304 |
| 2020 | 42,847 | 25,593 | 59.7% | 17,175 | 79 | 308 |
| 2021 | 57,743 | 32,688 | 56.6% | 24,906 | 149 | 316 |
| 2022 | 54,017 | 29,822 | 55.2% | 24,009 | 186 | 288 |
| 2023 | 50,199 | 28,525 | 56.8% | 21,526 | 148 | 250 |
| 2024 | 49,533 | 31,648 | 63.9% | 17,798 | 87 | 253 |
| 2025 | 49,862 | 36,276 | 72.8% | 13,494 | 92 | 206 |
| 2026 (to 25 Sep 2026) | 34,072 | 30,784 | 90.3% | 3,287 | 1 | 65 |
Recent years are mostly open because they are recent. No share or median is printed from fewer than 100 violations.
Which bureau wrote them
The bureau recorded on each violation, in the file's department_bureau field. “Open, over ten years” counts open violations written before 25 Sep 2016.
| Bureau | Violations | Listed open | Share open | Open, over ten years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CONSERVATION | 1,335,096 | 780,758 | 58.5% | 524,215 |
| SPECIAL TASK FORCE | 148,327 | 80,839 | 54.5% | 47,381 |
| ELEVATOR | 136,043 | 37,989 | 27.9% | 13,775 |
| DEMOLITION | 119,476 | 106,903 | 89.5% | 80,485 |
| ELECTRICAL | 42,864 | 24,158 | 56.4% | 14,869 |
| BOILER | 40,441 | 9,148 | 22.6% | 5,007 |
| PLUMBING | 39,710 | 22,652 | 57.0% | 13,076 |
| NEW CONSTRUCTION | 39,134 | 28,591 | 73.1% | 14,337 |
| VENTILATION | 36,644 | 14,795 | 40.4% | 7,028 |
| REFRIGERATION | 32,075 | 18,417 | 57.4% | 15,322 |
| SPECIAL INSPECTION PROGRAM | 28,997 | 12,319 | 42.5% | 3,760 |
| SIGNS | 15,567 | 14,505 | 93.2% | 9,155 |
| IRON | 14,595 | 8,774 | 60.1% | 8,291 |
| WATER | 760 | 498 | 65.5% | 432 |
| CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT | 579 | 34 | 5.9% | 10 |
How this was computed, and what to do with it
- Every row of the City of Chicago's Building Violations file is loaded and reconciled against the city's own row count.
- Each violation is counted once, in the year of its violation date, under the status the file gives it today.
- Time to comply is the recorded status date minus the violation date, for violations marked COMPLIED. Rows whose status date is earlier than the violation date are left out of the median.
If a property you are buying has an open violation: look it up in the city's free Building Records search, note the date and the bureau, and ask the seller in writing whether it was corrected and whether the city was told. An old open violation is common, as the table shows; that makes it a question to ask, not something to assume away.
SELECT extract(year FROM violation_date)::int, count(*),
count(*) FILTER (WHERE upper(violation_status) = 'OPEN'),
count(*) FILTER (WHERE upper(violation_status) = 'COMPLIED'),
count(*) FILTER (WHERE upper(violation_status) = 'NO ENTRY'),
percentile_cont(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY violation_status_date - violation_date)
FILTER (WHERE upper(violation_status) = 'COMPLIED' AND violation_status_date >= violation_date),
count(*) FILTER (WHERE upper(violation_status) = 'COMPLIED' AND violation_status_date >= violation_date)
FROM property.building_violations
WHERE jurisdiction = 'IL-Chicago' AND violation_date IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 1Citation
CivicDelta, “Chicago building violations still listed open, by year written”, computed from City of Chicago Building Violations dataset 22u3-xenr, violations dated 01 Jan 2006 to 25 Sep 2026.
Retrieved from civicdelta.com/research/chicago-building-violations-still-open/. Figures are recomputed whenever the city's file is reloaded.
Dataset: Chicago building violations listed open, by year written and by bureau · temporal coverage 2006/2026 · spatial coverage Chicago, Illinois · last rebuilt 2026-09-28.
The one-sentence finding: Of the 126,899 building violations the City of Chicago recorded in 2016, 55.3% are still listed OPEN in its published file today.
Download the table: chicago-building-violations-open-by-year.csv.
Sources and capture dates| Dataset | Dataset ID | Captured |
|---|---|---|
| Building Violations | 22u3-xenr | 2026-09-28 |
City of Chicago open data, loaded in full through the city's Socrata API.
What this does not tell you
- “Listed open” is the file's status, not a finding that the problem is still there. The file does not say why a violation remains open. Some may be unresolved; some may have been dealt with in a way the status never recorded. We cannot tell which, and this page does not guess.
- It counts violations, not buildings. One inspection can write many violations at one address, so a few buildings can account for many rows.
- The file begins on 01 Jan 2006. Older violations are not in it, and the current year is partial.
- A violation is a city finding, not a court judgment, and it attaches to the address, whoever owned the property at the time.
- It is Chicago only. Suburban Cook County municipalities keep their own records.
The Permit History & Discrepancy report lists one property's permits and violations with their status and dates, and says what it could not match.
Questions people ask
Why does a Chicago property show building violations that are years old and still open?
Because that is common in the city's own file. Of the violations recorded in 2016, 55.3% are still listed OPEN; of all 1,160,380 open violations, 65.2% were written more than ten years before the newest record. The file does not say why a violation stays open, so ask the seller and check the city's Building Records search.
How long does it take to comply with a Chicago building violation?
For violations recorded in 2016 that were later marked complied, the median time from the violation date to the recorded compliance date was 344 days. The table above gives the median for every year.
Where can I look up violations for a Chicago address?
In the city's free Building Records search, or in the open data file at data.cityofchicago.org.
Can I reuse these figures?
Yes, with attribution. The table is free to download as chicago-building-violations-open-by-year.csv.