Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: a dissolved Illinois corporation reinstates by filing Application for Reinstatement (Form BCA 12.45/13.6, Domestic Corporation) under 805 ILCS 5/12.45 (Business Corporation Act of 1983) for $200, with no statutory deadline to do it.
If you’d rather have the reinstatement filed for you
Bizee can prepare and file the Illinois reinstatement paperwork described above on your behalf. State filing fees and any back taxes owed are separate, and you pay those directly either way.
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The filing, and what Illinois calls it
A domestic corporation administratively dissolved under 805 ILCS 5/12.40 may be reinstated by filing Form BCA 12.45/13.6, Application for Reinstatement, in duplicate with the Illinois Secretary of State, filing all annual reports then due, and paying all fees, franchise taxes and penalties then due.
How long you have to reinstate
Illinois sets no deadline for reinstating a dissolved corporation. 805 ILCS 5/12.45 sets no outright time limit on filing for reinstatement itself. The Secretary of State will not let another entity reuse the dissolved corporation’s name until 3 years after dissolution (a related but distinct window), and SOS instructions bar electronic filing (paper only) once more than 6 years of annual reports are delinquent. That does not mean waiting is free; back fees and penalties keep accruing the whole time the entity sits dissolved. (805 ILCS 5/12.45)
What you must pay before it goes through
Illinois will not reinstate the corporation until every year it sat delinquent is paid for. $200 reinstatement filing fee plus all delinquent annual report fees and delinquent franchise taxes, penalties and interest. (805 ILCS 5/12.45)
Whether your name is still yours
Your original name is not guaranteed to still be yours. If the corporation’s former name is not available at the time of reinstatement, the application must set forth the new name by which the corporation will thereafter be known. Check Illinois’s business-name database before assuming the reinstatement filing will go through under the old name. (805 ILCS 5/12.45; Form BCA 12.45/13.6)
What the filing costs
Illinois’s Application for Reinstatement (Form BCA 12.45/13.6, Domestic Corporation) carries a $200 filing fee. $200 reinstatement filing fee, plus delinquent back annual-report fees, franchise taxes, penalties and interest (amount varies by years delinquent).
What this page does not answer
Reinstating the entity at the state level and squaring things up with the IRS are two separate processes. Late federal returns, penalty abatement requests, and reinstating a lapsed EIN’s associated accounts are governed by federal law, not by Illinois’s corporation statute, and this page does not source them. We have the state-filing answer at primary and the federal-cleanup answer not at all.
This page covers a for-profit business corporation. If you are reinstating an LLC in Illinois instead, the filing, fee and statute are different: see reinstating an LLC in Illinois.
Sources
Every citation on this page is statutory or the Secretary of State’s own official filing instructions. No formation service, no registered-agent marketing page and no aggregator is cited anywhere in this cluster as a source of law; those are the only publishers of the competing versions.
- Illinois General Assembly: official statute text, 805 ILCS 5/12.45: https://ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/080500050K12.45.htm
- Illinois Secretary of State: official Reinstatement Filing (Corporation) page: https://www.ilsos.gov/departments/business-services/reinstatement/corpreinstatement.html