Illinois Deer Season 2026-27: Dates, Permits & What to Know

Illinois' 2026-27 deer season opens Thursday, October 1, 2026, with archery, and the two firearm segments run November 20-22 and December 3-6, 2026. These dates come straight from the Illinois DNR's deer hunting pages, along with a permit-lottery calendar you need to know well before fall.

012026-27 Illinois Deer Season Dates

Archery closes during both firearm segments in firearm-season counties — the three-part archery window above reflects those closures. The four northeastern collar counties with no firearm season stay open to archery continuously.

02County and zone caveats

• Restricted Archery Zone: in Champaign, Douglas, Macon, and Piatt counties (except Allerton Park), only antlered deer may be taken October 1-31, regardless of the permits you hold.
• CWD counties have additional check-station and testing procedures during the firearm seasons — IDNR publishes a separate harvest-reporting insert for CWD counties.
• Late-winter and special CWD antlerless seasons are county-specific and announced by IDNR — check the agency's deer page for whether your county is in.

03Permits: know the lottery calendar

Illinois firearm and muzzleloader permits are allocated by county through three lotteries, and archery permits have their own sales windows:

• Lottery 1 (residents only): March 3 – April 30, 2026
• Lottery 2 (residents + nonresidents): May 11 – June 30, 2026
• Lottery 3 (everyone, no application limit): July 13 – August 21, 2026
• Over-the-counter sales of remaining firearm/muzzleloader permits start October 20, 2026 — in person only, first come, first served.

Resident archery combination permits are sold at license vendors from August 3 through the end of the season; nonresident archery combos go through a June online lottery, with remaining permits sold at vendors afterward. You'll also need an Illinois hunting license and habitat stamp. All harvests must be reported through IDNR's harvest reporting system by 10 p.m. on the day of kill.

04Check the official source

Verify dates, county quotas, and CWD rules with the Illinois DNR before you hunt: firearm and muzzleloader seasons and archery seasons. Dates above were pulled from those pages on July 1, 2026. If current IDNR regulations differ from anything here, IDNR is right.

05Plan the season, not just the opener

Illinois gives bowhunters the entire rut — both firearm seasons land after the November peak:

• Rut timing — our Illinois rut prediction for 2026 maps the seeking, chasing, and lockdown phases week by week so you can plan stand time when it matters most.
• Daily windows — the Illinois solunar calendar shows major and minor activity periods for any date, and today's best time to hunt in Illinois gives you the live read before you climb.
• Conditions — Trail Pro Intel's free Hunt Forecast combines weather, wind, pressure, and solunar timing into one hourly score, so you can separate a decent day from a great one at a glance.

The permits take planning; the season takes patience. Get the paperwork done by summer so November is about nothing but the wind and the deer.