House demolition cost in Chicago, IL: what 1,274 permits declare
The median declared cost of house demolition on Chicago building permits filed 2024–2026 is $21,775. Half of all permits fall between $17,750 and $35,350. The national sourced whole-project range on our house demolition cost guide is $3,000–$51,000.
Median declared cost
$21,775
1,274 permits
Middle half
$17,750–$35,350
p25–p75
Full span after trimming
$1,001–$250,000
$500 floor, top 1% removed
How to read this
These figures are the project values applicants declared to the Chicago permitting office, which uses them to calculate permit fees. Declared values tend to sit below the final invoice, and jobs done without a permit are not counted at all. Read the median as a floor for a permitted house demolition job in Chicago, then check it against the sourced national range and get local quotes.
Where the data comes from
Source: Chicago open-data portal, dataset ydr8-5enu. Filter: residential permits issued 2024-09-09 to 2026-09-09 whose description matchespermit_type='PERMIT - WRECKING/DEMOLITION'. Compiled 2026-09-09. Full method on the methodology page; every cell is in the CSV download.