Illinois: how to sign your advance directive

What Illinois asks

What you need to sign in Illinois

Instruments

A health care agency under 755 ILCS 45, Art. IV. The living will is a separate act, 755 ILCS 35, which is not in the captured corpus and is not described here

Form

Illustrative — §4-10(a): the statutory short form "is not intended to be exclusive", and a non-statutory agency may be used if it complies with §4-5

Execution

One witness, and never a notary. §4-5.1(a): "Every health care agency shall bear the signature of a witness to the signing of the agency." §4-10(a) says a nonstatutory agency "need not be witnessed" — the two provisions conflict and both are current. One witness satisfies both. Two witnesses, or a notary, is the property power's rule (§3-3) and the wrong instrument's form

May not witness

Anyone under 18. The principal's attending physician, advanced practice registered nurse, physician assistant, dentist, podiatric physician, optometrist or psychologist, or a relative of any of them; an owner, operator, or relative of an owner or operator of a facility where the principal is a patient or resident; a parent, sibling or descendant — or the spouse of one — of either the principal or any agent or successor agent, by blood, marriage or adoption; an agent or successor agent for health care (§4-5.1(a)). The operator bar reaches directors and executive officers of a corporate operator, not other employees such as non-owner chaplains, social workers or nurses (§4-5.1(b))

May not be your agent

The attending physician, or any other health care provider or health care professional (§4-5)

Copy rule

None for the writing. What the statute reaches instead is the display — §4-4.1, §4-7(a), §4-10(f)

Delivery

Records filing. §4-7(a): "A health care provider furnished with a copy of a health care agency shall make it a part of the patient's medical records." The research also records a written incapacity finding delivered to the agent and signed within 90 days; the section carrying it is not in the captured corpus

Who decides

A physician, against a defined standard — §4-10(d): "A physician may determine that the principal is unable to make health care decisions for himself or herself only if the principal lacks decisional capacity, as that term is defined in Section 10 of the Health Care Surrogate Act." The statutory form says the same to the signer: "The physician(s) taking care of me will determine when I lack this ability."

Trigger overridable

Yes. The statutory form's authorization block offers three choices, including one that makes the agency operative from signing — "Make decisions for me starting now and continuing after I am no longer able to make them for myself" (§4-10(b))

Registry

None

Age

18 — a health care agent is "an individual at least 18 years old" (§4-4(e-5)); no witness may be under 18 (§4-5.1(a))

Revocation

Destruction or defacement indicating intent; a revocation signed and dated by the principal or at the principal's direction, in hard copy or electronic format; an oral or other expression of intent in the presence of a witness 18 or older who signs and dates a confirming writing; and, for an electronic agency, deletion (§4-6(a)). A principal may also elect a 30-day delay of revocation, after which it takes effect (§4-6(a-5))

Oral instructions

The agency itself must be signed by the principal (§4-10(a)). Revocation may be oral — §4-6(a)(3)

Uninitialled box

The first box. The statutory form's block reads "I AUTHORIZE MY AGENT TO (please check any one box)", and then: "(If no box is checked, then the box above shall be implemented.)" The default is that the agent acts only when the principal cannot make decisions, as the treating physician determines — not from signing

Provider may not require

§4-9(c) — "Any person who requires or prevents execution of a health care agency as a condition of insuring or providing any type of health care services to the patient shall be civilly liable and guilty of a Class A misdemeanor." The statutory form states the notarisation position for the signer: "There is no need to have the form notarized."

Carried device

The display has force — the strongest carried-device language in the fifty-one, and it reaches the display rather than the wearing. See below

Citation

755 ILCS 45, Art. IV (§4-1 et seq.)

Read from the enacted statute, 2026-09-18.