Illinois has $5B to return to residents, businesses. How to find out if you’re owed
The Illinois state treasurer’s office returned almost $294 million in unclaimed property in 2025, but $5 billion statewide and millions in the metro-east have yet to be claimed.
I-CASH, the state’s program to return unclaimed money, paid 544,843 claims last year, spokesperson Eric Krol told the News-Democrat in a Jan. 20 email.
The total cash value of property returned to Illinois residents in 2025 was $293,829,561.94, with an average claim of $539.29.
As of Jan. 20, there were 254,482 unclaimed properties lingering, with a total cash value of $37,746,412.55 in the city of Belleville.
“We made common-sense changes to I-CASH to return more money to more folks, and we are proud to set records. But we’re even more proud of helping people. One of my biggest fights was to take on insurance companies to make sure life insurance benefits rightfully end up with the people and organizations they were left to,” Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs said in an emailed statement.
“It’s not just people we return money to, but businesses and organizations as well,” Frerichs continued. “We encourage business owners and nonprofit groups to check the I-CASH site to see if we have money waiting for them to claim.”
Some of the most common types of unclaimed property in Illinois include bank accounts, uncashed checks, securities and safe deposit boxes, Krol said.
How much unclaimed property is there in St. Clair County?
Across Illinois, more than 30 million properties are unclaimed, with a total value of more than $5 billion.
Here’s how three metro-east counties compared:
- St. Clair County: 601,270 unclaimed properties, with a total cash value of $83,051,034.03
- Madison County: 542,666 unclaimed properties, with a total cash value of $83,405,623.66
- Monroe County: 51,963 unclaimed properties, with a total cash value of $6,563,788.90
You can search online at the state treasurer’s office website to find out if you have unclaimed property. You can search for missing property held by other states at missingmoney.com.
On the Illinois unclaimed property search function, you can claim your property by typing in your name, selecting the property and clicking “claim” and “continue to file claim,” then following the steps given to complete the claim process. You may be asked to provide supporting documentation.
In some cases, residents do not have to file a claim to receive their property. I-CASH has an Enhanced Money Match program, which focuses on simple claims, or cash owed to one individual.
The state treasurer’s office uses existing government databases to return small claims to people through the Enhanced Money Match program. In 2025, the program’s focus was on returning claims of $50 or less.
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