PuppnDogs, by the record

USDA-licensed dog breeders in Illinois

Illinois has 37 dog breeders and dealers with a federal license, 1.8% of the national total. This is what USDA inspectors found when they visited, from every inspection report published since 2014.

Source: USDA APHIS license list of Sep 15, 2026 and inspection reports to Sep 18, 2026.

37 active USDA dog licenses in Illinois: 35 breeders and 2 dealers

1,236dogs counted at each licensee's latest inspection

181inspections from 2023 to 2025

91.2%found no problems, against 88.7% nationally

#10of 26 states by licensed dog breeders

Illinois has the 10th most USDA-licensed dog breeders

1.8% of the 2,063 active USDA dog licenses in the US are in Illinois.

Active USDA dog licenses by state, top 10
#	State	Licenses	Dogs counted	Clean, 2023 to 2025
1	Missouri	680	46,635	96.3%
2	Indiana	379	17,172	93.8%
3	Ohio	247	21,357	75.2%
4	Iowa	152	11,055	86.5%
5	Oklahoma	82	4,265	91%
6	Kansas	77	5,921	89%
7	Wisconsin	77	4,747	63.8%
8	Arkansas	67	3,929	92.9%
9	Pennsylvania	52	4,482	82.8%
10	Illinois	37	1,236	91.2%

How often USDA inspections of Illinois breeders find a problem

Share of inspections with at least one citation. Visits where nobody was home are left out.

In 2014, 26.8% of inspections in Illinois found at least one problem. In 2025 it was 4.6%. From 2016 to 2022 inspectors could log a minor issue as a “teachable moment”, which isn't a citation, so part of the drop is a change in how problems were recorded. A falling rate can mean better kennels or lighter inspections. The records alone can't tell which.

Show as table

Year	Inspections	Found a problem
2014	43	26.8%
2015	38	17.1%
2016	68	10.8%
2017	37	22.2%
2018	65	4.6%
2019	84	7.3%
2020	38	13.5%
2021	88	13.8%
2022	68	9%
2023	53	9.4%
2024	63	12.7%
2025	65	4.6%
2026	36	2.8%

What USDA inspectors cite most often in Illinois

The rules behind Illinois's citations since 2014. Separately, inspectors arrived 14 times and found nobody available to let them in.

Rule	What it requires	Cited
2.40(b)(2)	Methods to prevent, control, diagnose and treat disease and injury	33
2.40(b)(3)	Daily observation of all animals to assess health and well-being	11
3.11(a)	Excreta and food waste removed from enclosures daily	8
3.11(b)(2)	Sanitization of enclosures and food and water receptacles	7
3.1(e)	Food and bedding storage	7
3.11(d)	Pest control	6
2.40(a)(1)	Attending veterinarian under formal arrangement, with a written program of care	6
2.75(a)(1)	Records of every dog acquired, held or disposed of	5

Why a Illinois breeder can be missing from these records

Breeders who sell face to face don't need a USDA license

USDA only licenses breeders with more than four breeding females who sell to pet stores, to brokers, or to buyers they never meet, which includes most online sales. A breeder who sells only to people who visit in person is exempt. So a breeder missing from these records may be unlicensed or simply exempt, and a clean USDA record covers only what an inspector saw on the day.

Sources for these figures

Active licenses: USDA APHIS, List of Active Licensees and Registrants, as of Sep 15, 2026. Public domain.
Inspections and citations: USDA APHIS inspection reports through Sep 18, 2026, collected by the Data Liberation Project. Dog counts, repeat citations and rule counts use its parsed files, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the figures on this page are shared under the same license.
A licensee counts as a dog breeder or dealer if it holds a Class A or B license and dogs were counted at any inspection since 2014.

USDA-licensed dog breeders in Illinois

Check a breeder's USDA license number

Breeders who sell face to face don't need a USDA license

Sources for these figures