Written by Acorn Sales Company, manufacturing stamps and seals since 1964 · Reviewed by Holly R, VP of Sales and Marketing at Acorn Sales, against Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Real Estate on 22 September 2026 · Updated 22 September 2026
The word seal appears exactly once in the Illinois appraiser statute, and it is the Department’s seal, not yours. 225 ILCS 458/15-35 describes an order of revocation or suspension “bearing the seal of the Department and purporting to be signed by the Secretary”. That is the state authenticating its own paperwork. Nothing in the Real Estate Appraiser Licensing Act of 2002, and nothing found in the business-practice rules under it, requires an Illinois appraiser to seal or stamp a report, or prescribes anything that a seal would have to say.
Illinois governs reports through the signature instead, and it governs that quite closely: the enforcement rule treats transmitting an unsigned assignment result to a client, and failing to guard your electronic signature against unauthorized use, as conduct it will act on. So a device here is a convenience that reproduces a block you would otherwise type, and the wording on it is yours to choose because the state has not chosen one for you.
Illinois real estate appraiser seal requirements at a glance
| Requirement | Illinois rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Seal required | No appraiser seal requirement was found. The only occurrence of the word seal in the Act is the Department’s own seal on a disciplinary order | 225 ILCS 458/15-35 |
| Required elements | None prescribed for the signature block. Report standards are set by reference to USPAP. The one affirmative report-content duty in the Act is a compensation disclosure inside the body of the report where an appraisal obtained through an appraisal management company is used for loan purposes | 225 ILCS 458/10-10 |
| Size and shape | None. No size, diameter or shape language was found in the Act or in the located rule structure | 225 ILCS 458, Real Estate Appraiser Licensing Act of 2002; 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455 |
| Device allowed | Nothing prescribed and nothing prohibited. Embosser, ink stamp or an image in a PDF are all open, and none of them carries Illinois authority, because Illinois confers none on any device | 225 ILCS 458, Real Estate Appraiser Licensing Act of 2002; 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455 |
| Signature and date | Signature-based, and enforced as such. The enforcement rule lists among unprofessional conduct the transmission of an unsigned assignment result to a client, and failure to exercise due care to prevent unauthorized use of an electronic signature | 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455.310(g) and (j) |
| What must be sealed | Nothing. No Illinois document was found that asks an appraiser to seal or stamp a report | 225 ILCS 458, Real Estate Appraiser Licensing Act of 2002; 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455 |
| Electronic seal | No electronic seal provision was located. The rules address the electronic signature instead, as a thing you must keep others from using | 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455.310(g) |
| Renewal and lapse | Nothing ties a device to a renewal cycle. No number and no expiration date is prescribed for a report, so a die carrying your license number is your own record to keep current | 225 ILCS 458, Real Estate Appraiser Licensing Act of 2002; 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455 |
| Firm requirements | No firm seal. A separate provision requires certain government-employee valuations to be co-signed by a professional engineer with a license number affixed, which is a different credential and not an appraiser rule | 225 ILCS 458/5-22(e-5) |
| Regulator | Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Real Estate. The Real Estate Appraisal Administration and Disciplinary Board advises the Department | 225 ILCS 458, Real Estate Appraiser Licensing Act of 2002 |
Does Illinois require an appraiser’s seal?
No requirement was found, and the places where one would sit were checked. The Real Estate Appraiser Licensing Act of 2002 was gone through article by article: article 1, general provisions; article 5, licensing provisions, sections 5-5 through 5-55; article 10, business practice provisions, which is where a report-marking duty would naturally live; and article 15, disciplinary provisions. Articles 1, 5 and 10 contain no occurrence of the word seal or the word stamp at all. Article 15 contains one, described below, and it is not yours. On the rules side, subpart E of 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455 is the business practices subpart and it has only six sections: record keeping, notification of name change, assumed name, address of record, USPAP, and scope of property condition inspections. None of them is a seal section.
The only seal in the Act belongs to the Department
225 ILCS 458/15-35 is headed “Signature of the Secretary” and deals with proving up a disciplinary order: an order of revocation or suspension, or a certified copy of the order, bearing the seal of the Department and purporting to be signed by the Secretary. This is the classic distractor, and it turns up in most states in one form or another. An agency that has to certify its own records keeps a seal for the purpose, and that seal belongs to the agency. It authenticates a document the Department issues about you; it has nothing to do with a document you issue about a property, and nobody outside the Department may use it.
What Illinois actually requires on a report
225 ILCS 458/10-10, standards of practice, works by reference: everyone licensed under the Act must comply with the standards of professional appraisal practice adopted by the Department, and the Department must adopt USPAP as part of its rules. So the content of your report, including the signed certification, comes from USPAP rather than from an Illinois element list. The Act adds one affirmative content duty of its own, and it is about money rather than identity: where an appraisal obtained through an appraisal management company is used for loan purposes, the borrower or loan applicant must be given a written disclosure of the total compensation to the appraiser or appraisal firm within the body of the appraisal report, and it may not be redacted or otherwise obscured.
Illinois is a signature state, and it watches the signature
The reason there is no seal rule here is that Illinois built its report-marking regime around the signature. 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455.310, unprofessional conduct, lists twelve acts, and two of them are about signatures. Subsection (j) reaches transmitting an unsigned assignment result to a client. Subsection (g) reaches failing to exercise due care to prevent unauthorized use of your electronic signature. Read those together and the state’s position is visible: what matters is that the report is signed and that the signature is under your control. A stamp of your name is not a signature and should not be used as one; the device is for the identifying block that sits with the signature, not for the signature itself.
Title use is restricted, but the title is not required on the page
225 ILCS 458/5-5 restricts the use of the licensed appraiser titles by people who do not hold them. That is a bar on claiming the credential, not an instruction to print it. There is a difference worth holding onto: a state that restricts a title tells you what you may not say, while a state that prescribes a signature block tells you what you must say. Illinois does the first and not the second. If you put your credential and number on a stamp here, you are doing it because it is useful and because USPAP requires you to identify yourself in the certification, not because an Illinois rule sets out the wording.
The engineer co-signature is a different credential
One Illinois provision does attach a license number to a valuation document, and it is easy to cite by mistake. 225 ILCS 458/5-22(e-5) concerns certain valuations by government employees and calls for a co-signature by a professional engineer with a license number affixed. That is an engineering credential with its own seal and signature law under a different agency scheme. It does not create an appraiser seal, it does not prescribe an appraiser block, and it applies only in the narrow situation the subsection describes.
What could not be read, and what to do about it
Honesty about the record: the full text of 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455 could not be retrieved for this page. The Illinois General Assembly site, which is where the Department itself points for both the Act and the rules, refused every request in the environment used, so the Part’s structure and section lists were obtained instead and the individual sections that could be read were read in full. Subparts A, B, C, D, G, H, I and J, covering definitions, licensing, education, experience, administrative provisions, education providers, transition and hearings, were not opened section by section. None of them is a plausible home for a report-marking rule, but that is an inference rather than a read. Treat Illinois as no seal requirement found rather than as settled, and if you want certainty before you order, open 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455 on the General Assembly site or ask the Division of Real Estate.
What to engrave
With no prescribed wording, build the block from what USPAP’s certification already makes you say and what a client looks for. That is your name as you sign it, your Illinois credential written out, and your license number. Firm name is optional and common. Leave off anything that reads as state issuance: no Department name around the rim, no state seal device, no wording suggesting the Department approved the die. Illinois keeps its seal for its own orders, and imitating it on an appraisal report is the one real mistake available here. Your name, credential and number claim only what your license already grants.
Embosser, ink stamp, or the eSeal image
Illinois prescribes no instrument, so the choice follows your delivery format. Most reports leave as PDFs, and a raised impression does not survive a scan, which pushes most Illinois appraisers toward ink: the Regular Rubber Stamp of Seal at $34.95 uses a separate pad, the Self Inking Rubber Stamp of Seal at $39.95 carries its own, and the Slim Pre Inked Rubber Stamp of Seal at $46.95 is the compact pre inked option. If you still issue printed originals and want the block to read as formal, the Hybrid Seal Embosser at $42.95 and the Desk Seal Embosser at $44.95 do that. For PDF delivery on its own, the eSeal Electronic Image Stamp of Seal at $20.00 is an image file rather than a tool. Keep it under your own control, because the rule on guarding an electronic signature shows how the state thinks about files that stand in for you.
Sizing and layout
Nothing fixes a size, so the constraint is the longest line. Certified general real estate appraiser is a long phrase and it should not share a line with a number. A three-line block of name, credential, license number reads well and fits most signature areas; a fourth line for the firm is fine if the space allows it. Decide the layout against the template you actually use. If your reports come out of software with a fixed signature panel, print a page, measure the strip the block has to live in, and send that measurement with the order so the type is set to fit.
Ordering and care
Send the text line by line in the order you want it read: name as signed, credential in full, license number, firm if wanted. Say whether the impression lands on a printed original, a scanned page or both. If you hold credentials in more than one state, keep each on its own device rather than combining legends. After that the care is ordinary: keep an ink pad damp, wipe the die face when lettering starts printing filled, store an embosser dry. Re-cut the die when your credential level changes, because at that point the old wording no longer describes you. For anything the order form does not cover, contact us. This page is a research summary and not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Does Illinois require a real estate appraiser to seal a report?
No such requirement was found. The Act’s general, licensing and business-practice articles contain no occurrence of the word seal, and the business-practice subpart of the rules has no seal section. The one seal in the Act is the Department’s own, used on disciplinary orders.
What is the seal in 225 ILCS 458/15-35 then?
The Department’s authenticating seal. The section is about proving a disciplinary order: an order of revocation or suspension, or a certified copy, bearing the seal of the Department and purporting to be signed by the Secretary. It belongs to the agency and nobody else may use it.
Is the Illinois research settled?
Not entirely, and it is better to say so. The full text of 68 Ill. Adm. Code 1455 could not be retrieved because the General Assembly site refused every request; the Part structure and the relevant section lists were read instead. Read this as no seal requirement found. Confirm on the General Assembly site or with the Division of Real Estate before relying on it.
What does Illinois require on the report itself?
Compliance with USPAP, adopted by the Department as part of its rules under 225 ILCS 458/10-10, plus one disclosure: where an appraisal obtained through an appraisal management company is used for loan purposes, the total compensation to the appraiser or appraisal firm goes inside the body of the report, unredacted.
Can I use a stamp of my name as my signature?
That is not what the device is for. The enforcement rule reaches an unsigned assignment result transmitted to a client and failure to prevent unauthorized use of an electronic signature, so Illinois plainly cares that the signature is yours and under your control. Sign the report, and use the stamp for the identifying block beside the signature.
What about the engineer co-signature with a license number affixed?
That is 225 ILCS 458/5-22(e-5) and it concerns certain government-employee valuations. A professional engineer is a different credential with its own law. It creates no appraiser seal and prescribes no appraiser block.
Does my license number have to appear on the report?
No Illinois provision was found requiring it. Title use is restricted by 225 ILCS 458/5-5, which is a bar on claiming a credential you do not hold rather than an instruction to print the one you do. Most appraisers include name, credential and number anyway, because the USPAP certification identifies the signer and clients look for it.
