Illinois Real Estate Transfer Tax Calculator

Illinois layers up to three tiers of real estate transfer tax onto a single sale. The state charges $0.50 per $500 of value (0.1%) under 35 ILCS 200/31-10, Cook County adds its own $0.25 per $500 (0.05%), and the City of Chicago separately layers on a substantially larger $5.25 per $500, or 1.05%, on top of both. A sale in downstate Illinois outside Cook County typically sees only the state rate plus a modest county add-on; a Chicago sale can see combined rates several times higher.

The state and county portions are generally the seller's responsibility under Illinois practice, though this can be modified by contract, and some municipal ordinances, including certain Chicago provisions, split the tax differently or place portions on the buyer. This calculator models the state rate plus a typical county add-on as its statewide baseline; a transaction specifically inside Chicago city limits should budget for materially more once the city's own transfer tax is added.

The calculator applies a flat combined rate to the full sale price: the statutory state rate of 0.10% (35 ILCS 200/31-10, expressed as $0.50 per $500 of consideration) plus an average local add-on of 0.05%, for a combined 0.15% baseline. Unlike Hawaii's marginal bracket system, Illinois's state tax and typical county add-ons are proportional, flat-rate levies, so the tax due scales linearly with sale price with no bracket thresholds to cross.

Formally: Tax Due = Sale Price x (State Rate + Average Local Rate) = Sale Price x 0.0015. This produces the "baseTransferTax" output, and because Illinois does not impose a separate mansion tax or high-value surcharge at the state level within this calculator's model, the mansion tax output remains $0.00 across all price points. The effective rate output will therefore always read 0.150% for a non-Chicago transaction under this default calculation, since the combined rate does not vary by price.

Critically, this flat combined rate does not capture Chicago's substantially higher municipal transfer tax. The underlying rate table stores this distinction explicitly: the statewide average local rate is 0.05%, while Chicago's actual municipal rate alone is 1.05%, more than twenty times higher than the statewide average used as the baseline. Buyers and sellers inside Chicago city limits should treat the number this calculator produces as understating their real transfer tax liability by a wide margin.

Baseline: $380,000 sale price (non-Chicago). Applying the combined 0.15% rate: $380,000 x 0.0015 = $570.00. This breaks down as $380.00 in state tax (0.10%) plus $190.00 in typical county-level add-on tax (0.05%). Net proceeds after transfer tax come to $379,430.

Higher-value sale: $1,500,000 (non-Chicago). Applying the same flat combined rate: $1,500,000 x 0.0015 = $2,250.00. Because Illinois's baseline rate is flat rather than bracketed, this scales exactly in proportion to the sale price, unlike Hawaii's marginal system.

Illustrative Chicago comparison (not the calculator's default): If the same $380,000 sale closed within Chicago city limits, the combined effective rate would rise to roughly the 0.10% state rate, plus Cook County's 0.05%, plus Chicago's 1.05%, for a combined 1.20% or higher, producing a transfer tax bill in the range of $4,560, nearly eight times the statewide baseline this calculator returns by default.

• The City of Chicago's municipal transfer tax: At 1.05% (Chicago's own add-on, separate from the 0.10% state and 0.05% Cook County rates), this is the single largest gap between this calculator's baseline output and what a Chicago seller will actually owe.
• Other high-tax municipalities: A number of Illinois home-rule municipalities beyond Chicago impose their own local transfer taxes at rates that differ from the statewide 0.05% average used here.
• Statutory exemptions: Certain transfers, including some between spouses, into a revocable trust, or as part of a foreclosure, are exempt from all or part of the transfer tax and are not modeled by a simple sale-price calculation.
• Real Estate Transfer Declaration filing requirements: Illinois requires a PTAX-203 declaration to be filed with most transfers; this is a compliance step, not itself a tax, and is not modeled here.
• Recording fees: County recorder fees for filing the deed are billed separately from the transfer tax and vary by county and document length.

• Using the statewide baseline for a Chicago transaction. This is the single biggest source of error when estimating Illinois transfer tax; Chicago's combined rate can be roughly eight times the non-Chicago statewide baseline.
• Assuming the tax is paid entirely by one party. Illinois transfer tax allocation between buyer and seller varies by the specific state, county, and municipal ordinance layer, and by local custom in the purchase contract.
• Forgetting Cook County's separate add-on outside Chicago. Suburban Cook County transactions still pay the county's 0.05% add-on even when they are not subject to the City of Chicago's municipal rate.
• Overlooking home-rule municipality rates elsewhere in the state. Illinois has many home-rule municipalities outside Chicago with the authority to levy their own transfer taxes, which this statewide average does not individually capture.
• Treating the PTAX-203 filing as optional. Nearly all Illinois real estate transfers require this declaration to be filed with the county recorder regardless of whether tax is owed.

• Illinois Department of Revenue, Real Estate Transfer Tax guidance and 35 ILCS 200/31-10
• See engine/tables/2026/state-real-estate-transfer-tax.json for the verified state and average local rate table, including the Chicago and Cook County rate notes, used in this calculator