How Chicago's 10.25% rate is built
6.25% state + 1.75% Cook County + 1.25% city + 1.00% RTA transit tax — for years the highest combined rate of any major US city. Illinois eliminated its 1% state grocery tax in 2026, though many municipalities adopted their own.
What you pay in Chicago — worked examples
| Purchase | Tax at 10.25% | Total |
|---|---|---|
| $25 | $2.56 | $27.56 |
| $100 | $10.25 | $110.25 |
| $500 | $51.25 | $551.25 |
| $1,000 | $102.50 | $1102.50 |
| $10,000 | $1025.00 | $11025.00 |
Chicago vs the Illinois average
The average combined rate across Illinois is about 8.83%, so Chicago at 10.25% is above the state norm by roughly 1.42 percentage points. On a $30,000 car (where vehicle tax rules allow the general rate), that gap alone is about $426 — one reason big purchases are planned around exact addresses, not state averages.
Chicago vs other major US cities
Chicago is the Illinois city we track in detail. Against the extremes of the 30-city dataset:
| City | Combined rate | Tax on $1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Chicago (this page) | 10.25% | $102.50 |
| Seattle — among the highest | 10.35% | $103.50 |
| Portland — among the lowest | 0% | $0.00 |
| Louisville — among the lowest | 6% | $60.00 |
| Average of the 30 tracked cities | 7.93% | $79.30 |
What this means in Chicago
The rate bites hardest on large, planned purchases. At 10.25%, a $10,000 purchase carries $1025.00 of tax — $142.00 more than the same purchase at the Illinois average rate of 8.83%, and $364.00 more than at the all-state average of 6.61%. On everyday spending the difference is cents; on vehicles, appliances and furniture it decides where people choose to buy.
Day-to-day, groceries in Illinois are taxed at a reduced rate rather than the full 10.25%, so the food shop carries less tax than general merchandise bought in Chicago — see the grocery note in the FAQs for the current treatment.
Calculate with your exact rate
District boundaries inside Chicago can shift the rate street by street. For an exact figure — or to extract tax from a tax-inclusive total — use the full calculator with your precise local rate: