Cook County Property Owners See Higher Tax Bills
Cook County property owners received their tax bills in the mail on September 1st with 2025 second installment tax bills due on October 1, 2026. After the tax bills issue, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas issued her annual analysis which showed that the annual property tax bills for all of Cook County are more than $19.9 billion which is about a 3.9% increase from the prior year, or a $744 million increase from the prior year. This is the 32nd straight annual increase according to this most recent report.
Nearly all taxing agencies increased their levies and about 60% increased them by more than the 3.1% inflation rate. The biggest changes will be felt in the suburban communities, north of North Avenue, because 2025 was the triennial reassessment year for properties located in the northern townships of Cook County. The major cause for the increase in taxes is that there has been substantial growth in home values which have outpaced those for commercial and industrial properties. This residential market appreciation caused shifting of 2% more of the region’s over tax burden onto homeowners. The median tax bill for property owners in the northern suburbs increased 6.7% this year to $8,007, per the Treasurer’s Office’s analysis.
For multifamily buildings, the median bill went up by 3.5% to $26,772. The median commercial building bill decreased by 3.5% to $28,253. Another cause of this shift in burden in who pays a greater share of the taxes has to do with commercial property values. Office buildings, hotels, and restaurants lost some value generally in Chicago and grew only modestly in the northern suburban townships. Chicago’s overall taxes rose $196 million, or 2.2% and homeowner’s taxes went up by $120.9 million, or 2.7% where the median homeowner’s bill is now $4,597.
Taxes in the south suburbs increased by a total of $177.2 million or 3.9% with residential tax bills increasing 3.8% or $113 million and commercial and industrial businesses’ taxes increasing 4.3%, or $64.5 million.
Overall, nearly all Cook County property owners are seeing higher property taxes, with the largest increases in the northern townships, where 2025 was a triennial reassessment year. A significant driver is the residential market, which the sales data show has appreciated faster than commercial property over the past several years.
