Dylan Sharkey
Assistant Editor
January 16, 2025
Already 46 towns around Illinois have voted to impose a 1% grocery tax in 2026. Other Illinoisans will start to save 1% on groceries when the statewide tax ends.
There are 46 Illinois towns that will continue the 1% grocery tax once the statewide tax ends in 2026, according to data from the Illinois Department of Revenue. The rest of the state will start to see 1% savings at the grocery store.
The map below shows which towns will begin taxing groceries in 2026, but the list will only get longer unless residents show they are opposed to taxing residents’ unavoidable need to eat. Even if a town is not on the map, communities have until October 2025 to decide whether to keep or kill the 1% tax on everyday grocery items.
Grocery shoppers around the state saved $360 million the year state leaders suspended the tax as a way to combat rampant inflation. That was roughly $30 per Illinoisan. That means a family of four could save about $115 a year on food, depending on where they live.
Grocery tax revenue exclusively went to local governments, so they will choose between budget cuts and grocery taxes. Illinois is one of only 13 states with a grocery tax, and the only state among the 10 most populated.
Grocery tax revenue by community for 2023 is in the table below, which is a gauge for what the tax repeal or imposition could mean for you and your neighbors.
In 2026 the tax could be gone for good, a move 70% of Illinois voters supported. Gov. J.B. Pritzker called the tax “kind of embarrassing.”
“It was the most regressive tax you could possibly have, taxing people on food,” Pritzker said. “Wealthy people, middle-class people can afford to go to the grocery store and pay 1%. Everybody else, it’s hard. That’s one of the reasons I went after it.”
Communities can choose to tax their residents on the need to eat. Or, they can give their retailers a competitive advantage by taxing 1% less than some tax-hungry neighbors.
As of yet neither Rockford nor Belvidere have passed the tax.To see map as to which cities have, go to:
