Property Tax in Kankakee County, Illinois

What the Kankakee County numbers mean

A median is the middle household: half of owner-occupied households in Kankakee County pay more than $4,125, and half pay less. Your own bill is set by your home's assessed value, the exemptions you qualify for, and the local taxing districts your property sits in — so individual bills vary widely around the median.

Dividing the median tax by the median home value gives a derived effective rate of 2.22% for Kankakee County. It is an estimate built from two survey medians, not the county's official rate, but it is a fair way to compare the local tax burden with other counties where home values are very different.

The key figures for Kankakee County

For context, the Illinois medians are $5,189 of tax on $250,500 of value, and the US medians are $2,969 on $303,400. *Derived figures are estimates from Census medians, not official rates.

Kankakee County at a glance

• Median tax rank in Illinois: #15 of 102 counties
• Median home value rank in Illinois: #16 of 102
• Population rank in Illinois: #18 of 102 (106,833 residents)
• Population density rank: #20 of 102 (158 people per square mile)
• Land area rank in Illinois: #27 of 102 (676 sq mi, 1.2% of the combined county land area)
• Median tax as a monthly figure: $344; per $1,000 of home value: $2.22

How Kankakee County compares

The median tax bill in Kankakee County is about 21% lower than the state median ($5,189 for Illinois) and about 39% higher than the US median ($2,969 nationally). By median taxes paid, the county ranks #15 out of 102 Illinois counties with published Census data — 14 counties in the state have a higher median bill.

Comparisons cut both ways: a county can have a modest rate but high bills because homes are expensive, or a high rate but modest bills because homes are cheaper. Kankakee County's derived rate of 2.22% sits above the derived US figure of 0.98%.

Some extra context for Kankakee County: the median bill works out to about $344 a month, and the derived rate equals roughly $2,221 of tax per $100,000 of home value. The county is home to 106,833 people — the #18 most populous county in Illinois, spread over 676 square miles, a density of about 158 people per square mile. Its median home value, $185,700, ranks #16 among the state's 102 counties with data.

Nationally, Kankakee County's median bill of $4,125 ranks #208 of 3133 counties with published data — inside the top 7% of counties by tax paid. The county accounts for about 0.8% of Illinois's population, its median home value is about 26% below the state median, and at the derived rate the median home would hand over roughly 22.21% of its value in tax across a decade. Within the state, the distance from Kankakee County to the most expensive county, Lake County ($8,743), is $4,618 a year.

Counties nearest Kankakee County in the Illinois ranking

Kankakee County and its population peers

For a like-for-like sense of scale, compare Kankakee County with its national population peers: the counties nearest to its 106,833 residents, listed in the table below with their own Census medians. Of the 9 counties in that group, Kankakee County's median bill of $4,125 is the highest.

The closest population match is Monongalia County, West Virginia (106,520 residents), where the median real estate tax paid is $1,232 on a median home value of $254,200 — $2,893 more than Kankakee County pays.

Staying within Illinois, the counties nearest Kankakee County by population are Tazewell County (130,555 residents, median tax $3,481 on a median value of $164,500); LaSalle County (109,049 residents, median tax $3,336 on a median value of $154,900); Macon County (102,591 residents, median tax $2,560 on a median value of $121,800); DeKalb County (100,512 residents, median tax $5,889 on a median value of $231,900). The spread in their median bills — all under the same state framework — shows how much of the property tax burden is decided county by county and district by district.

How the tax is worked out

Think of the final bill as three ingredients: the assessed value of the property, the exemptions subtracted from it, and the combined rate of every district the property sits in. Kankakee County's medians imply a derived rate of 2.22%; applied illustratively, a $400,000 home would owe about $8,884 a year, or around $740 a month spread evenly. Individual properties depart from the illustration in both directions.

Illustrative bills in Kankakee County at the derived rate

The derived rate of 2.22% is only an estimate built from medians, but applying it to different home values gives a sense of scale for Kankakee County — and a quick way to compare with the state derived rate of 2.07% and the US figure of 0.98%:

Illustration only: real bills are computed from the assessed value, exemptions, and the combined rates of the property's actual taxing districts.

Checking your assessment in Kankakee County

If your bill looks wrong, work through these steps:

1. Get your property record card from the assessor and check the basics — living area, lot size, bedrooms, condition, and any exemptions you should have.
2. Compare your assessed value with recent sale prices of similar homes in Kankakee County.
3. Talk to the assessor's office informally first; clear errors are often fixed without a hearing.
4. If needed, file a formal appeal with the local review board before the deadline on your assessment notice, with your evidence attached.
5. Keep paying the bill as issued while the appeal runs, unless your notice says otherwise — unpaid taxes accrue penalties regardless of an appeal.

More Illinois counties

• LaSalle County, IL — $3,336
• Macon County, IL — $2,560
• DeKalb County, IL — $5,889
• Tazewell County, IL — $3,481
• Kendall County, IL — $7,556
• Vermilion County, IL — $1,666

Frequently asked questions