Illinois vehicle taxes & fees

In short

Dealer sales are a percentage, private sales are a flat fee

The dealer route is ordinary sales tax math. The 6.25% state rate plus local add-ons lands at 7.25% through the collar counties and downstate, 9% in Cook County outside Chicago, and 10.25% in the city, applied to the price after the trade-in comes off. Illinois repealed the $10,000 trade-in credit cap effective January 1, 2022, so the full allowance now reduces the taxable price with no ceiling. Private sales get none of that: Form RUT-50 explicitly disallows a trade-in deduction, and the tax owed comes off a chart rather than the price. On a $30,000 car that gap runs $2,175 in dealer tax at 7.25% against $1,600 flat under Table B.

The $15,000 line in the RUT-50 chart

Table A covers private sales under $15,000 and keys the tax to model-year age alone: $465 at one year, $365 at two, $290 at three, $190 at five, $125 at nine, and $100 for anything eleven years or older. At $15,000 the whole method changes. Table B prices by band - $850 up to $19,999.99, $1,100 to $24,999.99, $1,350 to $29,999.99, $1,600 to $49,999.99, $2,600 to $99,999.99, $5,100 to $999,999.99, and $10,100 above that. A sale at $14,999 and a sale at $15,001 can differ by hundreds of dollars over two dollars of price. Motorcycles, mopeds and ATVs skip both charts and pay $25 flat, any age, any price.

Chicago and Cook County stack on private sales only

The RUT-6 local schedule applies to private-party transfers and nothing else, and inside the city limits both jurisdictions charge. Chicago adds $80 for a vehicle three years old or newer, $65 through eight years, $50 through fourteen, and nothing after that. Cook County adds $225 up to three years, $175 through eight, and $90 on anything older. A two-year-old car titled to a Chicago address owes $305 in local tax on top of the state figure; the same car titled in a Cook suburb owes $225; in DuPage or Sangamon it owes nothing. Family transfers carry smaller versions, $15 in Chicago through fourteen years and $25 in Cook, and private motorcycle purchases owe $15 and $90.

Registration is the same $151 in all 102 counties

Illinois adds no county registration surcharge, so the annual number does not move with your address. A passenger vehicle is $151: $148 base, $1 for the State Police Vehicle Fund, $2 for the Park and Conservation Fund. Motorcycles pay $41 on a $38 base and autocycles $71 on a $68 base, both carrying the identical $1 and $2 surcharges. A fully electric vehicle adds $100 a year in lieu of motor fuel tax, while hybrids and plug-in hybrids pay nothing extra. Plates are where the price moves: vanity costs $94 to issue and $13 a year after, personalized costs $47 to issue and $7 a year, and a motorcycle vanity plate is $50 to issue.

Twenty days for the title, thirty for the tax

The two Illinois clocks do not run together. The buyer has 20 days from the date the vehicle and signed title are delivered to apply for the new title at a Secretary of State facility, and the RUT-50 return is separately due to the Department of Revenue within 30 days of the sale. Illinois publishes no escalating title fine for private buyers; the cost of delay is IDOR's standard late-payment penalty, 2% of the tax at 1 to 30 days late and 10% past 30 days, plus interest accruing daily. A registration renewed 30 or more days after expiration adds a flat $20, and that penalty does not grow further no matter how long the lapse runs. Dealers who submit a title 120 or more days after the sale owe a $100 delinquent transfer fee themselves.