When the Cook County Board of Review announced the second group of 2026 township openings on August 27, it said the office had "processed a record 290,533 appeals" for tax year 2025. The July 27 announcement opening the season called 2025 "another year of historically high filing volumes."
The Board's published decision history, going back to tax year 2010, shows where the volume comes from. It is not a trend. It is the calendar.
Quick Answer
The Board said it processed a record 290,533 appeals for tax year 2025. Its own PIN-level decision history shows volume tracks the reassessment region: that region roughly doubles in its year while the other two fall back. 2024 produced 571,841 decisions and a 39.4% reduction rate. Appeals (complaints) and PIN-level decisions are not the same unit - do not compare them directly.
Decisions by region, by year
PIN-level decisions, all property classes:
- **2021:** South and West (17 townships) 88,402; Chicago (8) 339,637; North (13) 90,806; reassessed region - Chicago.
- **2022:** South and West (17 townships) 64,328; Chicago (8) 185,915; North (13) 218,764; reassessed region - North.
- **2023:** South and West (17 townships) 135,324; Chicago (8) 154,898; North (13) 116,174; reassessed region - South and West.
- **2024:** South and West (17 townships) 97,160; Chicago (8) 372,847; North (13) 101,834; reassessed region - Chicago.
- **2025:** South and West (17 townships) 58,166; Chicago (8) 113,031; North (13) 153,751; reassessed region - North.
*Tax year 2025 is incomplete in the county's dataset as of the May 2026 copy; several Chicago townships show no 2025 decisions yet.
The reassessed region roughly doubles in its year and the other two regions fall back. Chicago's reassessment years produced 364,832 decisions in 2018, 339,637 in 2021, and 372,847 in 2024. The South and West produced 138,323 in 2017, 123,952 in 2020, and 135,324 in 2023.
Two cautions on units. The Board's "appeals" figure counts complaints, and one complaint can cover many PINs. The dataset counts PIN-level decisions. The two numbers are not the same thing and should not be compared directly. And the Board has not published a 2026 count; anyone forecasting one is estimating.
What the record does not say
It does not say the Board is slower. It does not say grant rates fell. On that second point the history says the opposite:
- **2019:** 462,316 decisions; 166,402 reduced; 36.0% reduction rate; 86.4% attorney-filed share.
- **2020:** 384,626 decisions; 109,448 reduced; 28.5% reduction rate; 87.0% attorney-filed share.
- **2021:** 518,845 decisions; 146,531 reduced; 28.2% reduction rate; 88.5% attorney-filed share.
- **2022:** 469,007 decisions; 132,984 reduced; 28.4% reduction rate; 87.7% attorney-filed share.
- **2023:** 406,396 decisions; 135,214 reduced; 33.3% reduction rate; 84.2% attorney-filed share.
- **2024:** 571,841 decisions; 225,525 reduced; 39.4% reduction rate; 88.0% attorney-filed share.
The reduction rate bottomed near 28 percent for three years and climbed back to 39 percent in 2024. In 2010 it was 69 percent. Attorneys have filed between 84 and 89 percent of decisions every year in the table. The market has been counsel-dominated for as long as the county has published the data.
What it does say for 2026
The South and West are reassessed this year. On the history, that region's decision count should roughly double from its 2025 level while Chicago and the North fall back. Whether the county-wide total exceeds 2024's 571,841 depends on how the fall-back and the doubling net out, and that is an inference, not a measurement. Tell clients so.
Three things are not inferences.
**Hearing capacity is fixed by rule.** Rule 12 caps an attorney at eight dockets per hearing call and 45 hearings per township group. In the 2023 South and West cycle, Lyons alone produced 11,843 attorney-filed residential decisions. The cap binds first in the biggest townships.
**Evidence deadlines are published and do not flex.** Rule 14 sets the deadline by reference to the township's close, and the 2026 schedule makes it concrete: Group 1 closed September 1 with evidence due September 11, Group 2 closes September 29 with evidence due October 9. Ten days, both times, and the rules allow no extension absent good cause. Volume on the Board's side is not good cause on the taxpayer's.
**Decision-day clocks are short.** Three days from the letter date for re-review under Rule 26. Thirty days from the postmark for PTAB. When a group's decisions issue together, the firm's batch process has to clear them inside the shorter window.
The paperwork share
One more number from the same three years. Of attorney-filed no-change decisions, 57,961 carried the code "no documentation submitted in addition to complaint form" and 28,146 carried "failure to comply with Board of Review rules or requests and/or a failure to provide evidence." In a doubled year, the files most likely to be lost this way are the ones filed last, thinnest, to make the window.
What a firm does with this
- Staff to the rule caps, by attorney code and township group, not to the file count.
- Front-load evidence. Treat the published evidence date as the only deadline.
- Build the decision-day batch now and test it on Group 1, whose decisions arrive first.
- Tell clients what "record" means: fixed deadlines that do not move with volume, and a firm staffed to those deadlines.
The numbers behind this article
Regional and yearly counts are Censum's tabulation of the Cook County Board of Review Appeal Decision History dataset (county open data, 7pny-nedm), copy dated May 20, 2026; PIN-level decisions, tax year 2025 incomplete. The Board's 290,533 figure is the Board's own and counts appeals, not PINs. Censum is independent and not affiliated with the Board or any county office. Censum's docket counts files by township and attorney code against the caps and runs the decision-day clocks from the postmark.
Sources
- Board of Review Dates and Deadlines 2026 Session
- Cook County Board of Review Official Rules
- Censum tabulation of the Cook County Board of Review Appeal Decision History dataset (Cook County open data, 7pny-nedm), copy dated May 20, 2026; PIN-level decisions; tax year 2025 incomplete in that copy.
- Sources: Board of Review announcements of July 27 and August 27, 2026; Board of Review "Dates and Deadlines 2026 Session"; Official Rules 12, 14, 26, last updated July 27, 2026.
FAQ
Why aren't 290,533 appeals and the dataset's decision counts interchangeable?
The Board's appeals figure counts complaints; one complaint can cover many PINs. The open-data history counts PIN-level decisions. The draft (and this article) treat them as different units.
What happened to reduction rates from 2019 through 2024?
They ran 36.0% (2019), then near 28% for 2020-2022, 33.3% (2023), and 39.4% (2024). Attorneys filed between 84.2% and 88.5% of decisions in those years.
What stays fixed when volume doubles?
Rule 12 hearing caps (8 per call, 45 per group), published evidence deadlines after township close, and decision-day clocks: three days for re-review, thirty days for PTAB.
Does Censum file or represent clients?
No. Censum LLC is independent property-tax intelligence and docket tooling. It is not a law firm. The attorney files and makes every legal judgment.
Next step
Look up the firm book by township against the South and West reassessment map, assign attorney codes with the 45-hearing cap in view, and test the decision-day batch on Group 1 letters as they issue.
Censum LLC is independent and not affiliated with Cook County or any government agency.