In tax year 2024, 108,050 Cook County parcels carried the homeowner exemption, the senior exemption and the Senior Freeze together. The median Senior Freeze that year took $25,839 off equalized assessed value (EAV). Add the standard $10,000 homeowner and $8,000 senior amounts and that is $43,839 of EAV.
None of it transfers to a buyer.
"What are the taxes?" is one of the first questions every buyer asks. The answer on the listing sheet is accurate, for the seller. Our piece on the first-year tax surprise covers why buyers get caught out. This one gives you the record, the arithmetic and the timing, so you can put a defensible number in front of a buyer.
Quick Answer
The tax figure on a Cook County listing reflects the seller's exemptions. A buyer who lives in the home can usually re-earn the homeowner exemption by applying. Senior, senior freeze, veteran and disability exemptions belong to the seller and are lost unless the buyer qualifies on their own. Estimate the difference as the lost exemption value times the property's tax rate. On a home with a median freeze, that is $33,839 of EAV for a buyer under 65. The freeze often drops off a year early: only 21.0% of freeze homes sold in mid-2023 kept it on the bill for the year of the sale.
What the county record shows
From the tax year 2024 exemption record:
- Homeowner exemption: 1,005,437 parcels. 96.3% of them carried the full $10,000.
- Senior exemption: 366,686 parcels. 95.4% carried the full $8,000.
- Senior Freeze: 108,059 parcels. The median freeze was $25,839 of EAV. A quarter were under $14,178 and a quarter were over $39,075.
- Turnover: between 2023 and 2024, 35,852 parcels lost the homeowner exemption and 40,874 gained it. Sales explain many of those changes in both directions.
Two takeaways. The homeowner and senior lines are close to fixed amounts, so you can estimate them with confidence. The freeze is not. It varies by tens of thousands of dollars of EAV from home to home, so read it off the seller's actual bill.
The three buckets
Nothing transfers automatically. Cook County exemptions are tied to the owner and occupant, not the house. Every exemption on the seller's bill stops being the buyer's the moment the deed changes.
Re-earned by applying: the homeowner exemption. It takes $10,000 off EAV. A buyer who occupies the home as a principal residence on January 1 of a tax year can apply for that year. Once granted, it renews automatically.
Usually lost: everything owner-specific.
- Senior exemption, $8,000 off EAV, for owners 65 or older during the tax year.
- Senior freeze, which holds EAV at a base year for qualifying seniors under an income limit. A new owner starts with no base year.
- Veterans and disability exemptions, which depend on the owner's own service record or disability.
A buyer who qualifies for one of these can apply in their own right. Share the rules, and let the buyer decide whether they qualify.
The arithmetic
The tax effect of an exemption is the EAV it removes times the local tax rate. The rate is printed on the bill.
An example built on the record. The seller is a long-time owner over 65 with the homeowner exemption, the senior exemption and a freeze at the 2024 median. The local rate is an illustrative 9%.
- Homeowner exemption: $10,000 of EAV
- Senior exemption: $8,000 of EAV
- Senior freeze: $25,839 of EAV
- Total: $43,839 of EAV, worth about $3,946 a year at 9%
A buyer under 65 who applies for the homeowner exemption loses the senior exemption and the freeze: $33,839 of EAV, about $3,046 a year more than the seller paid. A buyer who forgets to apply loses all three: about $3,946 a year more.
That is before any change in assessed value, the state multiplier or tax rates. Those move separately.
The timing: which bill shows the change
Cook County bills are paid a year behind. The bills paid in 2027 are for tax year 2026. The second installment, usually in the fall, is the one that applies exemptions and new values.
Homeowner exemption eligibility is set by who owned and occupied the home on January 1 of each tax year. (A buyer who is 65 or older may also get a prorated senior exemption for the part of the sale year they lived there.) So for a closing in June 2026:
- Tax year 2026 belongs to the seller's January 1 status. The buyer pays those bills in 2027, usually with a closing credit from the seller for the seller's share of the year.
- Tax year 2027 is the first year on the buyer's own status, because the buyer occupied the home on January 1, 2027. The Assessor opens filing for each tax year the following spring, so the buyer applies in early 2028, and the change appears on the fall 2028 bill.
In other words, the full effect of a sale on the bill often lands about two years after closing. That is long after most buyers stop thinking about the listing sheet.
One line usually drops off sooner: the Senior Freeze.
Illinois law keeps the seller's homeowner and senior exemptions in place for the rest of the year of the sale, and the county record bears that out. Of Cook County homes sold once between March and October 2023 that had these exemptions in 2022, 97.7% kept the homeowner exemption on the 2023 bill and 95.9% kept the senior exemption.
The freeze is different, because it has to be filed every year. Of the 1,746 freeze homes sold in that period, only 366 (21.0%) had the freeze on the 2023 bill. Among homes that did not sell, 76.2% kept it from 2022 to 2023.
So on a home with a freeze, the bill the buyer pays the year after closing is often already missing it, even though the closing credit was usually estimated from a bill that had it. Point out the freeze line to the buyer and the attorneys before closing.
Where to get the numbers
- The seller's most recent second-installment bill lists each exemption and the tax rate.
- The Assessor's PIN page shows the exemption history.
- The listing's tax figure tells you the total, not the parts.
A paragraph you can send a buyer
"The tax figure on this listing reflects the current owner's exemptions. Some of those are personal to the seller and won't carry over to you. If you'll live here, you can apply for the homeowner exemption in your own name. Here's a rough estimate of the difference, based on the county's record and the local rate. It's an estimate, not tax advice."
Fair-housing note
You are describing the property's record and the county's rules. Do not ask a buyer's age, disability or veteran status to "qualify" them. Give every buyer the same facts and let them apply them.
Where Censum House fits
Censum House's Buyer Advantage shows the bill a buyer inherits after the seller's exemptions drop, itemized at the property's rate, under your brokerage's brand. The Exemption Drop-off Radar flags homes whose exemptions will not transfer, and Buyer Compare puts up to three homes side by side. Figures are record-backed estimates, not tax advice.
The numbers behind this article
Counts and the median are Censum's tabulation of PIN-level exemption amounts, tax years 2023 and 2024, in PTAXSIM, the Cook County Assessor's Office research database built from Clerk and Treasurer records. They count parcels. The Assessor describes PTAXSIM results as not official. Sale-year figures match those records to the county's Parcel Sales data: homes sold once, as single-parcel sales, between March and October 2023, with no other sale recorded from 2022 through 2024 (37,751 parcels). "Kept" means the exemption appears on the 2023 record for a parcel that had it in 2022.
FAQ
Does the homeowner exemption transfer to the buyer?
No. The buyer must apply. Once granted, it renews automatically each year.
When can the buyer apply?
For each tax year in which they occupied the home as a principal residence on January 1, once the Assessor opens that year's filing season.
Do the seller's exemptions stay on for the year of the sale?
The homeowner and senior exemptions do: Illinois law keeps them in place for the rest of the sale year. The Senior Freeze has to be filed every year, and only 21.0% of freeze homes sold between March and October 2023 had it on the 2023 bill.
How big is a typical Senior Freeze?
On the tax year 2024 record, the median was $25,839 of EAV, with a quarter under $14,178 and a quarter over $39,075. Read the actual amount on the seller's bill.
Can the buyer recover the seller's missed exemptions?
No. Missed prior-year exemptions belong to the owner who was eligible in that year.
Is this tax advice?
No. It is an estimate built from public records. The county determines exemptions, and the buyer's attorney or lender can confirm prorations and escrow.
Sources
- Cook County Assessor, Homeowner Exemption
- Cook County Assessor, Senior Exemption
- Cook County Assessor, Senior Freeze Exemption
- Cook County Assessor, Property Tax Exemptions
- Illinois Property Tax Code, 35 ILCS 200/15-175 (general homestead exemption; subsection (i-5) on the year of sale)
- Illinois Property Tax Code, 35 ILCS 200/15-170 (senior citizens homestead exemption)
- Censum tabulation of PIN-level exemption amounts, tax years 2022-2024, from PTAXSIM (Cook County Assessor's Office, built from Clerk and Treasurer records), run November 7 and 8, 2026; parcel counts.
- Cook County Assessor, Parcel Sales dataset (Cook County open data), accessed November 8, 2026.
Sources accessed November 7 and 8, 2026.
Next step
Put the buyer's estimated bill, not the seller's, in front of your next client. See Buyer Advantage in Censum House
Censum LLC is a data and analytics company, not a law firm and not a tax advisor. Censum is independent and is not affiliated with Cook County or any government agency.