Peoria apartment property taxes are set in three steps: the City of Peoria Township assessor estimates each building’s fair cash value, the assessment is fixed at one-third of that value, and the combined rates of every local taxing body are applied to the equalized result a year later. For an apartment owner, the practical questions are when the value can change, how to challenge it with income data, and when the two bills come due.
This guide walks through each step as it applies to rental buildings in Peoria, using Illinois statutes and the rules Peoria County publishes for the current cycle. It also covers the costs that sit next to the tax bill, such as the city’s annual rental registration, and the places where owners most often leave money on the table.
Peoria’s rental housing stock in context
Peoria is the largest city in Peoria County and the seat of county government. The U.S. Census Bureau’s QuickFacts profile for Peoria puts the city’s July 1, 2025 population estimate at 110,920, with 49,037 households in the 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey period. Over that same period the owner-occupied housing rate was 57.5%, which means roughly 42% of occupied homes in the city are rented.
The same survey reports a median gross rent of $1,005 and a median household income of $59,410 (in 2024 dollars). Those two numbers matter for property taxes more than they might seem to. Because Illinois taxes are a share of value, and apartment value tracks net income, a building’s tax bill in Peoria is effectively a claim on the rent roll. In a market where rents sit near $1,000 a month, a few hundred dollars per unit per year in taxes is usually one of the largest single expense lines an owner carries.
The one-third rule behind every Peoria assessment
Illinois law sets the assessment level outside Cook County at a fixed fraction of market value. Section 9-145 of the Illinois Property Tax Code provides that each tract or lot “shall be valued at 33 1/3% of its fair cash value.” Peoria County’s assessment notices restate this plainly: all property in the county other than farmland and coal is assessed at 33.33% of fair market value.
So if the assessor concludes a 24-unit building is worth $1.8 million, the target assessed value is about $600,000. That assessed value, not the market value, is what the tax rate is multiplied against, after equalization.
Who actually sets the number
Peoria County uses the township form of government, and the Illinois Department of Revenue’s property tax cycle publication explains that in counties like this, “township or multi-township assessors have primary assessment responsibility.” For buildings inside the city limits, that office is the City of Peoria Township Assessor. The county’s Supervisor of Assessments reviews the township’s work, can apply factors to bring a township’s values in line, and publishes the changes.
This two-level structure is useful to know. A conversation about a specific building’s value usually starts with the township assessor’s office, while factors applied across a whole township, and the appeal process, run through the county.
The quadrennial reassessment and what 2027 means
Illinois counties outside Cook reassess on a four-year cycle. Section 9-215 of the Property Tax Code sets the general assessment years as 1995 “and every fourth year thereafter.” Counting forward, that made 2023 the most recent general reassessment in Peoria County, and it makes 2027 the next one.
In a general reassessment year, the assessor revisits every parcel. In the years between, values generally carry forward unless the property changed (new construction, demolition, a major renovation) or a township-wide factor is applied. For apartment owners, this has two consequences:
- A building bought in 2025 or 2026 at a price well above its assessed value may not see its assessment fully catch up until the 2027 reassessment, which is taxed in 2028.
- Major capital work, such as adding units or converting a commercial floor to apartments, can trigger a reassessment of the improvement before 2027.
- Factors can still move values in off years, as the 2026 notice below shows.
The gap between a recent purchase price and a carried-forward assessment is one of the most common surprises for new owners. Sale prices are public records, and assessors use them as evidence of market value when the next general reassessment arrives. A buyer underwriting a Peoria building should model taxes on the assumption that the assessment will move toward one-third of the price paid, rather than relying on the seller’s current bill to hold.
The 2026 City of Peoria Township factor
For the 2026 assessment year, which produces bills paid in 2027, the Supervisor of Assessments applied a factor of 1.0700 to City of Peoria Township, according to the county’s published township notice. That factor applied across property classes, including residential and commercial. In plain terms, a parcel’s assessed value was multiplied by 1.07, a 7% increase, unless the owner’s individual assessment was changed separately.
Owners who budget by copying last year’s tax bill forward will miss this. A building that paid $30,000 in 2026 does not necessarily pay $32,100 in 2027, because rates may also move, but the starting assessed value is 7% higher.
Equalization and the rate stack on a Peoria tax bill
After local assessments are finalized, the Illinois Department of Revenue compares each county’s assessments to actual sales and issues a state equalization factor, often called the multiplier, to bring the county to the one-third level. For the 2024 assessment year, the department’s tentative multiplier for Peoria County was 1.0000, meaning the county’s assessments were already at the statutory level and no upward adjustment was proposed.
The equalized assessed value is then multiplied by the combined rate of every taxing district where the building sits. In Peoria that typically includes the city, the school district, the park district, the county, the community college district and other special districts. The county’s FY2026 budget summary shows how the money is divided: of every property tax dollar collected within Peoria County for the 2024 tax year, 60.4 cents went to school districts, 14.6 cents to cities and villages, 12.5 cents to special districts and 9.3 cents to the county.
That breakdown explains why city budget debates rarely move an apartment tax bill on their own. The largest share of any Peoria parcel’s bill is driven by school levies, and changes there tend to dominate year-over-year movement in the total rate.
A worked example
To see how the pieces connect, take a hypothetical 12-unit building the assessor values at $900,000:
- Assessed value at one-third of fair cash value: $300,000.
- After a 1.0000 state multiplier, equalized assessed value stays at $300,000.
- No owner-occupied exemption applies because the units are rented.
- If the combined rate for that tax code were 10% of equalized value, the annual bill would be about $30,000, or $2,500 per unit.
The 10% rate here is only an illustration; the real rate depends on the building’s tax code and changes every year. Owners can find the actual rate on their own bill from the Peoria County Treasurer and should use that figure in any budget. Two buildings a few blocks apart can sit in different tax codes, for example on either side of a school or park district boundary, so a rate borrowed from a neighboring property is not a reliable substitute.
Peoria apartment property taxes and the income approach
The Illinois Department of Revenue lists three ways to estimate value: sales comparison, cost, and income. For income-producing property, the income approach calculates “the present worth of the income” the property can generate. In practice, apartment value is estimated by taking a stabilized net operating income and dividing it by a market capitalization rate.
This is where owners have the most leverage. An assessor working without your numbers will rely on market rents, typical vacancy and typical expenses. If your building has older systems, higher than average turnover or rents that are capped by a regulatory agreement, the assessor’s model may overstate what it can earn. A clean trailing twelve-month operating statement and a current rent roll are the foundation of any value discussion. Dividing the assessor’s implied value by a local cap rate, and comparing the income that result requires with what your building actually produced, is a quick way to check whether an assessment is realistic.
Appealing a Peoria assessment: what the Board of Review asks for
The first level of appeal is the Peoria County Board of Review. Its 2026 rules state that appeals must be filed within 30 days after the date the township’s assessments are published. The county’s 2026 notice for City of Peoria Township listed a filing window for that township running through September 30, 2026, so owners should check the notice for their own township each year rather than assume a fixed date.
Evidence rules that matter for rental buildings
The Board’s rules are specific about income-producing property, and an apartment appeal that ignores them is likely to fail:
- Income and expense data for the property must be submitted as evidence at the time of the appeal, including leases or rent rolls.
- An income approach on its own is discouraged; the rules say it generally should not be submitted without a sales comparison approach.
- A request for a reduction based on vacancy requires an affidavit of occupancy covering the prior three years.
- The Board’s commercial appeal packet asks for the number of apartments and the apartment mix, so unit counts and bedroom breakdowns need to be accurate.
- Complaints are not accepted by fax or by electronic means, which means paper filing has to be planned around the deadline.
Going beyond the county
If the Board of Review’s decision does not resolve the issue, the next step is the state Property Tax Appeal Board. According to the PTAB’s frequently asked questions, an appeal must be filed within 30 days of the postmark date of the Board of Review’s written decision, and there is no filing fee. The PTAB also notes that corporations and LLCs must be represented by an attorney licensed in Illinois, which matters because most apartment buildings are held in an entity. Owners should line up counsel before the county decision arrives, not after.
Due dates, penalties and the tax sale calendar
Illinois property taxes are paid in arrears, so the bill you pay in 2026 is for the 2025 assessment year. Peoria County’s tax payment page lists the 2025 installments as due June 9, 2026 and September 9, 2026. The county’s property tax FAQ adds several details that affect cash planning:
- Partial payments of an installment are not accepted.
- Late installments are charged a penalty of 1.5% per month.
- Unpaid taxes go to the annual tax sale, which for 2026 was scheduled for November 9, 2026.
Because taxes lag a year, a buyer and seller of a Peoria building typically prorate the most recent bill at closing and account for the year that has accrued but not yet been billed. A 7% township factor, like the one applied for 2026, is a good example of why that proration should be based on the expected new assessment rather than the prior bill.
Exemptions that do and do not reach apartments
Most of the exemptions Peoria homeowners see on their bills do not apply to rental buildings. The general homestead exemption, which reduces assessed value by up to $6,000, requires the owner to live in the dwelling, so it does not cover rented units. An owner who lives in one unit of a small multifamily property should ask the assessor how the exemption is applied in that situation.
The more relevant program for apartment owners is the affordable housing special assessment program in Section 15-178 of the Property Tax Code. It can reduce assessments by 25% or 35% for newly built or substantially rehabilitated buildings with seven or more rental units that meet affordability requirements. The statute lets counties with fewer than 3 million residents decide not to implement one or both parts of the program, so an owner considering it should confirm with the Peoria County Supervisor of Assessments whether it is available locally before planning around it.
Costs that sit next to the tax bill
Property tax is not the only annual government charge on a Peoria rental. The city requires annual registration of residential property that is not owner-occupied. Its residential property registration page lists a fee of $75 for the first unit plus $20 for each additional unit, due by February 28. A late registration costs $150 per property, and an unregistered unit can draw a $300 citation.
For a 20-unit building, registration works out to $455 a year, which is small next to the tax bill but easy to forget during an ownership change.
Peoria has also been using tax increment financing to steer investment. In February 2026, the City Council approved two new TIF districts, one around the Northwoods Mall area and one downtown, according to local reporting by 25 News. The downtown district included a planned conversion of roughly 150 to 160 apartments. TIF does not change an existing building’s tax rate, but it does affect how new property tax revenue in the district is used, which can shape the pace of nearby redevelopment and the competition existing buildings face.
What Peoria owners can do with this information
Property taxes in Peoria are predictable once you know the calendar. A practical approach for an apartment owner:
- Mark the 2027 general reassessment now. That is the year the assessor revisits every parcel, and the year it pays to have a current operating statement ready.
- Watch for the township notice each year, including factors like the 1.0700 applied for 2026, and note the filing window it gives.
- Keep three years of occupancy records, since a vacancy-based appeal needs an affidavit covering that period.
- Budget taxes using the expected new assessed value, not last year’s bill, especially when a factor has been applied.
- Register every non-owner-occupied unit by February 28 and update the registration after any change of ownership.
For owners weighing a sale, the tax position matters to buyers because it flows straight into net operating income. Our page on selling an apartment building in Peoria covers how we look at local buildings, and our Illinois market overview compares Peoria with other cities in the state. For a broader view of how Illinois compares nationally on property tax and rent rules, see our guide to rent control and property tax by state.
