Illinois Sales Tax on Groceries: Rates, Exemptions, and Link Card

The Illinois sales tax on groceries dropped to zero at the state level on January 1, 2026. Qualifying food you take home from the store is exempt from the 6.25% state sales tax, but your city or county can impose its own 1% local grocery tax by ordinance, and several categories you’ll find in grocery aisles — soft drinks, candy, alcohol, and anything prepared for immediate eating — are still taxed at the full 6.25%.¹

What Counts as a Tax-Free Grocery

The exemption covers food for human consumption that will be eaten off the premises where it is sold: produce, meat, dairy, bread, canned goods, frozen meals, and similar staples.² It applies to both sales tax and use tax, so groceries ordered from an out-of-state retailer and shipped to an Illinois address also qualify.¹

Bottled water qualifies as long as it contains no sweeteners. Plain sparkling water and unsweetened flavored water are both exempt. Add any natural or artificial sweetener and the bottle becomes a soft drink, taxed at 6.25%.³

The 1% Local Grocery Tax

The same legislation that ended the state grocery tax gave Illinois municipalities and counties authority to impose their own 1% grocery tax. Both home rule and non-home rule governments can enact it by ordinance, without a referendum. The rate is fixed at exactly 1%; a local government either imposes it or doesn’t.¹

If your town opted in, your receipt looks the same as before — 1% on qualifying groceries — but the money now goes to the local government rather than Springfield. If no local ordinance was passed, qualifying groceries carry no sales tax at all. The Illinois Department of Revenue publishes the list of local governments that have adopted the tax.⁴

The usual home rule and non-home rule sales taxes don’t reach groceries; their bases already excluded qualifying food, so the new grocery tax ordinance is the only way a city or county can tax your groceries.⁵ One wrinkle: in the Chicago area and parts of southern Illinois, transit district taxes from the Regional Transportation Authority and the Metro East Mass Transit District may still apply. The Tax Rate Finder at mytax.illinois.gov will show the full rate for a given address.

For online grocery orders delivered to your home, the local grocery tax follows the delivery address, not the store’s location.¹

Prepared Food Is Taxed at 6.25%

The most common surprise at the register is prepared food. If the store cooked, heated, or assembled the item so you can eat it right away, you pay the full 6.25% rate rather than the grocery rate.

These items are always treated as prepared food:⁶

Any hot food. That includes rotisserie chicken, soup from a hot bar, pizza by the slice, and coffee from the store’s brewing station. “Hot” means above room temperature.
Sandwiches made to order at a deli counter, hot or cold.
Self-serve salad bars and sushi bars.
Prepared drinks like cappuccinos or teas made by the retailer for one customer.
Anything eaten in the store’s seating area.

Plenty of deli and bakery items still qualify for the grocery exemption. Pre-made sandwiches in a refrigerated case, bakery cookies and doughnuts packaged for take-out, cheese and fruit trays, cold salads sold by weight, and whole cakes or pies all count as groceries even though the store prepared them.⁶ The question is whether the retailer made the food ready to eat immediately or packaged it for later.

Soft Drinks, Candy, Alcohol, and Cannabis Food

Several grocery-aisle categories are specifically excluded from the exemption and taxed at 6.25%.⁷

Soft Drinks

A soft drink is any non-alcoholic beverage with natural or artificial sweeteners. That covers soda, energy drinks, sweetened teas, and sweetened flavored waters. It also covers juice blends that are 50% or less real fruit or vegetable juice by volume. Drinks that contain milk or milk substitutes, unsweetened coffee or tea, and beverages with more than 50% real juice are not soft drinks and qualify for the grocery exemption.⁸ A juice blend at 51% real juice is a grocery; the same brand at 49% is a soft drink.

Candy

Illinois defines candy as a preparation of sugar, honey, or other sweeteners combined with chocolate, fruits, nuts, or other ingredients in the form of bars, drops, or pieces. If the product contains flour as a listed ingredient, it is not candy for tax purposes.⁶ A plain chocolate bar is taxed at 6.25%, but a chocolate-covered wafer whose recipe lists flour qualifies for the grocery exemption. Any flour counts — wheat, rice, or anything else. Products that require refrigeration are also outside the candy definition. A bag of trail mix that lists flour anywhere in the ingredients is treated as a non-candy grocery item.

Alcohol and Cannabis-Infused Food

Beer, wine, spirits, and food products infused with adult-use cannabis are permanently excluded from the grocery exemption and taxed at the general merchandise rate.⁹

Vitamins and Dietary Supplements

Vitamins, protein powders, weight-loss products, and similar supplements qualify as groceries only if the label makes no medicinal claims. A protein powder that simply shows nutritional facts is exempt. The moment a label says the product cures, treats, or relieves a disease, condition, or pain, it becomes a drug or medicine and is taxed at the 1% state rate that still applies to non-prescription medicines.³ The label is the test, not the ingredients. Two nearly identical supplements can be taxed differently because one claims to relieve joint pain and the other doesn’t.

Hygiene Products Are Not Groceries

Soap, shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash, antiperspirant, and sunscreen are grooming and hygiene products, not food. They are taxed at the full 6.25% rate and don’t qualify for the grocery exemption or the 1% medicine rate, even when the label makes health claims.¹⁰

Menstrual pads, tampons, and menstrual cups are the exception. They are exempt from the retailers’ occupation tax through December 31, 2026. Other feminine hygiene products — wipes, washes, and powders — don’t share that exemption and are taxed at 6.25%.¹⁰

Purchases Made With a Link Card

Federal law bars states from charging sales tax on food bought with SNAP benefits, delivered through the Link card in Illinois. The rule applies regardless of whether the item would otherwise be taxable, so a bottle of soda bought with Link is tax-free even though the same soda bought with cash is taxed at 6.25%. The protection covers state, local, and transit district taxes alike. Point-of-sale systems are set up to separate SNAP-eligible items automatically, but if you split a purchase between Link and cash it’s worth checking that the tax applies only to the cash portion.

1
Illinois Department of Revenue. Illinois Grocery Tax Changes Effective January 1, 2026
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Illinois Department of Revenue. Tax Rate Information for Retail Sales of Food and Medicine
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Illinois Department of Revenue. Tax Rate Information for Retail Sales of Food and Medicine
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Illinois Department of Revenue. Local Governments Imposing Local Grocery Taxes
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Illinois Department of Revenue. Home Rule and Non-home Rule Sales Taxes
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Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Administrative Code Title 86 Section 130.310 – Food, Soft Drinks and Candy
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Illinois Department of Revenue. What Are the Retailers Occupation and Use Tax Rates in Illinois
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Illinois Department of Revenue. Form ST-14 Instructions
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Illinois General Assembly. 35 ILCS 120/2-10 – Rate of Tax
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Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Administrative Code Title 86 Section 130.311 – Drugs, Medicines, Medical Appliances, and Grooming and Hygiene Products