Midlothian, IL Streaming Tax: Rate, Coverage, and Billing

The Midlothian, IL streaming tax is a 5% village tax on paid video streaming, audio streaming, and online gaming subscriptions used by residents inside village boundaries. It took effect on July 1, 2024, and shows up as a line item on your subscription bill, collected by the streaming company rather than paid directly to the village.¹

Which Subscriptions Are Taxed

The ordinance defines a streaming service broadly. It covers paid television programming delivered by cable, fiber optics, satellite, or similar technology, along with video streaming, audio streaming, and remotely accessed online games sold on a rental or subscription basis.¹

In practice, that catches your monthly movie and TV streaming plan, a music streaming subscription, a podcast platform with a paid tier, and any online gaming service billed on a recurring basis. The ordinance does not list explicit carve-outs for educational content, digital books, newspapers, or nonprofit services. If a platform fits the streaming definition and charges a fee, it is likely within the tax.

How Much the 5% Actually Costs

The rate is 5% of all charges paid for the service. The “charges paid” figure is the gross amount you spend to access the service, including the base subscription price and any service fees, convenience fees, or cancellation fees the provider adds. The only amounts stripped out before the 5% is calculated are the streaming tax itself and any other taxes or surcharges on the bill.¹

On a $15 monthly video plan, that’s $0.75 a month, or $9.00 a year. A household running a $15 video subscription, an $11 music plan, and a $10 online gaming subscription pays about $1.80 a month in streaming tax across the three. The percentage applies no matter how often you’re billed. An annual plan is taxed at 5% of whatever you pay at renewal, the same as a monthly plan is taxed at 5% of each monthly charge.

What Isn’t Taxed

Digital content you buy outright for permanent use is not covered. Purchasing a movie, album, or game to keep sits outside the tax because the ordinance targets the rental and subscription model, not one-time ownership purchases. Buying a digital copy of a film from an online store is treated differently from paying a monthly fee to stream from a library.¹

How Providers Know You’re in Midlothian

The tax applies when a streaming service is delivered to someone whose “primary place of use” is inside village limits. The ordinance ties the obligation to where the subscriber actually lives, not to the location of the streaming company.¹

Providers rely on the billing or service address you give them at sign-up. If that address is in Midlothian, the 5% applies to your account. Watching from your phone on a trip out of town doesn’t change the result, because your account is still tied to a Midlothian address.

Who Bills and Collects It

You don’t file or remit anything yourself. The streaming provider is legally responsible for collecting the 5% at the same time it collects your subscription charge and sending it to the village. The ordinance makes the “owner or operator” of each streaming service jointly and severally liable for collection, a category written broadly enough to cover the original service, resellers, cable and wireless television system operators, and third-party platforms that process access to streaming content.¹

On your end, that means the only visible change is the extra line on your bill. If a provider isn’t charging the tax on a subscription that fits the definition, the collection duty still sits with the provider, not with you.

Other Charges You May See on the Same Bill

Cook County imposes its own amusement tax, which has historically applied to some forms of digital entertainment. The county tax and the village streaming tax are separate obligations. Depending on how the county ordinance treats a particular service, a Midlothian subscriber may see both charges on a single bill.¹

1
American Legal Publishing. Village Code of Midlothian, Illinois – 5-2-10 Streaming Services