Champaign County tax bills, the October 30 tax sale and four-district reassessments
Champaign County mailed its real estate tax bills by May 1. The first installment is due June 3 and the second on September 3, and late payments start picking up interest. Township assessors value your home at one-third of market value, and for tax year 2025 the state issued the county a multiplier of 1, so nothing gets added on top. In the county's 2025 rate book, a sample City of Champaign code totals 7.7472 per $100 of assessed value, a sample Urbana code totals 9.2238, and codes countywide run from 5.0342 to 10.1127. For a home worth about the county median with the $6,000 general homestead exemption, that works out to roughly $5,900 a year in that Champaign code and roughly $7,000 in that Urbana code.
If taxes stay unpaid, the county sends delinquent notices and publishes owners' names, and anything still unpaid is offered at the annual tax sale on October 30 at 9:00 AM. The sale sells a lien on the unpaid taxes, not the house. For a home sold at the 2026 sale, the redemption period is generally 3 years under state law (35 ILCS 200/21-350, as changed by P.A. 104-553), and after that the tax buyer can petition the court for the deed. So an unpaid tax bill is worth clearing, or selling ahead of, well before that clock runs out.
Reassessment rotates through four districts. City of Champaign Township is next in 2027. Appeals run July 1 to September 10. Exemptions include $6,000 for an owner-occupied home and $5,000 more for owners 65 and up.
Foreclosure mediation at the Urbana courthouse
Every Illinois mortgage foreclosure goes through court. Champaign County cases are heard at the courthouse at 101 East Main Street in Urbana, in the Sixth Judicial Circuit. Under Administrative Order 2022-6, the county has run a mandatory mediation program for owner-occupied primary residences, effective October 1, 2022. The Dispute Resolution Institute, a nonprofit, coordinates it, and your summons has to set the first mediation date at least 30 days after it's issued. No default judgment can be entered until mediation is done, but if you skip mediation, a default can be allowed. So show up.
The state clock runs alongside mediation. Your right to redeem lasts until the later of 7 months from service or 3 months from the judgment, and it ends before the sale. After the sale, the court holds a confirmation hearing. The Illinois foreclosure timeline and the deadline calculator lay out reinstatement, confirmation and possession step by step.
Champaign, Urbana, Rantoul and the villages in between
Champaign County had 205,865 residents in the 2020 Census. Champaign, the largest city at 88,302 people, and Urbana, the county seat at 38,336, are the county's only two cities, and together they nearly surround the University of Illinois campus. The rest of the county is villages and farm townships, including Savoy, Mahomet, Rantoul, St. Joseph, Tolono, Fisher, Thomasboro, Gifford and Bondville.
Where you live changes your tax bill a lot, because the highest-rate code is about twice the lowest. Redfin counted 199 sales in May 2026 at a median of $246,500, down 5.2 percent from a year earlier. Homes took a median 44 days to sell and closed at about 99 percent of list.
What a $246,500 Champaign County sale leaves you
Here's a rough look at the costs on a traditional listing at the county's May 2026 median:
- Agent commission at about 4.9 percent (Clever's Illinois average, updated September 2026): roughly $12,100
- Closing costs at about 1.2 percent: roughly $3,000
- State transfer tax at $0.50 per $500: about $250
- County transfer tax at $0.25 per $500: about $120
That's roughly $15,500 before your mortgage payoff, repairs or moving costs. If a buyer takes the property subject to your existing mortgage, the unpaid balance is left out of the county transfer tax math. Who pays the stamps is negotiable, but the seller usually does. If the property is a fit, a cash buyer may make an offer and you pick the closing date. Listing with an agent is also a fine choice. The pages on selling before a foreclosure sale and selling an inherited house cover those situations.
Champaign and the nearby county pages
Here's the city page for Champaign County, then the neighboring counties in the same region.
- Champaign: largest city, 88,302 residents, beside the University of Illinois campus
- Piatt County: shares the Sixth Judicial Circuit with Champaign County
- Ford County: county seat Paxton; tax sale held at the end of each year
- All Illinois pages: the statewide directory of county and city pages
Sources: Champaign County Treasurer FAQ; Champaign County Treasurer tax sale; Champaign County 2025 rate book; Champaign County Assessment Office exemptions; Champaign County Assessment Office taxpayer resources; Champaign County Administrative Order 2022-6; 735 ILCS 5/15-1603; Wikipedia, Champaign County, Illinois; Redfin Data Center; Clever commission survey; Clever, Illinois transfer taxes; 55 ILCS 5/5-1031, county transfer tax
