Oak Brook's Village Tax Line Is Zero. Your School District Sets the Rest of the Bill.

What tax code is the house in? Most people comparing Oak Brook with Hinsdale or Downers Grove never ask, because they've already heard that Oak Brook has no property tax. That's half right. On the DuPage County Clerk's 2025 rate tables, which set the bills homeowners paid in 2026, the Village of Oak Brook's rate is 0.0000. Every Oak Brook bill carries that same zero, so it does nothing to separate one house from another.

What does separate them is the school-district combination tied to each parcel. Within Oak Brook's limits, 2025 composite rates run from about 3.57 to about 5.38 per $100 of equalized assessed value. Two houses in the same village with the same assessed value can carry tax bills roughly 50% apart.

Seven Oak Brook Tax Codes, One Zero

These figures come straight from the DuPage County Clerk's 2025 Tax Rate Booklet, and every rate is per $100 of equalized assessed value. The last column shows the 2025 tax on each $100,000 of equalized assessed value, which is simply the composite rate applied to that amount.

From code 6143 at the bottom to code 6300 at the top, the difference is about $1,787 a year for every $100,000 of equalized assessed value. That's real money on a seven-figure Oak Brook home, and the house itself has nothing to do with it. Some codes add small lines of their own, too. Code 6077, for example, includes the Downers Grove Sanitary District at 0.0378.

What Fills the Bill When the Village Line Is Blank

Take code 6143, the District 53 and District 86 combination, line by line. For 2025, DuPage County is 0.1265, the Forest Preserve District 0.1229, the DuPage Airport Authority 0.0113, York Township 0.0430, York Township Mental Health 0.0165, York Township Road 0.0435, the Oak Brook Park District 0.2942, Grade School District 53 1.2055, High School District 86 1.5616, and College of DuPage 0.1687.

The two school lines add up to 2.7671 of the 3.5937 total, a little over three quarters of the bill. The county, forest preserve and township lines are close to identical across Oak Brook's codes. The swing comes almost entirely from school districts. District 181 alone is 2.3541, and Unit District 205 is 4.1767.

The Oak Brook Park District is also on every Oak Brook code in the table at the same 0.2942, so "no property tax" was never literally true. The village doesn't levy one. Other bodies do.

The Zero Holds Only as Long as the Shoppers Do

The village line is blank because of where Oak Brook's money comes from. The Village of Oak Brook's 2026 Budget in Brief says sales tax generated by village businesses "allows the Village to operate without a real estate tax levy." Of the 7.50% sales tax charged in the village, Oak Brook keeps 1.50%. One percent goes to the General Fund, which covers public safety, public works, the library, development services and administration. The other half percent, the non-home-rule portion, goes to the Infrastructure Fund for roads.

The 2026 budget projects $18.5 million in general sales tax and $8.595 million in non-home-rule sales tax, about $27.1 million out of $72.0 million in total budgeted revenue across all funds. Nearly half of the $18.5 million comes from Oakbrook Center. The village's ten largest sales-tax generators in 2025 were Apple, Carvana, CD Peacock, Costco, Louis Vuitton, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Restoration Hardware and Room & Board, and they accounted for nearly 38% of total sales-tax revenue.

For a homeowner, the meaning is concrete. Police, roads and the library that a Hinsdale or Downers Grove bill pays for directly are paid for in Oak Brook at the registers in a few dozen stores. The budget also cites the Costco renovation, the construction of an Amazon retail store, and prospective improvements at Oak Brook Commons and Oakbrook Center as reasons it expected a slight increase in revenue this year. We covered how the mall has turned into the village's everyday gathering place in our look at Oakbrook Center as Oak Brook's downtown. The tax tables show the same mall from the treasurer's side.

Through August, the Registers Ran Well Ahead of Budget

The most recent figures in the village's own reporting are strong. The August 2026 Monthly Financial Report, included in the Village Board's October 13 packet, shows $16,079,383 in sales tax collected from January 1 through August 31, 2026. That's 130.4% of the year-to-date budget and $2,141,528 more than at the same point in 2025. Eight months in, the village had already collected about 87% of its full-year $18.5 million projection. Non-home-rule sales tax for the same period was $7,087,752, which is 123.7% of the year-to-date budget and up $1,056,170 from 2025.

The mall's owner is also lining up long-term money. ICSC reported on September 25 that Brookfield's GGP had arranged an $800 million refinancing for Oakbrook Center, replacing a prior $700 million loan.

The 2027 budget is next. A Village Board special meeting is on the calendar for Thursday, November 5, for a 2027 budget workshop covering the Hotel/Motel, Water, Capital Improvement/Infrastructure and Sports Core funds. Illinois villages typically adopt their tax levies in December, and Oak Brook's 2026 levy decision is still ahead.

What the Zero Buys You Against Hinsdale

The comparison most buyers make is with Hinsdale, and the tax tables make it more precise. Hinsdale code 6091, which pairs District 181 with District 86, carries a 2025 composite rate of 4.9725. That includes 0.3685 for the Village of Hinsdale and 0.1559 for the Hinsdale library, 0.5244 of municipal lines in all, and no separate park district line.

Oak Brook code 6108 has the same two school districts at the same rates and comes in at 4.7423. The gap is 0.2302, or about $230 per $100,000 of equalized assessed value. It's that small because the Oak Brook Park District's 0.2942 takes back more than half of what the zero village line saves. With the school districts held equal, Oak Brook's tax edge over Hinsdale is real but modest.

Compared with Downers Grove, the edge is bigger. The Village of Downers Grove's 2025 municipal rate is 0.5039, and its code 6123 has a composite rate of 5.6898. Even so, an Oak Brook house in code 6300 at 5.3808 sits closer to that Downers Grove figure than to Oak Brook's own District 53 codes.

Where a Specific House Lands

The tax code comes from the parcel, not the street name or the mailing address. The Clerk publishes each year's rates on the DuPage County property tax reports page, and 2025, payable in 2026, is the newest year posted. Lining up a home's tax code with the booklet shows which school, park, fire and sanitary lines apply before anyone starts comparing list prices.

School lines can also change after a sale. Butler School District 53 held a public hearing on October 5 on a proposal to sell up to $5 million in school fire-prevention and safety bonds, and the board is expected to consider the sale on November 9. Rates are set every year, and the 2025 figures above are a snapshot, not a guarantee.

This post is general information, not tax, legal or financial advice. Confirm how assessments, exemptions and rates apply to a particular property with the county or a qualified tax professional. For other line items buyers tend to underestimate, see our rundown of unexpected costs of buying a home in Oak Brook.

Quick Answers

Does Oak Brook charge a village property tax? No. The Village of Oak Brook's 2025 rate is 0.0000, and its 2026 budget says sales tax allows the village to operate without a real estate tax levy.

Is every Oak Brook home in District 53? No. The 2025 booklet lists Oak Brook tax codes in Grade School Districts 53, 48, 58 and 181, Unit District 205, and High School Districts 86, 88 and 99.

Does Oak Brook have its own library tax line? No. On code 6143 there is no separate library district, and the village budget funds the library through the General Fund.

If you're weighing two Oak Brook homes, or an Oak Brook home against one in Hinsdale, we can pull the tax code for each address and set the bills side by side before you make an offer. If you already own in Oak Brook, the same comparison shows what a buyer will see when your house hits the market. Jeff/Amjad Salhani is happy to walk you through it. Let's connect, and get your free home valuation.