An hourly paycheck in Illinois is subject to a flat state income tax of 4.95%. That single rate makes Illinois paycheck math unusually easy to do in your head compared with states running a dozen brackets.
Whether you work in Chicago, the collar counties, or downstate, the conversion that actually helps is the one from an hourly rate to a monthly take-home number you can budget against. Illinois combines dense urban employment with agricultural and industrial regions, and wages vary a lot across them even though the tax rate doesn't.
This guide covers how the deductions stack up, what Illinois requires beyond the paycheck itself, and how overtime and pay frequency change the arithmetic.
Illinois Minimum Wage and Pay Benchmarks
Illinois finished a six-year phase-in on January 1, 2025, landing the statewide minimum wage at $15.00 per hour. Unlike California's, it isn't automatically indexed to inflation, so it holds at $15.00 until the legislature changes it again. Chicago sets its own higher minimum and adjusts it every July 1.
Tipped work is a separate case. Illinois still allows a lower cash wage for tipped employees as long as tips bring the total to at least the full minimum. Chicago is phasing that credit out under its One Fair Wage ordinance, raising the tipped cash wage in annual steps until it matches the standard minimum, so a Chicago server's base rate is on a schedule that a downstate server's isn't.
| Region / Tier | Hourly Wage | Weekly Gross (40 hrs) | Annual Gross (52 wks) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois Statewide Minimum | $15.00 / hr | $600.00 | $31,200 / yr |
| Chicago Minimum (as of July 2025) | $16.60 / hr | $664.00 | $34,528 / yr |
| Experienced Skilled Trade | $28.00 / hr | $1,120.00 | $58,240 / yr |
| Illinois Average Hourly Wage | $34.20 / hr | $1,368.00 | $71,136 / yr |
Illinois Flat Tax and What Comes Out of Each Check
Predictability is the real advantage here. Illinois taxes individual income at a flat 4.95%, and no Illinois municipality levies its own income tax, Chicago included. That's genuinely unusual. If you've worked in New York City, Philadelphia, or St. Louis, you've had a local income tax withheld that has no Illinois equivalent.
Illinois also doesn't tax distributions from qualified retirement plans, which barely affects your paycheck today and matters a great deal to your retirement planning.
Here's how deductions stack up for a single filer taking the standard deduction with no pre-tax contributions:
| Gross Annual Salary | Federal Tax | Illinois Tax (4.95%) | FICA (7.65%) | Net Annual Take-Home | Monthly Take-Home |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $35,000 | $2,450 | $1,732 | $2,678 | $28,140 | $2,345 |
| $50,000 | $4,220 | $2,475 | $3,825 | $39,480 | $3,290 |
| $70,000 (Avg range) | $7,420 | $3,465 | $5,355 | $53,760 | $4,480 |
| $100,000 | $13,500 | $4,950 | $7,650 | $73,900 | $6,158 |
Two things that table leaves out. The Illinois personal exemption reduces your state taxable income, so your actual state tax runs slightly under a flat 4.95% of gross. And any pre-tax deduction, whether health premiums or traditional 401(k) contributions, lowers both federal and Illinois taxable income. That's why two people with identical gross pay can take home noticeably different amounts.
Overtime Calculations in Illinois
Illinois follows the federal Fair Labor Standards Act: 1.5 times your regular rate for hours past 40 in a workweek, with no daily overtime trigger. Four 10-hour days pay exactly the same as five 8-hour days here, which is not true in California.
At a $20.00 base rate working 48 hours:
- Regular pay: 40 hours x $20.00 = $800.00
- Overtime pay: 8 hours x $30.00 = $240.00
- Gross weekly pay: $1,040.00
Eight overtime hours every week takes annual gross from $41,600 to $54,080, an extra $12,480 before taxes. One catch is worth knowing: the "regular rate" that overtime is built on isn't always just your hourly wage. Non-discretionary bonuses and shift differentials generally have to be folded in, which pushes the overtime rate above a simple 1.5 times your base.
Meal Breaks and the One Day Rest in Seven Act
Illinois requires a 20-minute meal break for any shift of 7.5 hours or longer, given no later than 5 hours into the shift, plus an additional 20 minutes for each further 7.5-hour block. The One Day Rest in Seven Act entitles most employees to 24 consecutive hours of rest in every consecutive seven-day period, and a 2023 amendment closed a loophole that had let employers count that rest across calendar weeks instead.
These are scheduling rules rather than pay rules, so unlike California there's no automatic premium payment when a break gets skipped. Complaints go to the Illinois Department of Labor.
Paid Leave for All Workers
Since January 1, 2024, Illinois employers have had to provide paid leave that accrues at one hour for every 40 hours worked, up to at least 40 hours per year, usable for any reason at all. You don't have to say why you're taking it.
For an hourly worker that's a real piece of compensation. At $28.00 per hour, 40 hours of paid leave is $1,120, which adds roughly $0.54 to the value of every hour you work across a full year. Chicago and Cook County have their own ordinances that go further than the state minimum, so check which one covers your worksite.
Illinois Secure Choice and the Deduction You Didn't Sign Up For
This one catches people reading their first Illinois pay stub. Employers with five or more employees, in business at least two years, who don't offer their own retirement plan are required to enroll workers in Illinois Secure Choice, a state-facilitated Roth IRA.
Enrollment is automatic at a default contribution rate of 5% of gross pay. The money is yours immediately because it's an IRA in your name rather than an employer plan, and you can opt out, change the rate, or change the investments whenever you like. Do nothing and 5% comes out.
On a $58,240 salary that default is about $2,912 a year, or $112 per biweekly check. It's Roth money, taken after tax, so it doesn't reduce your taxable income the way a traditional 401(k) contribution would. That's a decision worth making deliberately rather than by inertia.
Converting an Illinois Hourly Rate into an Annual Figure
Pay frequency changes the size of each check without changing your annual pay, and Illinois requires most employees to be paid at least semi-monthly. Executive, administrative, and professional employees can be paid monthly.
When you're comparing an hourly offer against a salaried one, get both onto the same basis first. A $34.00 hourly rate is $70,720 a year at 2,080 hours, and our $34 an hour to salary page breaks that down by pay period. Then check whether the salaried role is exempt, because if it is, hour 41 is unpaid.
Final Pay and Unused Vacation in Illinois
Two Illinois rules are worth knowing before you ever need them.
Under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, final compensation is due at the time of separation if possible, and no later than the next regularly scheduled payday. That applies whether you quit or were let go.
Earned but unused vacation counts as final compensation in Illinois and has to be paid out. Employers may cap how much vacation you accrue and may require notice before you use it, but they can't retroactively erase time you already earned. A "use it or lose it" policy on already-accrued vacation doesn't hold up here.
If you're paid hourly with variable hours, both rules give you a reason to keep your own record of hours worked and vacation accrued. Your final check is calculated from your employer's numbers, and yours is the only independent copy.
Practical Steps to Verify Your Illinois Paycheck
Confirm state withholding lines up with 4.95% after your personal exemption, and that any Secure Choice deduction reflects the rate you actually chose rather than the 5% default. If your employer operates inside Chicago city limits, check that your base rate meets the city minimum rather than the state floor. And if your hours vary week to week, keep your own log, because reconstructing a disputed schedule from memory never goes well.