Joliet, IL Hotels & Lodging: Transient Occupancy Tax (2026)

Chapter 28, Article VII of the Code of Ordinances, the 'City of Joliet Hotel and Motel Accommodations Tax Ordinance' (§ 28-80), levies a tax of 10 percent of gross rent charged for renting a hotel room within the city for each 24-hour period or portion of it for which a room charge is made (§ 28-82(a)). Every lessor, defined broadly to include owners, managers, operators and facilitators such as online travel companies (§ 28-81), must collect the tax from the lessee when payment is made and remit it to the city; where more than one person is a lessor on a transaction, they are jointly and severally responsible (§ 28-82(b)).

Lacking a city license to rent hotel rooms is not a defense to the duty to remit the tax (§ 28-82(c)). The economic burden ultimately falls on the lessee, and the tax is stated separately on every bill or receipt (§§ 28-83, 28-84). Returns are filed electronically each quarter through a portal on the city's website, due on or before the last day of the month following the quarter in which the liability was incurred, and every lessor must first obtain a city taxpayer identification number (§ 28-85).

Section 28-88 exempts occupancy by a permanent resident, someone with a written lease occupying a room for more than 30 consecutive days, but only if the room was occupied the entire reporting period, was not rented on a non-leasehold basis during that period, and was not subleased, and only if the hotel itself keeps less than half its rooms available on a non-leasehold basis and more than half actually occupied by permanent residents or vacant.