HB 910: What Illinois Is Actually Being Asked to Approve
Illinois lawmakers are being asked to approve a property tax freeze that could run 45 years, a $300M sales tax exemption, and a PILOT structure with no minimum payment floor. Here is what is actually in the bill.
By Dear Kevin Warren · 2026-02-26
On February 25, 2026, Representative Buckner filed Floor Amendment No. 1 to HB 910. The original bill was a one-sentence fix to a typo in the Employment First Act. Speaker Welch sponsored it.
Buckner replaced the entire thing with Bears stadium legislation.
That is where this starts.
What the Bill Actually Is
HB 910, as amended, has two main components. The press has mostly described it as a "20-year property tax freeze." That is wrong on two counts — and the errors matter.
Piece 1: The Sales Tax Exemption
The bill exempts construction materials from the state sales tax for any project that:
- Costs at least $100 million - Creates at least 100 permanent jobs
The exemption runs for 15 years after project completion.
On a $3 billion Bears stadium, that is roughly $300 million in waived state taxes.
Notice what the threshold does not say. It does not say "Chicago Bears." It does not say "NFL stadium." It says any project over $100 million with 100 jobs. This is a general economic development incentive attached to Bears negotiations. Once it passes, it is available to any developer who meets the threshold.
Piece 2: The Property Tax Freeze
The bill freezes property taxes at the "base year" value — the land's pre-development assessment — for the life of the project.
Here is where the "20 years" confusion comes from. The bill requires the Bears to maintain operations at the site for 20 years. Reporters read that and wrote "20-year freeze." But that is the operating commitment. The property tax freeze runs on a different clock:
- 23 years after the facility opens, or - 40 years after it opens, or - 45 years after it opens — if the site requires environmental remediation
Arlington Heights was a horse racing track. Churchill Downs owned and operated it for decades. Former racetracks routinely require environmental remediation — soil contamination from petroleum products, pesticides, lead. The Bears' own development timeline has been extended in part because of site work needed before construction can begin.
The 45-year window almost certainly applies to this site.
The PILOT Carve-Out Nobody Reported
The most significant provision in HB 910 has received almost no coverage.
Projects over $2 billion have no minimum floor on their PILOT payment — their Payment In Lieu Of Taxes.
A PILOT is how taxing bodies try to get some value back when they've frozen property tax assessments. The municipality negotiates a payment from the developer that substitutes for the taxes the freeze eliminates. Minimum PILOT floors protect taxpayers from developers who negotiate those payments to nothing.
HB 910 removes that floor for projects over $2 billion.
The Bears project is estimated to cost $3-5 billion. Under this bill, their PILOT payment can be negotiated to zero.
The actual dollar amounts are not in the legislation. Taxpayers are not being asked to approve specific numbers. They are being asked to authorize a negotiation framework — and that framework has no floor.
The Full Public Cost
Add it up:
- Property tax freeze: Decades of forgone tax revenue from one of the largest real estate developments in Illinois history. Duration: 23-45 years. - Sales tax exemption: ~$300 million on a $3B project. - Infrastructure ask: The Bears have separately requested $855 million for highway ramps, Metra improvements, and related public infrastructure. - PILOT unknown: Could be negotiated to zero under the bill's structure.
Total public exposure: $3.5 to $4.5 billion, depending on how PILOT negotiations go and how long the tax freeze runs.
For comparison, Indiana's SB 27 — the competing package the Bears used as leverage — is estimated by public finance economists at over $4 billion in present-value terms.
Illinois is not being offered a better deal. It is being offered a comparable deal with less transparency about the actual terms.
What the Bears Have Committed To
Nothing, yet.
There is no signed agreement. No term sheet. No binding commitment to build in Arlington Heights rather than Indiana. The Bears have said they are evaluating both states.
HB 910 passed the Revenue and Finance Committee on February 26. The full House adjourned that same day without a floor vote. When the General Assembly returned to Springfield on March 18, the Tax Credit Subcommittee skipped the bill on back-to-back occasions. As of late March 2026, neither the House nor the Senate has voted on it.
Illinois lawmakers are being asked to approve a 45-year tax framework in exchange for a promise that negotiations will continue. The bill hasn't moved. That is the deal on the table.
What to Ask Your Representative
Before HB 910 gets a floor vote, ask:
1. What is the minimum PILOT payment the Bears would be required to make? 2. Why does the bill have no minimum floor for projects over $2 billion? 3. What environmental study has been done on the Arlington Heights site, and does it trigger the 45-year remediation provision? 4. What happens to this legislation if the Bears sign with Indiana instead? 5. Why was the Employment First Act bill gutted to move Bears stadium legislation?
These are not hostile questions. They are what due diligence looks like.
Illinois has done this before. In 2000, Chicago approved a $632 million renovation of Soldier Field based on promises about what the Bears would get in return. The renovation cost overran. The historic landmark designation was stripped. The NFL fined the Bears for the renovation's design. The Bears started complaining about the stadium within a decade.
The city paid. The Bears complained anyway.
HB 910 is a much larger commitment, with less specificity, and a team that is simultaneously negotiating with a competing state.
Read the bill before you vote on it.
Update — July 13, 2026
HB 910 passed the Illinois House 78-32 on April 22, 2026 — but it died at the June 1 adjournment when the Senate never brought it to a floor vote. The PILOT lacked votes. Senator Cunningham said publicly that asking Chicago lawmakers to support a tax break that pays a business to leave Chicago was not going to happen.
Since session ended, the landscape has shifted in three ways:
The Bears are merging the bills. Pritzker revealed on June 23 that the Bears are working to combine elements of HB 910 (House-passed PILOT/tax-certainty) and HB 958 (Senate-passed Municipal Stadium Authority Act) into a single compromise vehicle. The Bears are now drafting their own legislation — a step nobody saw coming from a team that had refused to endorse either chamber's work.
Two new GOP proposals landed. Rep. Dan Ugaste filed a statewide PILOT bill with a $500 million minimum and no residential component. Rep. Martin McLaughlin filed HB 5797, the Taxpayer and Investment Protection Act, calling for $1.2 billion in state infrastructure and a 2.5% property tax rate that increases annually for 30 years. Neither has been presented to Democratic leadership.
Pritzker opened the door to a special session. On June 9, the governor said he would call lawmakers back this summer — if they unify behind one bill. His condition: the Bears have to say which bill they want. As of mid-July, they still have not.
HB 910 as it was analyzed here is dead. What replaces it — if anything — is still being written, and the Bears are writing it.