Florida property taxes: what you pay, and what the November 2026 ballot would change

How much is property tax in Florida, and how is it calculated?

Assessed value, minus exemptions, times the millage rate — and the rate is set by your county, your city and any special districts, not by the state.

A mill is one dollar per thousand of taxable value. Total county millage in Florida runs from 8.2361 in Monroe to 21.5570 in St. Lucie. On the same $400,000 home with a homestead exemption, that is $2,949 a year against $7,681 — a difference of $4,732 every year for nothing but which side of a county line the house sits on.

Florida Department of Revenue, “Millage and Taxes Levied”, 2025 edition. These are county totals; your municipality can differ inside the county.

The calculation is done twice, not once, and that is where most people lose the thread. The school portion of the bill and everything else get different exemptions, so they have different taxable values. Our property tax calculator runs both layers for all 67 counties.

What is my assessed value, and why is it not what I paid?

It is the figure the county property appraiser sets, and on a home that has been owned for years it sits far below the market — by design.

Three different values get confused constantly:

• Market value — what a buyer would pay. Nobody in the tax system produces this number.
• Just value — the appraiser’s estimate of market value as of 1 January, produced by mass appraisal. A year out of date the day it is published.
• Assessed value — just value with the caps applied. This is what your bill is calculated from, and it is the one that matters.

The gap between the second and the third is the Save Our Homes cap: if you have a homestead exemption, your assessed value cannot rise more than 3% a year, however far the market runs. Over a decade of rising prices that opens a large and permanent gap.

Why does the bill jump when a home changes hands?

Because the cap resets on sale. The seller’s low bill was built up over years of 3% increases, and it does not transfer to you.

This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in Florida real estate, and it costs out-of-state buyers real money every month. A seller who has owned since 2015 may be paying $2,400 on a house you will be taxed $6,900 on. They are not lying; they are quoting a figure that stops existing the day you close.

What does the homestead exemption actually save?

In 2026 it is $51,411 of exempt value, but only $25,000 of that comes off the school portion — and the cap that comes with it is worth more than the exemption itself.

On a $400,000 home in Miami-Dade that is worth about $775 a year. Useful, not transformative. The 3% cap is the real benefit, and it compounds: two identical houses on the same street, one bought in 2015 and one bought last year, pay very different bills forever.

Two rules that catch people out:

• It is your permanent residence or nothing. Not a second home, not a rental, not a place you spend the winter.
• You have to file, by 1 March. It is not applied automatically when you buy. Our guide to the homestead exemption covers the filing and the portability that almost nobody claims.

What is on the November 2026 ballot?

A constitutional amendment that raises the exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028 — on the non-school portion only. It needs 60% of the vote to pass.

HJR 1-F, passed by the Florida legislature on 2 June 2026 in special session, puts the question on the ballot of 3 November 2026. If it passes, the exemption on the non-school part of the bill goes from $51,411 to $150,000 on 1 January 2027 and to $250,000 on 1 January 2028, adjusted for inflation after that.

What that does to the same $400,000 Miami-Dade home:

And none of it has happened yet. As of today you still pay with the $51,411 exemption. What was approved in June is the proposal; the vote is still ahead. In the months between, the market is already pricing in an outcome that may not arrive — which is a reason to run your own numbers at today’s rate, not tomorrow’s.

What does it mean if I have just moved to Florida?

There is a residency requirement, it has been reported very little, and it decides whether you get the full benefit or wait four years for it.

Under the proposal, someone new to the state starts with a $50,000 exemption for four years, and only then moves to the larger one. It is a delay rather than an exclusion — but if you are working out whether you can afford a house on the assumption of a $250,000 exemption, and you moved here last year, the arithmetic will not hold.

This matters more to the readers of this site than to almost anyone else. If you are relocating from another state, the property tax figure in your budget should be:

• The reset figure for a new owner, not the seller’s.
• At today’s exemption, not the proposed one.
• With the four-year wait applied if the amendment passes and you are new here.

If the house works on those three, anything the ballot does is upside. If it only works on the optimistic version, you are making a bet on an election.

What if it is a rental and I do not live in it?

No homestead exemption, so you pay on the full assessed value — and your cap is 10% a year rather than 3%.

On a $250,000 property in Miami-Dade that is about $4,622 a year against $3,847 for the same house as a primary residence. The gap widens over time, because the 10% cap lets the assessed value track the market far more closely than the 3% one does.

And the 2026 reform does not touch it. If the amendment passes, the owner-occupied house drops toward $1,492 by 2028 while the identical rental next door stays at $4,622. For anyone running the numbers on a Florida rental, property tax belongs in the expense column alongside insurance, HOA and maintenance — and it is the line most often underestimated. Our guide to rental yield shows what that does to a 9% gross return.

What can I actually do about my bill?

Four things, and three of them have deadlines.

1. File for homestead by 1 March of the year after you move in. Missing it costs you a year of the exemption and a year of the cap.
2. Read your TRIM notice in August. It is the “Truth in Millage” statement showing your proposed assessment and the hearings where rates are set. The deadline to petition your assessment is short and printed on it.
3. Claim portability. If you are selling one Florida homestead and buying another, you can carry up to $500,000 of accumulated Save Our Homes savings with you. It is not automatic and a great many people never file for it.
4. Check the exemptions you may qualify for beyond homestead — for veterans, for surviving spouses, for people over 65 in some counties, and for total and permanent disability. Each has its own form and its own deadline.