Florida in 2026: what the legislature did to property tax

On November 3, 2026 Florida voters approved Amendment 3, 61.98% to 38.02%, clearing the 60% a Florida amendment needs. It is the product of CS/HJR 1-F, a joint resolution passed in a three-day special session in June. The homestead exemption for county, city and special district taxes rises from today’s $51,411 to up to $150,000 of assessed value on January 1, 2027 and up to $250,000 on January 1, 2028, indexed to inflation from 2029. The school levy keeps the old $25,000 exemption and is otherwise untouched. The amendment also cuts the annual assessment cap on non-homestead property, second homes, rentals and commercial buildings, from 10% to 5%, and it tells anyone who becomes a Florida resident after December 31, 2026 to wait four years on a $50,000 exemption before the larger amounts apply. The count is unofficial until the state certifies it, and the Legislature still has to pass the implementing law, so the 2027 figures here are the amendment’s own and the procedures are to come. A second measure, Amendment 2, which would have exempted farm equipment from the tangible personal property tax, drew 58.21% and failed.

Nothing in the amendment touches the 2026 tax bills that arrived in November 2026, and nothing in it touches the federal return except indirectly: a smaller property tax is a smaller SALT deduction for the minority of Floridians who itemize. The reason an income tax guide covers it is that property tax is the Florida tax, and a change of this size changes the arithmetic of buying, holding, renting and moving here.

What voters approved

The joint resolution, titled “Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes,” passed the House 75–26 and the Senate 30–9 on June 2, 2026 (verify) and was filed with the Secretary of State on June 16. A companion statute, SB 4-F, took effect on signing regardless of the vote and does two things: it lets the ballot summary run past the usual 75-word limit, and it changes the Truth in Millage formula so that a local government adopting a rate above the rolled-back rate needs a two-thirds vote of its governing body once the rate passes 110% of rolled-back (verify). The amendment itself has five parts:

• A larger non-school homestead exemption. For owners who were permanent Florida residents on December 31, 2026, the exemption from county, municipal and special district levies rises to $150,000 on January 1, 2027 and $250,000 on January 1, 2028, with CPI adjustments from January 1, 2029. Someone who was a resident by the end of 2026 but buys a home later still qualifies for the full amount (verify). The $25,000 exemption against school taxes stays as it is.
• A waiting period for newcomers. A person who establishes Florida residency on or after January 1, 2027 gets a $50,000 non-school exemption, indexed from 2028, and must hold a Florida homestead for four years; the larger exemption applies from January 1 of the fifth year (verify). From 2030 a county or city may shorten or waive the wait by a two-thirds vote for a “critical local need” (verify).
• A 5% cap on everything else. The 10% annual limit on assessment increases for non-homestead property, for non-school levies, drops to 5% from January 1, 2027. It covers residential property of nine units or fewer and all other non-homestead property, including commercial. School taxes on these properties remain on full just value.
• A limit on what the money can be spent on. County and city property tax revenue may be used only for public safety, education, infrastructure, natural resource projects, debt and retirement obligations, and the operations of the government itself, unless state law prohibits a specific expenditure (verify). The restriction does not expressly reach special districts.
• A path to zero. The legislature must set up a uniform procedure by which a county or city can raise its homestead exemption further, potentially to the full assessed value, without another statewide vote; special districts need a referendum (verify).

Save Our Homes, the 3% cap on homestead assessments, is not changed, and neither is portability. The senior, widow, veteran and disability exemptions stay as they are. The first effect is on the August 2027 TRIM notices and the bills delivered in November 2027 (verify).

What it does to a bill

The exemption is a cap on the exemption, not a flat grant: it is “up to” the stated amount, and it cannot exceed the assessed value. A homestead assessed at $180,000 has its whole non-school taxable value wiped out in 2027 and owes only the school levy on $155,000. A homestead assessed at $600,000 sees its non-school taxable value fall from about $548,589 to $450,000 in 2027 and to $350,000 in 2028. Because the school levy is typically a third or more of the total bill, and because Save Our Homes has already held many long-time owners’ assessed values far below market, the saving is proportionally largest for modest homes with recent purchase dates and smallest for the owner who has had homestead since the 1990s.

Whether the saving survives contact with the county budget is the open question. Millage rates are set every year, and the legislative staff estimated the amendment will cut local revenue by $4.6 billion in 2027–28 and $8.4 billion in 2028–29 (verify). The property appraisers’ guidance says the TRIM calculation will produce a “rolled-up rate,” the highest millage that recovers the prior year’s revenue from a smaller tax base (verify); a county that adopts it recovers the revenue, and a homestead owner’s saving shrinks while non-homestead owners, who get no new exemption, pay more. SB 4-F’s two-thirds requirement above 110% of rolled-back is the brake on that, but rolled-back and rolled-up are different numbers, and how councils behave in the summer of 2027 is not knowable now.

Second homes, rentals and the 5% cap

The quieter half of the amendment is the non-homestead cap. Since 2008 the assessed value of property without homestead, a snowbird’s condo, a landlord’s duplex, a strip mall, could rise no more than 10% a year for non-school levies, which in a hot market still meant doubling in about seven years. At 5% the doubling takes fourteen. The cap resets on sale, as it does now, so the benefit accrues to owners who hold. For a northern retiree who keeps a Florida condo as a second home and never files for homestead, this is the only part of the amendment that helps, and it helps only when the market is rising faster than 5% (verify).

For a landlord the arithmetic is mixed. The cap slows assessment growth, but the landlord gets no new exemption, and if the county rolls the millage up to recover the revenue it loses on homesteads, the landlord’s bill rises with it. Tenants pay that in rent. The amendment’s critics made exactly this point: that it shifts the tax from homeowners who vote in Florida to renters, businesses and out-of-state owners who do not. The 5% cap softens the shift but does not remove it.

The five-year rule, and what it does to a move

The residency tiers are the part of the amendment with the most consequences for people who read a tax guide. The dividing line is permanent residency on December 31, 2026. Someone who is a Florida resident by that date, even without a homestead, gets the full exemption whenever they next buy. Someone who arrives on January 2, 2027 gets $50,000 and waits four years. The exact test for “permanent resident” on that date is left to implementing legislation, and the appraisers’ own FAQ says eligibility and procedures are not final until that law is enacted (verify). The sensible reading is that it will track the homestead residency test: driver’s license, voter registration, Declaration of Domicile, and an intent to stay.

Two things follow. A household already planning a move to Florida in 2027 now has a reason to establish residency before the end of 2026, even while the house hunt continues, because residency and homestead are separate: residency by December 31, 2026 locks in the full exemption on whatever is bought later. And a household that has already moved but never got around to the paperwork, the license, the voter card, the domicile declaration, has the same reason to do it now. None of this is an income tax matter, and the article on Moving to Florida explains why the paperwork matters for the old state’s income tax in any case.

What it replaced, and what else changed

Had the amendment fallen short of 60%, the 2027 exemption would have been $25,000 plus the second exemption indexed from $26,411, and the non-homestead cap would have stayed at 10%. Those are the figures a newcomer’s bill is still measured against. SB 4-F’s TRIM change was in effect either way. What remains for the 2027 regular session is the implementing law: how a property appraiser confirms residency on December 31, 2026, how the four-year wait is tracked, and the procedure for local governments that want to go further.

Away from the ballot, the 2025 regular session’s tax package is what most Floridians will notice on a 2026 receipt. HB 7031 repealed the state sales tax on commercial rent for occupancy periods beginning October 1, 2025, ending a tax that had been 6% until 2017 and 2% since June 2024; a self-employed Floridian leasing space pays it no longer. The same package made the August back-to-school sales tax holiday permanent and added a permanent exemption for hurricane supplies. The senior homestead income limit was indexed to $38,686 for 2026, and the second homestead exemption to $26,411, both by the ordinary CPI mechanism rather than by any new law.