Homestead, Save Our Homes, Portability, and the Fight to Eliminate Them

The Direct Answer

Florida has no state income tax, so property taxes are the primary way local governments — counties, cities, school districts, and special districts — fund themselves, generating well over $50 billion a year statewide. Every Florida homeowner’s bill rests on three pillars. First, the homestead exemption (Article VII, Section 6 of the Florida Constitution; Chapter 196, Florida Statutes) removes up to $50,000 of a primary residence’s assessed value from taxation — with the second $25,000 now indexed to inflation after voters approved a 2024 constitutional amendment. Second, Save Our Homes caps the annual increase in a homesteaded property’s assessed value at 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower, regardless of how fast market value climbs — the reason two identical neighbors can pay wildly different tax bills. Third, portability lets a homeowner who moves within Florida carry up to $500,000 of that accumulated Save Our Homes benefit to a new homestead, as long as the new homestead is established within three years.

Layered on top is the most consequential Florida tax fight in a generation: Governor DeSantis’s push to dramatically reduce or eliminate property taxes on homesteaded property, which requires a constitutional amendment approved by 60% of voters. Current status of that effort: [STATUS AS OF DATE — verify against the 2026 legislative session outcome and the November 2026 ballot]. Everything below explains how each piece works, what it’s worth in dollars, and what happens next.

How a Florida Property Tax Bill Is Built

Understanding the three values on your bill is the key to everything else.

Just value (market value). Each January 1, your county property appraiser — an independently elected constitutional officer in each of Florida’s 67 counties — estimates what your property would sell for. Florida law defines just value as fair market value with certain adjustments, including a customary deduction for the costs of sale. In practice, just value tracks the market with a lag: it reflects sales data from the prior year, and it is the number that jumps when a neighborhood appreciates.

Assessed value. This is just value after the Save Our Homes cap (for homesteaded property) or the 10% non-homestead cap is applied. For a long-time homesteader in an appreciating market, assessed value can sit far below just value — that gap is the Save Our Homes benefit.

Taxable value. Assessed value minus exemptions — homestead and any others you qualify for. This is the number the millage rate is applied to.

Millage. A mill is one dollar of tax per thousand dollars of taxable value. Your total millage is the sum of every taxing authority with jurisdiction over your property: the county, the municipality (if you live in one), the school district (split between a state-required local effort and discretionary levies), and special districts such as water management, hospital, fire, library, or community development districts. The Florida Constitution caps county, municipal, and school levies at 10 mills each for general operating purposes, though voter-approved debt service and certain special levies sit outside those caps. Statewide, total millage rates typically fall in the range of roughly 15 to 25 mills depending on jurisdiction — meaning an effective tax rate on taxable value of about 1.5% to 2.5%, and a considerably lower effective rate on market value for long-held homesteads.

The calendar. January 1 is the assessment date and the date homestead status is determined. March 1 is the deadline to apply for homestead and most other exemptions for that tax year. In August, property appraisers mail the TRIM notice (Truth in Millage) showing proposed values, exemptions, and each taxing authority’s proposed rate — and this notice starts a 25-day window to petition the county Value Adjustment Board if you believe your value or exemption is wrong. Taxing authorities hold public budget hearings in September, bills go out in November, and payment carries a 4% discount in November, declining by a point each month to full price in March, with delinquency after March 31.

The Homestead Exemption

What it is. The homestead exemption is a constitutional reduction in taxable value for a property that is the permanent residence of its owner (or of a person legally or naturally dependent on the owner) as of January 1. It has two layers:

The first $25,000 of assessed value is exempt from all property taxes, including school taxes.
An additional exemption of up to $25,000 applies to assessed value between $50,000 and $75,000, and it applies to non-school taxes only. Since voters approved Amendment 5 in November 2024, this second layer is adjusted annually for inflation, so it now creeps upward each year rather than remaining frozen at the figure set in 2008.

What it’s worth. For a home assessed above $75,000 — which is nearly every home in Florida — the full exemption removes $50,000 from the non-school taxable value and $25,000 from the school taxable value. At a typical combined millage of around 18 to 20 mills, that translates to roughly $750 to $1,000 a year in direct savings. But the direct savings are the smaller part of the exemption’s value. The far larger benefit is that homestead status is the gateway to Save Our Homes — and over a decade or two in an appreciating market, the cap is worth many multiples of the exemption itself.

Who qualifies. You must hold legal or beneficial title to the property and make it your permanent residence as of January 1. Florida property appraisers evaluate residency using evidence such as a Florida driver’s license, voter registration, vehicle registration, the address on your federal tax return, and a declaration of domicile. You may hold only one homestead — Florida’s or any other state’s — at a time, and property appraisers actively cross-check other states’ records to catch dual claims. Married couples generally cannot maintain separate homesteads in different locations except in narrow circumstances. Rental of a homesteaded property is restricted; renting it out for more than a limited period in consecutive years can result in loss of the exemption.

How to apply. File with your county property appraiser by March 1 — most counties now offer online filing. Once granted, the exemption renews automatically each year as long as you remain eligible; the appraiser mails a renewal card or notice, and you are obligated to notify the office if your eligibility changes. Failure to do so exposes you to back taxes, a 50% penalty, and 15% annual interest for up to ten years — homestead fraud enforcement is aggressive and appraisers use data-matching to find it.

Other exemptions worth knowing. Florida offers a long list of additional exemptions, most administered through the same application: an additional exemption for low-income seniors 65 and older (a local option that many counties and cities have adopted, worth up to $50,000 in participating jurisdictions, with a long-term-residency version that can exempt the full value of modest homes); widows and widowers ($5,000, raised from $500 in 2023); blind and totally and permanently disabled persons; disabled veterans (a percentage discount tied to disability rating, and a full exemption for those with total, permanent, service-connected disability, extended to surviving spouses); deployed military (prorated by days deployed); and full or partial exemptions for certain first responders totally and permanently disabled in the line of duty and for surviving spouses of first responders and military members killed in the line of duty. Each has its own eligibility and documentation rules, and several — notably the senior exemption — require annual income certification.

Brian’s take: The $50,000 exemption is the sticker; Save Our Homes is the engine. If you own your primary home in Florida and haven’t filed for homestead, you’re not just leaving $900 on the table — you’re forfeiting a compounding cap that could be worth tens of thousands a year down the road. File by March 1. It’s the single highest-return form in Florida.

Save Our Homes: The Cap That Reshaped Florida

Origin. Save Our Homes was Amendment 10, approved by voters in 1992 and effective beginning with the 1995 tax roll, in response to a familiar complaint: long-time residents, often retirees on fixed incomes, were being taxed out of homes they had owned for decades because coastal real estate values were exploding around them. The amendment’s solution was blunt: cap the annual increase in a homesteaded property’s assessed value regardless of what its market value does.

The mechanics. Each year, the assessed value of a homesteaded property may rise by no more than the lesser of 3% or the percentage change in the CPI for the prior calendar year. In recent years, with inflation running near or above 3%, the cap has generally been at or just under the 3% ceiling; in low-inflation years it has been well below (the cap was under 1% in some years of the 2010s). The cap applies to assessed value only, not to the tax bill itself — millage rates can still rise, and new voter-approved levies can be added — but because assessed value is the base for everything, the cap is enormously powerful over time.

What it produces. Consider a home purchased in 2012 for $250,000 in a market that has since roughly doubled. Its just value today might be $500,000; its Save Our Homes-capped assessed value, growing at roughly 2–3% a year, might be around $330,000. That $170,000 difference is the owner’s Save Our Homes benefit, and at 18 mills it represents roughly $3,000 a year in taxes not paid. The Florida Department of Revenue reports that the aggregate Save Our Homes differential statewide runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars of untaxed value — the single largest tax preference in Florida’s system.

The reset. The cap is tied to the owner’s homestead, not to the property. When a homesteaded property sells, its assessed value resets to full just value for the new owner on the following January 1, and the new owner begins accumulating their own cap from that higher base. This is the source of the phenomenon every Florida buyer eventually discovers: the seller’s tax bill in the listing was $3,500, and yours will be $9,000. Florida property appraisers publish tax estimators precisely because the prior owner’s bill is meaningless to a buyer.

Recapture. A lesser-known feature: when a homesteaded property’s just value falls but remains above assessed value, the assessed value still rises by the cap amount — the so-called “recapture rule” adopted by the Department of Revenue. In a declining market, this means your assessed value can go up while your market value goes down, until the two converge. It surprised a great many homeowners after 2008.

The 10% non-homestead cap. In 2008, voters extended a weaker version of the concept to everyone else: Amendment 1 capped annual assessed-value increases on non-homestead property — rentals, second homes, commercial property — at 10%, excluding school taxes. Originally set to expire, the cap was made permanent by voters in 2018.

The distortions. Save Our Homes is popular, durable, and widely criticized by economists for the same reasons. It shifts the tax burden from long-time owners to recent buyers, renters (whose landlords pay uncapped or 10%-capped taxes), and businesses. It creates a “lock-in” effect discouraging owners from moving because they would lose the cap — the problem portability was designed to solve. And it produces the striking inequities that show up on every street in Florida, where a new buyer pays three or four times what the neighbor with an identical house pays. These distortions are the intellectual backdrop to the current elimination debate: critics of the system argue it is already so warped that a fresh start is warranted, while defenders argue that the cap is the only thing keeping fixed-income owners in their homes.

Portability: Taking Your Cap With You

Origin. Portability was also part of Amendment 1 in January 2008, adopted specifically to address the lock-in effect. Before 2008, a homeowner who sold and bought elsewhere in Florida started over at full just value; after 2008, they could carry their accumulated benefit with them.

How it works. The Save Our Homes benefit is the difference between the just value and the assessed value of your prior homestead. Under portability, you may transfer up to $500,000 of that difference to your new Florida homestead. The calculation depends on whether you are moving up or down:

Moving to a more expensive home (upsizing): The full dollar amount of the benefit (up to $500,000) transfers. If your old home had just value of $500,000 and assessed value of $330,000, your $170,000 benefit reduces the new home’s initial assessed value by $170,000 — a $700,000 home would be assessed at $530,000.
Moving to a less expensive home (downsizing): The benefit transfers proportionally. The new assessed value is set so that the ratio of assessed to just value matches the old home. Using the same example (assessed value 66% of just value), a $400,000 new home would be assessed at about $264,000.

The three-year window. The new homestead must be established within three tax years after abandoning the old one — a window extended from two years by a voter-approved amendment in 2020. Timing is measured by January 1 assessment dates, which creates traps: selling in, say, February effectively gives you until January 1 three years later, but selling in December gives you nearly a full year less. Sellers who plan to rent temporarily before buying again should calendar the window carefully.

The paperwork. Portability is not automatic. You must file a separate transfer application (Form DR-501T) with your new county’s property appraiser, along with the homestead application, by March 1. If you move between counties, the two appraisers coordinate the calculation — but you must initiate it.

Splitting and combining. When co-owners of a homestead separate — a divorce, or adult children who co-owned with a parent — the benefit can be split among them under Department of Revenue rules; when two homesteaders marry and combine into one new home, they can generally use the larger of the two benefits, not the sum. These situations are worth a call to the property appraiser before closing, because the rules are technical and the dollar amounts significant.

What portability is worth. For a long-tenured owner in South Florida, the Tampa Bay area, or Southwest Florida, a Save Our Homes benefit of $200,000 to $500,000 is common. At 18 mills, a $300,000 portable benefit is worth about $5,400 a year — on a new home, indefinitely, compounding as the new cap accrues on top. It is one of the largest financial assets many Florida homeowners hold without knowing they hold it, and moving without claiming it is a five-figure mistake repeated every year.

Brian’s take: Save Our Homes turns time into money, and portability lets you cash it out at the next house. Two things people get wrong: they assume the seller’s tax bill is what they’ll pay (it isn’t — the cap resets), and they assume portability happens automatically (it doesn’t — file DR-501T by March 1). Both mistakes are four figures a year, forever.

The Elimination Fight: What’s Actually on the Table

This is the part of the story that is still being written, and readers should treat the status line at the top of this article as the operative answer.

The proposal. Beginning in early 2025, Governor DeSantis called for a constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes on homesteaded property, or at minimum to reduce them dramatically, framing it as the logical completion of Florida’s no-income-tax identity: a homeowner who has paid off a mortgage, he argued, should not be able to lose the home to the government for failure to pay what amounts to permanent rent. He proposed placing the question before voters on the November 2026 ballot, where it would need 60% approval to amend the constitution, and separately floated a one-time rebate to homestead owners as a bridge measure.

The scale of the problem. Property taxes fund local government, not the state. Statewide collections exceed $50 billion annually, and homesteaded property accounts for a large fraction of the roll. Eliminating homestead taxes would remove tens of billions of dollars a year from counties, cities, and school districts — and school funding is the sharpest complication, because Florida’s school finance formula (the Florida Education Finance Program) depends on a state-required local property tax effort in every district. Every analysis of the proposal, from legislative staff to the business lobby to local government associations, has centered on the same question: what replaces the money?

The options floated. Public discussion through 2025 covered a range of replacement or offset mechanisms, each with serious objections: raising the state sales tax (regressive, and Florida already leans heavily on it); expanding the sales tax base to services; state general-revenue backfill to localities (which converts local government into a state dependency and is fiscally implausible at full scale); shifting the burden to non-homestead property (which would hit renters, businesses, and second-home owners hard and is constitutionally fraught); and partial approaches — eliminating homestead taxes for seniors only, eliminating only non-school homestead taxes, or substantially raising the homestead exemption rather than eliminating the tax.

The legislative process. A constitutional amendment reaches the ballot either through a joint resolution passed by three-fifths of each legislative chamber or through a citizen initiative petition, and the 2026 regular session was the window for the legislature to act. In late 2025, the Florida House created a select committee on property taxes that advanced multiple competing joint resolutions — reflecting genuine disagreement about scope — while the Senate and local-government groups raised the replacement-revenue question insistently. The outcome of the 2026 session — whether any joint resolution passed both chambers, what form it took, and whether it appears on the November 2026 ballot — must be verified against current sources; that is the status line at the top of this page.

What it would mean for you. If a measure passes both the legislature and the voters, the effects would arrive in stages and would depend entirely on the final language. Homestead owners would see the direct benefit; renters and business owners would face the question of whether their taxes rise to compensate; buyers would confront a market in which homestead status becomes even more valuable and the Save Our Homes lock-in dynamics change entirely; and local governments would face a restructuring of their finances with consequences for services, from schools to fire protection to road maintenance. If no measure reaches the ballot, or reaches it and fails to hit 60%, the existing system continues — and the political pressure that produced the proposal does not go away.

Brian’s take: Eliminating homestead taxes is a $20-to-$30-billion-a-year question with a 60% bar and no agreed answer on replacement revenue. Don’t make a housing decision on the assumption it passes. Do watch the status line above — if a version reaches the ballot, the specific language matters more than the headline, because “eliminate” and “reduce for seniors” are very different bills.

Practical Guide: Working the System Legally

Check your TRIM notice every August. It is the only window to contest your value or a denied exemption. Compare your just value to recent sales of comparable homes; if the appraiser’s number is high, request an informal review first, then file a Value Adjustment Board petition within 25 days if needed. VAB petitions cost a nominal fee and are frequently successful when supported by sales data or an appraisal.

Understand what you can and cannot contest. You can challenge just value and exemption denials. You cannot challenge the millage rate through the VAB — that is set by elected boards at the September budget hearings, which are public and where you are entitled to speak.

Apply for every exemption you qualify for. Property appraisers do not hunt for your eligibility; the senior, widow/widower, disability, and veteran exemptions all require applications and, in some cases, annual recertification.

Model the cap reset before you buy. Use the property appraiser’s tax estimator with the purchase price, not the listing’s tax history. In fast-appreciating markets, the difference between the seller’s bill and yours can approach three times.

Calendar the portability window. Three tax years from abandonment of the old homestead, measured by January 1. If you sell and rent for a while, you may have less time than you think.

Consider timing a purchase near January 1. Because homestead is determined as of January 1, a closing in late December versus early January affects when your exemption and cap begin. The same is true of ending a homestead — abandoning one on January 2 keeps it on the roll for the entire year.

Beware of homestead fraud. Claiming a homestead you don’t live in, keeping an exemption after moving, renting out a homesteaded property beyond the permitted limits, or holding homesteads in two states all trigger back taxes, a 50% penalty, and 15% annual interest. Appraisers’ data-matching programs — cross-referencing driver’s licenses, voter rolls, other states’ exemption records, and short-term-rental platforms — catch a great deal of it.

Trusts and estates. A homestead held in a revocable living trust or a life estate can retain the exemption if the beneficiary has the required beneficial interest and residency; property in an LLC or irrevocable structure generally cannot. Estate planning that moves a homestead into an entity can inadvertently destroy both the tax exemption and the constitutional creditor protection. This is a question for a Florida estate attorney before the deed is recorded, not after.

Brian’s take: Most Florida homeowners interact with their property tax exactly once a year — when the bill arrives. The people who pay least do four things: read the TRIM notice in August, file every exemption they qualify for, run the estimator before they buy, and never move a homestead into an LLC without asking a lawyer first. None of it is clever. All of it is money.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does the Florida homestead exemption save? Up to $50,000 of assessed value is exempt — the first $25,000 from all taxes, the second $25,000 (inflation-indexed since 2025) from non-school taxes — worth roughly $750 to $1,000 a year at typical millage. The far larger value is eligibility for the Save Our Homes cap.

What is the Save Our Homes cap for this year? The lesser of 3% or the prior year’s CPI change; in recent years it has been at or just below 3%. The Florida Department of Revenue publishes the exact figure annually.

Does my property tax go up when I buy a home in Florida? Almost always. The seller’s Save Our Homes cap does not transfer to you; assessed value resets to just value on the January 1 after the sale. Use the property appraiser’s estimator, not the listing’s tax history.

How does Florida portability work if I move from Tampa to Orlando? The same as within a county: you carry up to $500,000 of your Save Our Homes benefit (the full amount if upsizing, proportionally if downsizing) to the new homestead, filed via Form DR-501T with the new county’s property appraiser by March 1, within three tax years of abandoning the old homestead.

Is Florida eliminating property taxes? A constitutional amendment to eliminate or substantially reduce homestead property taxes has been proposed and debated; it requires legislative passage and 60% voter approval. See the dated status line at the top of this article for where the effort currently stands.

When are Florida property taxes due? Bills go out November 1 with a 4% discount for November payment, declining monthly to no discount in March; taxes become delinquent April 1.

Can I dispute my Florida property assessment? Yes — through an informal review with the property appraiser and, if needed, a Value Adjustment Board petition filed within 25 days of the TRIM notice mailing in August.

Do seniors get a property tax break in Florida? Many counties and cities have adopted the additional low-income senior exemption (up to $50,000, with an income limit adjusted annually), and a long-term-residency version can exempt the full value of qualifying modest homes. Applications and annual income verification are required.

Sources

Florida Constitution, Article VII, Sections 4 and 6 (assessment caps, homestead exemption) — Online Sunshine (leg.state.fl.us)
Chapter 193 (assessments), Chapter 194 (Value Adjustment Boards), Chapter 196 (exemptions), and Chapter 200 (millage/TRIM), Florida Statutes
Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight — exemption guidance, Save Our Homes cap announcements, Form DR-501 and DR-501T, and statewide tax roll data (floridarevenue.com)
County property appraiser offices — tax estimators and exemption filing (all 67 counties)
Florida Legislature — 2025–2026 property tax joint resolutions and select committee materials (flsenate.gov / myfloridahouse.gov)
Florida Association of Counties and Florida League of Cities — fiscal analyses of property tax proposals
Florida TaxWatch — property tax reform research
Florida Division of Elections — constitutional amendment history and 2026 ballot information (dos.fl.gov)

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. It synthesizes constitutional provisions, statutes, Department of Revenue guidance, and public reporting current as of the verification date above. Exemption amounts, the annual cap, and the status of the property tax elimination effort change; confirm current figures with your county property appraiser and the Florida Department of Revenue, and consult a Florida CPA or attorney about your specific situation.