A typical Florida homeowner pays $2,730 a year in property tax on a house worth $359,000, an effective rate of 0.76 percent by Census Bureau figures. Across the 67 counties, that rate stretches from 0.45 percent in Walton County to 0.96 percent in Alachua County. This Florida property tax calculator multiplies the value you enter by your county’s effective ratio (its median tax bill over its median home value) and then lines your estimate up against the local median bill. Type in market value, the just value on your TRIM notice or a realistic sale price, rather than the assessed or taxable value.
Save Our Homes: Why Long-Time Owners Pay Less
Florida’s defining feature is the Save Our Homes cap, a constitutional limit in force since 1995. Once a home receives the homestead exemption, its assessed value can rise each year by no more than 3 percent or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower (section 193.155, Florida Statutes). The Department of Revenue set that limit at 2.9 percent for 2025 and 2.7 percent for 2026. In 2022 and 2023, when inflation ran at 7.0 and 6.5 percent, homestead assessments still grew only 3 percent.
Florida Property Tax Calculator (2027)
Pick one of the state's 67 counties and enter a just value to get the annual levy and a monthly share at the ratio local owner occupants really pay, shown next to the county's median bill and median home value. Rates come from Census Bureau American Community Survey 2024 five-year estimates.
Estimate only: your value times the county's effective rate, which is the Census median of taxes paid divided by median home value (ACS 2024 5-year). A real Florida bill multiplies taxable value by the combined millage of every authority levying on your parcel (county, city, school board, water management and special districts), then adds any non-ad valorem assessments such as solid waste or fire fees. Homestead owners get $25,000 off all levies plus up to $26,411 more off non-school levies in 2026, and Save Our Homes holds yearly growth in assessed value to 3 percent or CPI, whichever is lower (2.7 percent for 2026). Confirm your value with the county property appraiser and your bill with the county tax collector.
The cap cuts both ways. Under the recapture rule, a homestead assessed below just value keeps rising by the cap even when market value slips, until the two meet.
The protection travels. Portability lets you carry up to $500,000 of your accumulated Save Our Homes difference to a new Florida homestead, provided you had the exemption on January 1 of any of the three preceding years. Buying a cheaper home moves a proportional share instead.
What the Census Rate Means If You Just Bought
The county rates in this calculator come from what owners report paying, and many of those owners have held their homes for years under the cap. That drags the ratio down. A buyer gets no such head start: after a sale, the property is reassessed at full just value on the following January 1, so the first full bill usually lands above the county’s effective rate. If you bought recently, treat the calculator’s figure as a floor.
The scale is large. On the preliminary 2026 rolls (Department of Revenue, July 2026 extract), Save Our Homes shielded $815.1 billion of homestead value, about 14.8 percent of the state’s $5.50 trillion in just value. That figure was $929.1 billion in 2024; it shrinks as price growth slows and capped assessments catch up to market value.
County Rates From Walton to Alachua
On the Census Bureau’s 2024 five year estimates, Alachua County carries the highest effective rate at 0.96 percent, followed by Broward at 0.94, St. Lucie at 0.93, and Liberty at 0.90. Walton is lowest at 0.45 percent, with Washington at 0.46, Jackson at 0.50, and Calhoun at 0.51. The middle county sits at 0.72 percent, a little under the statewide 0.76.
A low ratio does not mean a small bill. Monroe County (the Keys) has a rate of just 0.53 percent, yet its median home value of $780,600 produces the largest median bill in the state, $4,129. At the other end, the median owner in Holmes County pays $600.
Two worked examples from the calculator’s data:
- Miami-Dade County, $500,000 home: $500,000 times 0.81 percent is $4,050 a year, or $337.50 a month, which runs $306 above the county’s $3,744 median bill.
- Orange County, $400,000 home: $400,000 times 0.76 percent comes to $3,040 a year, or $253.33 a month, $73 above Orange’s $2,967 median.
Put the same $350,000 house in both extremes and the gap is plain: $3,360 a year at Alachua’s rate against $1,575 at Walton’s.
Millage, TRIM Notices, and Who Sets the Rate
One mill is $1 per $1,000 of taxable value, and your bill stacks the millage of every authority on your parcel: county, city, school board, water management district, and special districts. The constitution caps operating levies at 10 mills each for county, municipal, and school purposes, not counting voter-approved debt.
The property appraiser sets values, not rates. Taxing authorities get their taxable value totals on July 1 and adopt final millage at September hearings. Before August 25, the appraiser mails a Truth in Millage (TRIM) notice listing your January 1 values, exemptions, each authority’s proposed millage, and the rolled-back rate, which would raise the same revenue as last year. Bigger increases need bigger votes.
School taxes are figured on a separate taxable value, because the second homestead exemption and the 10 percent cap on non-homestead assessments apply only to non-school levies. Non-ad valorem assessments, such as garbage or fire fees, ride on the same bill.
The Homestead Exemption, Now Indexed to Inflation
If you own and live in the home as your permanent residence on January 1, file Form DR-501 with your county property appraiser by March 1. The first $25,000 of assessed value is exempt from all levies, school taxes included. A second exemption applies to assessed value above $50,000 and only to non-school levies.
Amendment 5, approved by 66.1 percent of voters in November 2024, indexed that second $25,000 to inflation starting with the 2025 tax year. The Department of Revenue set it at $25,722 for 2025 and $26,411 for 2026, for a total homestead exemption of up to $51,411. On a homestead assessed at $300,000 in 2026, school taxes fall on $275,000 and every other levy on $248,589.
Other exemptions:
- Widows, widowers, blind residents, and totally and permanently disabled residents: $5,000 each (s. 196.202).
- Veterans with a service-connected disability of 10 percent or more: $5,000 (s. 196.24). A total and permanent service-connected disability exempts the whole homestead, and a surviving spouse who does not remarry keeps it (s. 196.081).
- Combat-disabled veterans 65 and older get a percentage discount equal to their disability rating (s. 196.082).
- Seniors 65 and older, where the county or city opts in: up to $50,000 off its levies with household income at or below $38,686 (2026), or a full exemption after 25 years in a home first valued under $250,000 (s. 196.075).
Challenging Your Value at the Value Adjustment Board
If the just value on your TRIM notice looks high, call the property appraiser first; an informal conference is optional but often settles it. The formal route is a petition to your county’s value adjustment board, due by the 25th day after the TRIM notice was mailed. Orange County’s 2026 deadline, for example, was September 18. A denied exemption has a 30 day window from the denial notice. Bring sales of comparable homes from around January 1, the valuation date.
November Discounts, the March 31 Deadline, and Tax Certificates
The county tax collector mails bills on or around November 1. Paying early earns a discount: 4 percent in November, 3 percent in December, 2 percent in January, and 1 percent in February. Taxes become delinquent on April 1 (or 60 days after the bill is mailed, if later), so March 31 is effectively the last day to pay in full.
Owners with a bill over $100 can instead apply by April 30 for the installment plan, paying quarterly in June, September, December, and March, with discounts of 6, 4.5, and 3 percent on the first three payments.
By June 1, or 60 days after delinquency if later, the tax collector sells a tax certificate on each unpaid parcel to investors who bid down the interest rate you will owe to redeem it. Two years after April 1 of the issue year, the holder can apply for a tax deed, which leads to a public sale.
Amendment 3 on the November 2026 Ballot, and What Refreshes Next
On June 2, 2026, the Legislature placed HJR 1-F before voters as Amendment 3 on the November 3, 2026 ballot, where it needs 60 percent to pass. For homeowners who are Florida residents by December 31, 2026, it would raise the homestead exemption on non-school levies to $150,000 on January 1, 2027 and $250,000 on January 1, 2028, indexed to inflation afterward. Newer residents would phase up from a smaller exemption. The 10 percent yearly assessment cap would drop to 5 percent from 2027 (the Senate describes this for non-residential property; Orange County’s summary also names second homes). School taxes would not change.
If it passes, non-school levies on most homesteads would fall below what the rates here imply. Either way, the Department of Revenue posts the 2027 Save Our Homes cap and exemption amounts in January. The county ratios here rest on Census responses gathered from 2020 to 2024, the ACS 2024 five year file, and we swap in each new file when the Census posts it in December.
Sources: Census Bureau ACS 2024 five-year estimates, tables B25103 and B25077; Florida Department of Revenue exemption and Save Our Homes tables (January 2026), PT-113, millage guide, and county summary (July 2026); Florida Statutes chapters 193 through 197; Florida Senate release on HJR 1-F. Verify your value with your county property appraiser and your bill with your county tax collector.