Florida Homestead Exemption and Property Taxes: A Buyer's Guide

The Florida homestead exemption cuts up to $51,411 from the taxable value of the home you live in for 2026: $25,000 off every tax levy, plus an inflation-adjusted $26,411 off the non-school levies. To get it, you must own the home and make it your permanent residence by January 1, then file with your county property appraiser by March 1.

That is the easy part. The part that catches buyers off guard is the bill itself. When you buy, the county resets the home's assessed value to full market value, so the seller's tax bill is a rearview mirror, not a windshield. It shows where the home has been, not what you will pay.

This guide walks through how Florida property tax is calculated, why it jumps after a sale, and how homestead, the Save Our Homes cap and portability bring it back under control. Worked examples built on Boca Raton's millage show each rule moving the numbers.

How Florida property tax is calculated

Your tax bill is taxable value times the millage rate, divided by 1,000. One mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of taxable value, and taxable value is the assessed value minus any exemptions.

Millage is not one number. It is a stack of separate levies from the school board, the county, the city and special districts. In the City of Boca Raton, the total for tax year 2025 was 17.0047 mills, built like this:

• School Board: 6.3210 mills
• Palm Beach County: 4.5330 mills
• City of Boca Raton: 3.6649 mills
• Other districts (health care, beach and park, children's services, water management, inland navigation): 2.4858 mills

City portions vary a lot across our five cities. For the 2025 tax year, the city operating millage was 3.6649 in Boca Raton, 6.1920 in Delray Beach, 4.2979 in Parkland, 5.2181 in Pompano Beach (plus a 0.5000 EMS district) and 6.0018 in Deerfield Beach. School, county and district levies sit on top of each.

No government agency publishes a single "effective rate." Third-party estimates put typical bills at roughly 1% to 1.5% of market value, but that varies widely by city and by how long the owner has held homestead.

Why your tax bill jumps after you buy

Taxes jump because a sale resets the assessment. After a change of ownership, the home is reassessed at full just (market) value as of January 1 of the following year, and the buyer inherits none of the seller's Save Our Homes savings.

Picture a house that has been in one family for years. Its market value is $500,000, but years of capped increases have held its assessed value to $300,000. Using Boca Raton's 2025 millage and the 2026 homestead amounts, the seller's bill is about $4,394. Your first full bill after the reset, with homestead, is about $7,795. That is roughly $3,400 a year, or about $283 a month, more than the listing suggests.

It is a budgeting surprise that catches many Florida buyers. Estimate taxes from the price you pay, not the seller's bill. Our home budget calculator uses a city rate applied to the purchase price for exactly this reason.

How much the homestead exemption saves

For 2026, homestead takes up to $51,411 off taxable value, which saves about $707 a year on a $500,000 home in Boca Raton (worked out below). The first $25,000 applies to all levies, including school taxes. The second piece applies only to non-school levies.

That second piece used to be a flat $25,000. Amendment 5, approved in November 2024, now adjusts it for inflation each year: $25,722 for 2025 and $26,411 for 2026. It applies to assessed value above $50,000, so a home assessed at about $76,411 or more gets the full amount, which covers almost any home in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach or Parkland.

Here is the math on a $500,000 home in the City of Boca Raton, using the 2025 total millage of 17.0047 (6.3210 school, 10.6837 everything else) and the 2026 exemption amounts.

The exemption saves about $707 a year here. The Broward County Property Appraiser reports a similar picture: for 2025, the basic exemption saved Broward owners roughly $659 to $1,009 a year depending on city millage. Your own bill depends on the exact levies at your address, so check the property appraiser's estimate before you commit.

Save Our Homes: the cap that starts in year two

Once a home has homestead, Save Our Homes limits how fast its assessed value can rise: by the lower of 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index. The cap was 2.9% for 2025 and 2.7% for 2026.

Say your $500,000 home gains 8% in market value in a hot year. Without a cap, the assessment would climb to $540,000. With a 2.7% cap, it rises only to $513,500, and that $26,500 gap is taxed at zero. Over a decade, the gap between market and assessed value can grow large, which is why long-time owners often pay much less than new buyers next door.

Second homes and rentals do not get this cap. Non-homestead property has its assessment increases capped at 10% a year for non-school levies instead.

Portability: bring your savings with you

If you are moving from one Florida homestead to another, portability lets you transfer up to $500,000 of your Save Our Homes benefit to the new home. You qualify if you had a homestead exemption as of January 1 in any of the three preceding years.

Example: your current home is worth $600,000 but assessed at $350,000, so your benefit is $250,000. You buy a $700,000 home. Instead of starting at $700,000, the new assessment starts at $450,000. Using the same Boca millage, that drops the first-year bill from about $11,196 to about $6,945, a saving of roughly $4,251 a year.

Downsizing works too, but the benefit is pro-rated to the smaller home. Either way, portability is not automatic. You must apply for homestead and portability on the new home. If you are planning that move, our guide to downsizing to South Florida covers the timing.

Deadlines and where to file

File by March 1 of the tax year, for a home that was your permanent residence on January 1. If you close in the fall of 2026 and move in before January 1, 2027, your deadline is March 1, 2027.

1. Move in by January 1. You can hold only one homestead, in Florida or anywhere else.
2. Gather proof of residency. Broward asks for items such as a Florida driver license or ID plus voter registration or a utility bill at the property. Non-citizens need permanent-residency or similar proof.
3. File online. Boca Raton and Delray Beach buyers file with the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser through its online E-File exemption service (main office: 301 N. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach; 561-355-2866). Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach and Parkland buyers file with the Broward County Property Appraiser through its online homestead application.
4. Add portability on the same application if you are leaving another Florida homestead.
5. Missed March 1? Late filing is allowed until a September deadline. In Broward, that is September 20, 2027 for the 2027 tax year.

See the local picture for each city on our Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach and Parkland pages.

The November 3, 2026 ballot: Amendment 3

Amendment 3 on the November 3, 2026 ballot could change these numbers starting in 2027, but it is not law unless at least 60% of voters approve it.

If voters approve, the non-school homestead exemption would rise to $150,000 on January 1, 2027 and $250,000 on January 1, 2028, then be indexed to inflation. The cap on non-homestead assessments would drop from 10% to 5% starting in 2027. Owners who are not Florida permanent residents as of December 31, 2026 would get a reduced $50,000 exemption for five years.

Legislative staff projected local-government revenue losses of $4.95 billion in fiscal year 2027-28, rising to $11.86 billion by 2031-32, if it passes. Check the official result after election day, and ask your property appraiser how it applies to your home.

For now, budget with current rules. Taxes usually travel in your monthly escrow payment, so fold them into what you can pay each month, and see how they fit with your other upfront bills in our guide to closing costs in Florida for buyers.

This guide is general information, not legal, tax or lending advice. Check current figures with your lender, insurer or the county property appraiser.