Florida · reviewed 2026
What has changed, and what is about to
On 3 November 2026 Florida voters decide whether to replace the homestead exemption with one roughly five times larger. Everything else on this page is smaller than that, and most of it is the annual inflation adjustment doing its ordinary work.
Amendment 3, on the November ballot
The Legislature failed to agree a property tax package in its regular session, so the Governor called a special session for 1 to 3 June 2026. It produced CS/HJR 1F, which cleared the House 75–26 and the Senate 30–9 and now goes to voters as Amendment 3. Like every constitutional amendment in Florida it needs 60% approval, not a simple majority — a threshold that has defeated popular measures before.
What it does is restructure the exemption rather than enlarge it evenly. School taxes keep a $25,000 exemption and nothing more. Everything else on the bill — county, city, special districts — would be exempted up to $150,000 from 1 January 2027 and up to $250,000 from 1 January 2028, indexed to inflation thereafter.
If it passes
| Against school millage | $25,000 |
| Against everything else, from 1 Jan 2027 | up to $150,000 |
| Against everything else, from 1 Jan 2028 | up to $250,000 |
| First TRIM notice showing it | August 2027 |
| First bill showing it | November 2027 |
The school carve-out is the part worth understanding, because school millage is typically a third or more of a Florida bill and it is the portion the amendment leaves almost untouched. A homeowner reading “$250,000 exemption” and expecting their bill to fall by four fifths will be disappointed; the realistic effect is a large cut to the non-school portion and nothing to the school one.
There is also a residency condition that has had little attention. Anyone establishing a Florida homestead on or after 1 January 2027 starts at the new-resident amount, and reaches the larger exemption only after holding the homestead for four years — it first applies from 1 January of the fifth year. Buy in 2027 and the headline figure is not yours until 2032.
Nothing here changes a bill before November 2027, and none of it happens at all unless the amendment clears 60%. Until then the figures below are the ones that apply.
What applies to your 2026 bill
Two figures move every year under Amendment 5, which voters approved in 2024 and which indexes the additional homestead slice to inflation. They moved again this January, and because they are indexed rather than legislated they will move again next January without anyone voting on anything.
| Figure | 2026 | What it applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Homestead exemption, first slice | $25,000 | every levy, schools included |
| Homestead exemption, additional slice | $26,411 | non-school levies only |
| Total for a fully qualifying homestead | $51,411 | split across the two, never as one number |
| Save Our Homes cap | 2.7% | the lesser of 3% and CPI |
| Senior exemption income limit | $37,694 | where the county has adopted it |
The cap is the one people misread. It is the lesser of 3% and the change in CPI, so it is usually below 3% and it applies to your assessed value rather than to your bill. A year in which the cap falls is not a year in which your tax falls; it is a year in which the gap between your assessment and your market value widens slightly faster.
The dates that follow from all this
1 March — the homestead filing deadline, for a home you owned and occupied on 1 January. It does not backdate, so missing it costs a full year of both slices.
August — the TRIM notice, carrying the proposed assessment and the proposed rates. You have 25 days from the date on it to petition the Value Adjustment Board, and that is the only window.
3 November 2026 — the vote on Amendment 3.
November to March — bills arrive with a 4% discount that falls a point a month until it disappears. The full amount is due by 31 March.
If you want the arithmetic for your own house rather than the general case, the calculator applies these figures directly, and the Save Our Homes guide explains the cap that produces most of the difference between two neighbouring bills.
Sources: CS/HJR 1F as passed in the June 2026 special session; Florida Department of Revenue annual homestead and Save Our Homes figures; Florida Constitution Article VII. Amendment 3 has not been voted on and nothing in it is law.