Florida Homestead Exemption: how to file, Save Our Homes and portability

Three rules, one tax bill

Florida property tax is simple in structure. The county property appraiser sets a market (just) value for your home each January 1. Exemptions and caps reduce it to a taxable value. Each taxing authority, from the county and the city to the school board and the water district, applies its millage rate to that taxable value, and the sum is your bill.

Three rules do the reducing for a primary residence:

• The homestead exemption takes up to $50,000 off the value, once.
• Save Our Homes caps how fast the assessed value can rise every year after that.
• Portability lets you carry the cap’s accumulated benefit to your next Florida home.

All three require one thing: the home is your permanent residence, and you filed on time.

The homestead exemption: $50,000 with a school-tax nuance

Under section 196.031 of the Florida Statutes, a Florida resident who owns and occupies a home as a permanent residence on January 1 can exempt up to $25,000 of its assessed value from all property taxes except special assessments. A second exemption of up to $25,000 applies to the assessed value above $50,000, but only for levies other than school district taxes.

The Department of Revenue’s own example shows how the layers stack:

So “$50,000 off” is the headline, but only $25,000 of it touches the school portion. The Miami-Dade Property Appraiser notes the school board share “can be up to 40% of the tax bill,” which is why the saving is smaller than a flat $50,000 would suggest.

One recent change: since 2025 the second $25,000 is adjusted for inflation every January 1 when the Consumer Price Index rises. The Department of Revenue’s illustration shows it moving from $25,000 to $25,722 after a 2.9% CPI year, then holding flat if CPI falls. The statutory floor is $25,000; the actual figure grows a little each year.

Save Our Homes: the 3% cap

The exemption is the smaller benefit. The cap is the one that compounds.

Section 193.155 provides that after the first year a home receives the homestead exemption, its assessed value may not increase by more than the lower of 3% or the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index, no matter how much the market value rises. In a market like Miami’s, where values have risen faster than 3% for long stretches, the difference between market value and assessed value grows every year the owner stays.

That difference has a name in the statute, the assessment difference, and the Department of Revenue calls it the Save Our Homes benefit. Two things to know about it:

• Even if your market value falls, your assessed value can still rise by the capped amount, but never above market value.
• The cap applies to assessed value only. Millage rates are set each year by the taxing authorities and can still move your bill.

Portability: taking the benefit with you

Before portability existed, moving meant losing the cap and starting over. Portability fixed that. Under section 193.155(8), a homeowner who had a homestead exemption as of January 1 of any of the three immediately preceding years can transfer the assessment difference from the old homestead to a new one, up to a maximum of $500,000.

The Department of Revenue phrases the window carefully: you must establish the new homestead “within three years of January 1 of the year you abandoned the old homestead (not three years after the sale).” Sell in June 2026, and the clock runs from January 1, 2026.

Upsizing and downsizing

The Miami-Dade Property Appraiser’s worked examples show the two cases:

• Moving up. Prior home: market value $250,000, assessed $150,000, benefit $100,000. New home at $400,000 market value: the full $100,000 transfers, and the new assessed value is $300,000.
• Moving down. Same prior home, new home at $150,000 market value. The benefit transfers in proportion: $150,000 ÷ $250,000 × $150,000 = $90,000 new assessed value, a $60,000 benefit.

Details that catch people

• How to file. Submit form DR-501T, Transfer of Homestead Assessment Difference, together with your homestead application (DR-501), by March 1. Miami-Dade’s online filing lets you tick “portability” in the same session.
• Joint owners. If you held the prior homestead with others, everyone must abandon it before the benefit can be ported, and it is split according to ownership shares. Divorcing spouses can designate shares with form DR-501TS.
• Two prior homesteads combining. When two people each bring a benefit to a new shared home, the higher of the two transfers, not the sum.
• Missed the three years? You can still apply later, but the benefit is then computed from the year you abandoned the old homestead, not compounded since.

The March 1 deadline and how Miami-Dade handles applications

The rule has two dates. You must own the home and occupy it as your permanent residence on January 1. You must file by March 1 of the same year. Buy on January 2 and your first eligible year is the following one.

The Miami-Dade Property Appraiser accepts applications online, by email, by appointment, or in person at the Stephen P. Clark Center downtown and the South Dade Government Center. Late applications are accepted from March 2 until the expiration date printed on the August TRIM notice, on or before September 20, and may carry a $15 fee. Do not plan around that grace; plan around March 1.

Bring, or upload, proof that the home is your permanent residence as of January 1. The Department of Revenue’s list includes:

• A Florida driver license or identification card
• A Florida vehicle license plate number
• Florida voter registration, for U.S. citizens
• A declaration of domicile, employer name, the address on your last federal return, bank statements, and proof of utility payments at the address
• Social Security numbers for the applicant and spouse

If your license and voter registration still show another address, fix them before you file. The appraiser’s office reads inconsistencies as a reason to ask questions, and questions take time you may not have before March 1.

The trap: the seller’s tax bill is not your tax bill

This is the sentence we repeat most often. The tax bill in the listing, and the amount the seller has been paying, reflect the seller’s capped assessed value and the seller’s exemptions. The Department of Revenue is direct: a change of ownership means the property “will lose the SOH benefit and will be subject to assessment at just value on the following January 1.” The Miami-Dade Property Appraiser says the same on its estimator: when the property is sold, “this limitation is removed and the property is appraised at market value for the next tax year,” and this “may result in a significant increase in taxes.”

Concretely, if you close in 2026:

• The 2026 bill is still computed on the January 1, 2026 assessment, which was set while the seller owned the home. The closing statement prorates that bill between you.
• On January 1, 2027 the property is reassessed at market value, which after a recent sale will be close to your purchase price. Your own homestead exemption, if filed, and any portability you brought, are applied to that value.
• The 2027 bill is the first one that is truly yours. It can be far higher than the seller’s, especially if the seller owned the home for many years.

Lenders sometimes set your escrow from the seller’s bill. Ask them not to, or plan for the adjustment when the escrow analysis runs after the first real bill.

How to estimate your first-year bill

Do this before you write the offer, not after.

1. Take your expected purchase price as the January 1 market value. The appraiser’s estimator asks for “the most accurate estimate of the market value of the property on January 1st,” and a recent sale price is exactly that.
2. Subtract your homestead exemption ($25,000 from everything; a further $25,000, inflation-adjusted, from non-school levies) if you will live there and file on time.
3. Subtract any portability you are bringing from a prior Florida homestead, up to $500,000, using the upsizing or downsizing formula above.
4. Apply the millage rates for the property’s taxing authorities. The Miami-Dade Property Appraiser’s Property Tax Estimator does this using the previous year’s adopted rates for that exact address; enter the folio or address and your value, then toggle the homestead and portability options.
5. Add non-ad valorem assessments, such as solid waste or special districts, which the exemption does not touch.

Treat the result as an estimate; the appraiser’s office says so explicitly, and millage rates for the coming year are not adopted until the autumn. It will still be far closer than the seller’s bill.

The dollar thresholds above are the statutory figures in effect for 2026; the inflation-adjusted second exemption changes each January. For a specific property, rely on the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser's record and estimator, and on your closing agent's proration. This guide is not tax or legal advice.

What to do, in order

• Before the offer: pull the property record, note the market-to-assessed gap, and run the estimator at your price.
• At closing: confirm the tax proration on the Closing Disclosure and ask the lender how it set the tax escrow. Our closing costs guide shows where that line lives.
• The week after: update your Florida driver license and voter registration to the new address, then file for homestead online, adding portability if you sold a Florida homestead in the last three years.
• Before March 1: check the application status on the appraiser’s site. Then check the TRIM notice in August to make sure the exemption and the portability both appear.

Related reading

• Closing costs in Florida, explained
• First-time home buyer in Miami
• Selling your home in Miami-Dade
• HOA vs condo association
• What is my home worth?
• Mortgage calculator with property tax