Florida Property Taxes, Homestead,
and the 2026 Ballot Amendment

Your tax bill is built in three steps, and only the last one is what you’re taxed on:

• Just Value: the market value the county Property Appraiser sets for your property each January 1.
• Assessed Value: the Just Value after any assessment cap is applied (for a homestead, the Save Our Homes cap can hold this below market value).
• Taxable Value: the Assessed Value minus your exemptions. Millage rates are applied to this number.

So the progression is: Just Value → Assessed Value → Taxable Value → × millage = your tax. By law, the Assessed Value can never exceed the Just Value. If the market falls below your assessed value, your assessed value is lowered to match.

A worked example, a longtime homesteaded owner whose neighborhood has risen faster than the 3% cap:

• Just / Market Value: $400,000, what the Property Appraiser estimates the home would sell for.
• ↓ minus the Save Our Homes cap (assessed value can rise at most 3% or the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the prior year, whichever is lower)
• Assessed Value: $300,000, held below market by years of the cap. That $100,000 gap is the Save Our Homes benefit.
• ↓ minus exemptions (e.g. the Homestead Exemption, about $50,000; the exact non-school figure is $51,411 for 2026, see FAQ 06)
• Taxable Value: $250,000, the number your millage rate is actually multiplied against.

The county table further down this page shows a per-county Median assessed value, the middle rung of this stack (after caps, before exemptions) for a typical single-family home. Assessed value is used because a published, verified median exists for it in every county; a median taxable value is not published anywhere.

The county table below uses the median, not the average, on purpose, and the difference matters when you read the numbers.

• Median = the middle value. Line every home up from cheapest to priciest; the median is the one in the middle. Half of homes are below it, half above. It describes the typical home.
• Average (mean) = add every value up and divide by the count. A handful of extreme values can pull it far away from what’s typical.

A quick example. Imagine a neighborhood of five homes worth $280,000, $300,000, $310,000, $330,000, and one waterfront mansion at $5,000,000:

• Median = $310,000, the middle home. The mansion is just “the top one,” so it doesn’t move the middle.
• Average = $1,244,000, that single mansion drags the average above four of the five homes, describing none of them.

That’s why the table shows the median: in a county like Palm Beach with a few very high-value areas, the median still reflects the everyday home, while the average would be inflated by the luxury tail. A few mansions can’t skew a median. That’s the whole point of using it.

Your value is set by the county Property Appraiser, an official the voters of each county elect every four years. It is not the Tax Collector (who only bills and collects), and it is not based on Zillow, Redfin, or Realtor.com. Those automated estimates have no legal authority. The Property Appraiser lists and appraises every property in the county each year using mass-appraisal methods (comparable sales, size, age, condition, location, permitted improvements).

Florida’s property tax runs on a fixed yearly calendar:

• January 1: your value, ownership, and exemptions are fixed for that tax year.
• August: the Property Appraiser mails your TRIM (Truth in Millage) notice (proposed values, exemptions, proposed millage, and public-hearing dates).
• September: the County Commission, School Board, cities, and special districts vote their final millage rates at public hearings.
• November: the Tax Collector mails the actual bill.
• By March 31 (next year): last day to pay before taxes become delinquent on April 1 (taxes are “due and payable” from November 1). Early-payment discounts: 4% in November, 3% December, 2% January, 1% February.

The delay exists because local governments can’t set their budgets and rates until they know the total taxable value of all property, which comes from the January 1 assessments.

In arrears. The bill you pay by March 31, 2027 is for the 2026 tax year, based on your property’s status as of January 1, 2026. You are not prepaying the next year.

The “$50,000 homestead exemption” is really two separate exemptions, and the second one is now adjusted for inflation:

• The first $25,000 applies to all taxing authorities, including schools. This amount is not indexed.
• The second exemption applies only to non-school levies, and it only bites on the portion of your assessed value above the $50,000 mark. The exemption amount itself started at $25,000 (a different figure from that $50,000 threshold) and, beginning with the 2025 tax year, is adjusted every January 1 for inflation (only upward). The Department of Revenue lists it at $25,722 for 2025 and $26,411 for 2026.

That’s why you calculate the two parts separately. For the 2026 tax year: school taxable value = Assessed Value − $25,000; non-school taxable value = Assessed Value − $51,411 (the $25,000 plus the $26,411). (The full amount comes off only once the assessed value reaches $76,411, because the second exemption applies only to value above $50,000. Between $50,000 and $76,411 it is limited to the amount above $50,000.)

If your home is your homestead, the Save Our Homes cap limits how much your assessed value can rise each year to the lower of 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), even if the market value jumps much more. Your market (Just) value can climb faster; the capped assessed value catches up only at 3%/CPI per year, which is where long-term homeowners build a growing gap between market value and taxed value.

When you sell one Florida homestead and buy another, you can transfer your accumulated Save Our Homes benefit, the “assessment difference” between your Just Value and Assessed Value, to the new home, up to a $500,000 maximum. How much you carry depends on whether you move up or down in value:

• If your new home is worth as much as or more than your old one, you transfer the full difference (up to $500,000).
• If your new home is less expensive, you transfer a proportional share: your old savings times (new Just Value ÷ old Just Value).
• You must have held a homestead exemption as of January 1 in one of the three years immediately preceding the year you establish the new homestead. The clock runs on January 1 tax years, not on 36 months from your closing date, so a long gap between selling and buying can run it out.
• There is no transferable benefit unless the old homestead is actually reassessed at just value (or under the portability rules) as of the January 1 after it is abandoned.
• File Form DR-501 (homestead) plus Form DR-501T (transfer of assessment difference) with the county Property Appraiser by March 1 of your first year in the new home.
• Portability is Florida-to-Florida only; you cannot carry it to another state.

A simple example. Your old homestead, owned for years, has a Just / Market Value of $400,000 but an Assessed Value of $250,000. That $150,000 gap is your Save Our Homes benefit.

Moving up to a more expensive home:

• Just / Market Value: $500,000, what the Property Appraiser sets for the new home.
• ↓ minus your full transferred benefit (the whole $150,000, since it is under the $500,000 cap)
• Assessed Value: $350,000, your ported benefit carried to the new home.

Moving down to a less expensive home:

• Just / Market Value: $300,000, what the Property Appraiser sets for the new home.
• ↓ minus a proportional share ($300,000 ÷ $400,000 = 0.75, i.e. 75%, so 0.75 × $150,000 = $112,500)
• Assessed Value: $187,500, the smaller benefit that carries when you downsize.

Homestead residency is based on domicile, the place that is your “true, fixed, and permanent home” and the one you intend to return to. The Property Appraiser makes this determination, and no single factor is decisive; they weigh the totality of the evidence. Florida law lists relevant factors including:

• A formal declaration of domicile
• Florida driver’s license and vehicle registration
• Florida voter registration
• Where you work and where your children attend school
• The address on your federal tax return
• Where you bank and where your utilities are billed

Two things both have to be true for a given tax year:

• You must own and make the home your permanent residence by January 1 of that year. (Move in February 2? You’re not eligible until the next year.)
• You must file Form DR-501 by March 1 with the county Property Appraiser. Buying the house does not homestead it automatically. The title company records the deed, but you file the exemption.

The Property Appraiser reviews and approves or denies timely applications on or before July 1, and your approved exemption shows up on that August’s TRIM notice and November’s bill.

The current-year bill still reflects the property’s January 1 status, so the seller’s homestead and Save Our Homes benefit stay on the property for the rest of the purchase year. The sale does not trigger a recalculated bill mid-year. The buyer and seller typically settle their share of that year’s taxes through proration at closing (shown on your Closing Disclosure); that is a standard closing-contract practice, not something the Tax Collector calculates.

The reset happens the January 1 after you buy: the seller’s Save Our Homes benefit comes off, the property is reassessed to just value, and your own exemption (if you filed) applies going forward.

The rolled-back rate is recalculated every year: it’s the millage that would raise about the same revenue from existing properties as last year, despite value changes. Adopting a rate above it is treated as a tax increase and triggers a “NOTICE OF PROPOSED TAX INCREASE” advertisement.

Since a 2026 law change (chapter 2026-240, Laws of Florida, approved June 24, 2026), that same rolled-back rate is also the maximum millage a county, city, municipal service taxing unit, or special district may levy without a supermajority (Florida Statutes §200.065(5)(a)). Before the change, the cap used a different baseline that was adjusted for growth in per-capita Florida personal income; that adjustment was removed. Going above the rolled-back rate now gets progressively harder:

• Up to the rolled-back rate: simple majority of the governing body.
• Up to 110% of it: requires a two-thirds vote of the full membership.
• Above 110%: requires a unanimous vote (or three-fourths for boards of nine or more members), or approval by referendum.

So there is no flat “you can only raise it X% a year” rule, but for these local governments a rate above the rolled-back rate now generally needs more than a simple majority, in addition to the tax-increase notice. (Two of the carve-outs in §200.065(5)(b): a county or city may set one of its own rates above that maximum as long as its combined levy, together with its municipal service taxing units and dependent districts, stays within the combined maximum; and voter-approved millage is not subject to the cap.)

Tax on each part = (taxable value ÷ 1,000) × millage. This covers only ad valorem (value-based) taxes; your bill may also carry fixed non-ad valorem assessments (see below).

Your Florida tax bill has two kinds of charges billed together on one combined notice from the Tax Collector:

• Ad valorem taxes: based on your taxable value (value × millage). Double the value roughly doubles this part.
• Non-ad valorem assessments: fixed service charges not based on value (e.g., solid waste, stormwater, street lighting, fire, a Community Development District (CDD)). Two homes worth very different amounts can pay the identical fee.

Non-ad valorem amounts are parcel-specific and set by each service district in its own budget process, so they can’t be estimated from your home’s value. They must be looked up for the specific property. They are separate from the January 1 appraisal.

These two get mixed up constantly because they both save homesteaders money, but they work in completely different ways, and the “3%” belongs to only one of them.

• Homestead Exemption: it SUBTRACTS dollars. It removes a set dollar amount (up to $51,411 for non-school levies in 2026, because the second part of the exemption is now adjusted for inflation each year) from your assessed value before taxes are figured. It does not cap anything; it just lowers the number your millage is applied to. (See FAQ 06 for the two-part / school-vs-non-school detail.)
• Save Our Homes: it CAPS growth. It is not an exemption. Once you have the homestead, it limits how much your assessed value can rise each year to the lesser of 3% or the change in inflation (CPI), even if the market jumps 15%. That’s where the “3%” comes from.

The order they apply: Market Value → (Save Our Homes caps the yearly rise) → Assessed Value → (Homestead Exemption subtracts up to $51,411 in 2026) → Taxable Value → × millage = your tax. So Save Our Homes decides your assessed value; the exemption then trims it. Different jobs, both triggered by having a homestead.

Yes, and this is the expensive part people don’t see coming. Under Florida law, renting all or substantially all of a homesteaded home is abandonment of the homestead — on its own, immediately — and that abandonment “continues until the dwelling is physically occupied by the owner.” (In property-tax language, “abandoning” a homestead means losing the exemption; it is not about whether you still own the house.)

There is one narrow grace rule, and it is often misread as the main rule. If the abandonment happens after January 1 of a year, your exemption for that particular year still survives — unless the home is rented more than 30 days per calendar year for two consecutive years, in which case that year’s exemption goes too. So the two-year test is not what triggers abandonment; it only decides whether the current year’s exemption is spared. Renting the whole house out for eight months in a single year is already abandonment, even though it is only one year.

Losing the homestead also switches off the Save Our Homes cap. When you later move back in and re-apply, the assessed value is generally reset to the current market (just) value. The years of capped, below-market assessed value are not preserved, and a fresh Save Our Homes cap starts building from that higher number.

Illustration: a home you bought years ago might be capped at a $450,000 assessed value while the market is $750,000. Rent it out long enough to abandon the homestead, then move back, and it can be re-assessed near $750,000. That is a large, permanent jump in the base your taxes are built on. (Two exceptions: the rental-abandonment rule does not apply at all to a U.S. Armed Forces member serving under a Selective Service obligation or as a volunteer, or, under a 2026 change that applies beginning with the 2026 tax roll, to a person appointed or employed full time by the U.S. Government as a diplomatic, intelligence, consular, or foreign service officer who is directed to reside, or required to be stationed or deployed, outside Florida. Separately, valid military transfer orders, or U.S. Government documentation of such an out-of-state posting, are sufficient to maintain permanent residence for that person and his or her spouse.) If instead you sell and buy another Florida home, portability may let you carry some of the Save Our Homes benefit. That’s a different program (see FAQ 09).

Generally yes, renting a single room while you continue to live in the home as your permanent residence does not, by itself, cost you the whole homestead exemption. The law that triggers abandonment applies to renting “all or substantially all” of the dwelling, which is different from renting one bedroom while you occupy the rest.

The caveat: the Property Appraiser can deny homestead treatment on an identifiable part of the property given over to a tenant’s exclusive use. What matters is how the space is used, not its architecture. In a 2023 Florida Supreme Court case (Furst v. Rebholz), the rented space was one of four upstairs rooms, each with its own living area and bathroom (some with a kitchenette) and each lockable from the outside, given to a tenant’s exclusive use, and the owner lost the exemption on that portion (15% of the property) while keeping it on the part he lived in. So renting a room you still share differs from handing an identifiable area over entirely to a tenant. The facts matter.

Your responsibility: Florida law requires you to notify the Property Appraiser when anything changes that could affect your exemption. If an exemption is later found to have been wrongly received, the appraiser can go back up to 10 years and add the escaped taxes plus a 50% penalty per year and 15% annual interest. Renting an occasional room while you live there generally isn’t a reportable change, but if the rented area is a separate unit, ask the appraiser for a determination before you start.

Non-ad valorem assessments (solid waste, stormwater, street lighting, fire, Community Development Districts) are set separately from your property value and separately from the millage rate, and they can differ house-to-house even on the same street.

• Why they vary by neighborhood: each one is levied by its own district, and a home only pays for the districts it’s actually in. A house inside a lighting district or a CDD pays those charges; a similar house one subdivision over may not. There is no single countywide non-ad valorem charge everyone pays.
• Who decides: each assessment authority (the County for solid waste, a lighting district, a CDD board, etc.) sets its own amount through its own budget and public hearing, not through the millage vote. When the County itself is the authority, its commission votes on the assessment and the millage as two separate actions.

The yearly timeline: by June 1 the Property Appraiser gives each district the parcel and owner list; over the adoption window (January 1 through September 15) each district adopts its assessment at a public hearing; by September 15 the district certifies its final per-parcel amounts directly to the Tax Collector (not through the Property Appraiser). (Both dates are September 25 in Miami-Dade.) The Tax Collector combines the certified rolls into the one bill you receive, mailed within 20 working days after it receives the certified rolls (typically early November).

Usually not, and this is the most common surprise for buyers moving to Florida. The tax figure on a listing is what the current owner pays, and that number often sits far below the home’s market price because Save Our Homes has held their assessed value down for years.

That cap does not transfer to you. When a home changes hands, Florida law resets its assessed value to full Just Value as of January 1 of the year after you buy, whether it becomes your homestead or a rental / second home. So budget from the home’s price, not the listing’s tax line. If it will be your primary residence, you then file your own homestead exemption and start building your own Save Our Homes cap. (See FAQ 07 and FAQ 12.)

If you have a mortgage, your lender usually collects about one-twelfth of your estimated tax with each monthly payment into an escrow (or “impound”) account and pays the county Tax Collector for you. How that account works is set by federal law (the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) and Regulation X), not Florida law, and not every loan escrows. If you pay cash, you pay the Tax Collector directly.

You are still the one legally responsible. Taxes are due November 1 and delinquent April 1. If an escrow error leaves the bill unpaid, the consequences attach to your property (18% yearly interest, then a tax certificate against your parcel), not to the lender, so confirm payment each year on your county Tax Collector’s site. On the early-payment discount (4% in November, down to 1% in February): federal law lets, but does not require, your servicer to pay early enough to capture it. The servicer’s only legal duty is to pay before the tax goes delinquent, so whether you actually get the November 4% depends on when your servicer chooses to disburse.

Homestead requires the Florida home to be your permanent residence: your true, fixed home, the one you intend to return to. There is no minimum number of days; the Property Appraiser weighs factors, and no single one is decisive, a declaration of domicile, Florida voter registration, a Florida driver license (with the out-of-state one surrendered), Florida vehicle registration, and the address on your federal tax return.

You cannot hold a residency-based property tax break in two states at once. Claiming one elsewhere disqualifies you from the Florida homestead. If you wrongly receive it, the Appraiser can lien the property for back taxes going back up to 10 years, plus a 50% penalty per year and 15% interest. So pick one legal domicile and make your registrations and filings match before you apply.

Possibly, if your county or city adopted it and your income is under the limit. Florida lets a local government grant an additional exemption of up to $50,000 for permanent residents 65 and older whose household income is under an annual, inflation-adjusted cap ($38,686 for 2026). A separate local option can fully exempt the home for owners 65+ who have lived there 25 or more years, whose household income is under the same annual cap, and whose Just Value is under $250,000. Both sit on top of the standard homestead, neither is automatic, and each applies only to the levies of the government that adopted it, never to school taxes. Check with your Property Appraiser and file the income statement by March 1.

Florida has several exemptions beyond the standard homestead:

• Disabled veteran (service-connected, total & permanent): full homestead exemption.
• Combat-disabled veteran 65 or older who was honorably discharged: a homestead discount equal to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) service-connected disability percentage.
• Widow, widower, blind, or totally & permanently disabled person: a $5,000 exemption each. (County Property Appraisers generally end the widow / widower exemption on remarriage; the statute itself sets only the amount and eligibility.)
• Surviving spouse of a veteran who died from service-connected causes on active duty, or of a first responder killed in the line of duty: full exemption.

Most require filing with your Property Appraiser by March 1. Full details are in the Florida Department of Revenue guides PT-109 and PT-111.

First, call your Property Appraiser’s office; many disputes are just a factual error they will fix. If that does not resolve it, file a petition with your county’s Value Adjustment Board (VAB) on Form DR-486. Deadlines are strict: 25 days after your TRIM (Truth in Millage) notice is mailed for a value dispute, or 30 days after a denial notice for an exemption or classification. The fee is capped at $50 per parcel (no fee for a homestead-exemption denial). Miss the deadline and you generally forfeit the appeal for that year.

TRIM stands for Truth in Millage. It is the Notice of Proposed Property Taxes your Property Appraiser mails in August. It is not a bill (the first page says so). Check three things:

• Your values: market (Just), assessed, exemptions, and taxable, this year next to last year. Make sure every exemption you qualify for is showing.
• The tax comparison: for each authority it shows last year’s tax, the “no change” amount (the rolled-back rate), and the proposed amount. Comparing those last two tells you if an authority is really raising your taxes, even when the rate looks flat.
• The hearing details and your deadline: it prints each budget hearing’s date and place, and the last day to petition the VAB (25 days out).

One mill is one dollar of tax per $1,000 of value. So 20 mills is $20 per $1,000, the same as 2%. To estimate a line on your bill, use the Department of Revenue’s formula: taxable value ÷ 1,000 × millage rate. Example: $250,000 taxable × 20 mills = ($250,000 ÷ 1,000) × 20 = $5,000. Use the taxable value from your TRIM notice (assessed value minus exemptions), and remember several authorities (county, city, school, water district) each apply their own mills, so your total is the sum.

A sale normally resets your assessed value and wipes out your Save Our Homes savings, but the law protects several family transfers so your capped value carries through:

• Death / inheritance: transfer to a surviving spouse, or to minor children, or to a permanent resident who was a dependent of the owner, is protected.
• Adding a co-owner: safe as long as the added person does not file their own homestead exemption on the property. If they do, that filing counts as a change of ownership.
• Divorce: a transfer between the spouses in a dissolution of marriage is protected.

The details of who ends up on title and who claims homestead control the outcome, so confirm with your Property Appraiser before recording a deed change. An avoidable one can cost years of savings.

Florida treats this seriously. If the Property Appraiser finds you got a homestead exemption you did not qualify for in any of the prior 10 years, they record a lien for the back taxes plus a 50% penalty per year and 15% interest, and it can reach your other Florida property. Common triggers: keeping Florida homestead while claiming a residency benefit in another state; renting out the home (renting all or substantially all of it is abandonment on its own, and it continues until you physically occupy the home again; if the abandonment happens after January 1 that year’s exemption survives unless the home is rented more than 30 days per calendar year for 2 consecutive years — and losing the exemption resets your assessed value to market, see FAQ 17); or not telling the Appraiser when you no longer qualify (owners whose exemption renews automatically have a legal duty to notify). If your situation changes, report it, correcting it voluntarily is far cheaper than a lien.

Unpaid taxes become delinquent April 1 and start accruing 18% yearly interest. The county then auctions a tax certificate on your parcel to an investor. You do not lose the home right away: the certificate holder can apply for a tax deed only after 2 years have passed since April 1 of the year the certificate was issued, at which point the property is sold at public auction. You can stop it by redeeming (paying the back taxes, interest, and fees) any time before a tax deed is issued or before full payment for the deed is made to the clerk.

No, the state levies no property tax. The Florida Constitution flatly forbids it. Every ad valorem (value-based) dollar on your bill is local: your county, your city (if you are in one), the school district, your water management district, and any special districts you are in each carry their own millage rate. Those rates are set within limits, though: the constitution caps most of them (generally 10 mills each for county, municipal, and school purposes), and a large part of school millage (the “Required Local Effort”) is set by the state, not chosen freely by the school board. Because different boards levy different rates, two equal-value homes in different counties or cities can pay very different amounts.

Two county offices hold the two halves. Your Property Appraiser publishes your Just, assessed, and taxable values and your exemptions in the assessment roll, a public record; their website typically lets you search it by address, owner name, or parcel identification number, and that is where you check a value or exemption. Your Tax Collector produces and collects the actual bill, including non-ad valorem line items like fire or stormwater, and that is where you check or pay a charge (most Florida tax collectors let you pay and view status online).

A non-homesteaded property, a rental, second home, or investment property, is taxed on two separate assessed values:

• School taxes: assessed at full market (Just) value every year. No cap.
• Non-school taxes (county, city, special districts): assessed value can rise no more than 10% per year. This 10% is a flat cap, not tied to inflation.

Example. A rental has a market value of $500,000 but a non-school assessed value of $300,000. The school tax is figured on $500,000; the non-school tax is figured on $300,000.

When the property is sold, both values reset to full market value the next January 1, and the 10% cap starts over.

This is a different question from FAQ 28, and the answer surprises people. FAQ 28 covers the case where one spouse keeps the house: the transfer between spouses in a dissolution of marriage is not a change of ownership, so the home keeps its capped assessed value and nothing is split. What follows is the case where both of you leave and each wants to carry savings to a new Florida home.

These rules are the same in all 67 counties. The Florida Constitution directs that portability for property “owned by more than one person” be set by general law, meaning statewide legislation. The Legislature did that in Fla. Stat. §193.155(8), and the Department of Revenue implemented it in a rule that binds every Property Appraiser in Florida. So the split, the $500,000 cap, the forms, and the abandonment requirement below do not change from county to county. What does differ by county is your millage rate, the local filing logistics, and one discretionary call: if you miss the March 1 deadline, whether a late application is accepted turns on whether your Property Appraiser or Value Adjustment Board finds “particular extenuating circumstances” — a judgment the statute leaves to them.

The default split is 50/50, not winner-take-all. When two or more owners abandon a jointly owned, jointly titled homestead, each one who held the exemption may port the assessment difference divided by the number of owners who received the homestead exemption (or proportionate to the ownership shares, if the title states specific shares). For a married couple on a joint deed, that is half each.

The $500,000 cap is shared, not doubled. The statute limits the total reduction for all new homesteads established out of one abandoned homestead to $500,000 combined, not $500,000 per person.

You can agree to a different split, but only on one specific form. Spouses may designate the ownership share attributed to each of them, for example 100/0, 80/20 or 40/60, by filing Form DR-501TS, “Designation of Ownership Shares of Abandoned Homestead,” with the Property Appraiser in the county where the abandoned homestead is located. Both must sign under penalty of perjury, the percentages must total 100, and it must be filed before either of you files Form DR-501T on a new home. Two conditions matter: you must have been married to each other on the date the property was abandoned, and once filed, the designation is irrevocable. One more step people miss: after the DR-501TS is on file in the old county, you must also attach a copy of it to the DR-501T you file in your new county. Filing it in the old county alone does not carry the designated share over. (The statute still uses the older phrase “husband and wife”; the Department of Revenue rule and the form itself say “spouses,” and the form is captioned Spouse 1 / Spouse 2.)

Here is the expensive trap. There is nothing to divide until the old homestead is actually abandoned. The statewide rule is explicit for joint tenants with right of survivorship, the usual arrangement for a married couple: “if only one owner moved and the other stayed in the original homestead, the homestead would not be abandoned. The person who moved could not transfer any assessment difference.” So if one spouse stays and keeps the exemption, the other has nothing to port, no matter what the settlement says. (If you hold title as tenants in common with stated shares, the calculation works differently — ask your Property Appraiser.)

There is a way out, and it has a hard date. An owner may abandon a homestead in writing while still living there, by notifying the Property Appraiser for that county; the notice must be delivered before or at the same time as a new homestead application. The abandonment must happen before January 1 of the year you apply on the new home. The spouse who stays is accepting a reassessment at just value, and higher taxes, on that property.

And the divorce decree does not bind the Property Appraiser. This is not one county’s policy, it is in the statewide rule, which addresses divorce by name: “if spouses divorce and both abandon the homestead, they each take their share of the assessment difference with them. The property appraiser cannot accept a stipulation otherwise.” The same rule provides that, apart from a validly filed DR-501TS, the shares “cannot be sold, transferred, or pledged to any taxpayer.” Only two things can change the split, specific ownership shares stated on the title or a filed DR-501TS, and a court order is not one of them. If this matters to you, negotiate a signed DR-501TS into the settlement itself, rather than relying on decree language awarding the benefit to one party.

If only one of you is on the new deed. You must hold title to the new property to claim portability at all. A still-married couple buying in one spouse’s name alone are often told that only 50% transfers unless they file a DR-501TS designating 100% to the buying spouse — because the statute treats a husband and wife who owned and both permanently resided on the prior homestead as each having received the exemption, even if only one of them applied, which makes two recipients to divide by.

That is the safe assumption, but it may not be the whole story — and this one is worth asking about before you sign. A separate paragraph of the same statute, §193.155(8)(e), says that when everyone who qualifies for homestead on the new home also qualified on the old one, and no additional person qualifies on the new home, the splitting rule does not apply at all and the ordinary full-benefit formula is used instead. The Department of Revenue rule says the same: splitting and joining “do not apply if no additional persons are part of either homestead.” The two provisions point in different directions on these facts, and we found no case law or Department guidance resolving which controls. Ask your Property Appraiser which paragraph they will apply to your situation before filing anything — because a DR-501TS is irrevocable once filed, and an unnecessary 100/0 designation permanently signs away the other spouse’s share.

If one of you remarries. A new spouse neither adds to nor takes from your ported benefit. The amount is fixed when the old homestead is abandoned and divided only among the owners of that home who held the exemption, and the DR-501TS is available only to two people who were married to each other on the abandonment date. A new spouse can still matter indirectly: if they claim homestead on the new home, they are an “additional person,” which forecloses the no-split treatment described above and puts you back under the splitting rules. If two people who each carry their own portable benefit buy a single new home together, the reduction is the higher of the two benefits, not the sum, and still capped at $500,000. Separately, adding a new spouse to the deed of a home that already has a cap is safe, until that person applies for their own homestead exemption on it, which counts as a change of ownership and resets the assessed value (see FAQ 28).

The dates that control all of this. You must have held the homestead exemption as of January 1 in one of the 3 years immediately preceding the year you establish the new homestead; the old homestead must be abandoned before January 1 of the year you apply on the new one; and Form DR-501T is due March 1. Missing March 1 is not necessarily fatal: the statute lets you file in a later year (the reduction then starts the year it is approved, with no refunds for earlier years), and lets you petition the Value Adjustment Board for “extenuating circumstances” for a $15 nonrefundable fee. See FAQ 09 for the general portability mechanics.