Can Your City Take Back Your Amendment 3 Savings? The Break-Even Math in 66 Florida Counties

Amendment 3 is law. Voters approved it on November 3, 2026 with about 62% of the vote, two points over the 60% it needed (Florida Realtors / News Service of Florida, Nov. 5, 2026). The homestead exemption on non-school property taxes rises to $150,000 for the 2027 tax year and $250,000 for 2028. School taxes keep the $25,000 exemption.

The question homeowners are asking now is the one that comes after every tax cut: will the city or county just take it back? Jacksonville is looking at a revenue hole of $200 million in fiscal 2027-28 and $300 million in 2028-29, and the full City Council meets on November 10 to talk about it (News4JAX, Nov. 5, 2026). Governor DeSantis says he will call a special session before his term ends in early January to keep local governments from, in his words, “just doing an end run around the amendment.”

We ran the math for a typical home in 66 Florida counties. The answer is not what most people expect.

The short version: once the $250,000 exemption is in place in 2028, a typical homestead bought at today’s value has a median of only $55,834 of value left on the non-school tax roll. To take back its median $1,792 a year in savings through the tax rate alone, a county or city would have to raise non-school millage by a median of 25.2 mills, more than doubling today’s non-school rate in 47 of the 53 counties where it is even possible. In 13 counties the typical home falls under $250,000 and no rate increase reaches it at all. A flat fee is different: a fee of about $149 a month erases the median saving on every home, homestead or not. That is why the fight over the special session is about fees, not millage.

Your county is in the table below. To run your own price, use the property tax after you buy calculator, which now includes an Amendment 3 panel showing when your escrow payment drops and what a local rate increase or new fee would cost you.

Why a millage increase barely touches most homesteads after 2028

A Florida tax bill is millage times taxable value. One mill is $1 of tax for every $1,000 of taxable value. Millage gets the headlines, but taxable value decides who pays.

Amendment 3 does not cut anyone’s millage. It removes taxable value. For a homestead assessed at $300,000, the non-school taxable value falls from about $250,000 today to $50,000 in 2028. A rate increase can only work on the value that is left. So the same one-mill increase that costs that owner about $250 a year today costs about $50 a year in 2028.

In the median county, one extra mill of non-school tax in 2028 would cost a typical recent-buyer homestead about $56 a year, against $256 for the same home under today’s exemption. The same mill costs a non-homestead home at the same typical value, a rental, a second home or a commercial property, about $306 a year, roughly 5.5 times as much. Non-homestead property gets no new exemption, only a lower 5% cap on yearly assessment increases for non-school levies starting in 2027.

That is the quiet part of the local response. If a city raises its rate to replace lost revenue, most of the new money comes from property that is not a homestead. We looked at what that means for tenants in Amendment 3 and the 5% landlord cap.

Rental owners have a second issue: the new 5% cap on non-homestead assessments resets on a sale, including a sale of more than half of an LLC. We worked out the cost of that reset by county in Amendment 3, LLCs and the 5% cap.

The break-even math, county by county

For each county we took the typical home value (Zillow Home Value Index, September 2026) and treated it as the assessed value of a homestead bought recently, so its assessment sits at full value. We applied FY2025-26 non-school millage and asked three questions: how much does Amendment 3 save this owner in 2028, how much non-school taxable value is left, and how many extra mills would it take to erase the saving.

The formula is simple. Saving = non-school millage × $200,000 (the extra exemption, for homes assessed at $250,000 or more) ÷ 1,000. Break-even increase = saving × 1,000 ÷ non-school taxable value left. If nothing is left, no rate increase reaches the owner.

Only four counties have a break-even under six mills: Walton (2.8 mills), Collier (4.2 mills), Nassau (5.9 mills), St. Johns (6.0 mills). All four combine high home values with low non-school millage, so a lot of value stays on the roll after the exemption and the saving itself is small. Everywhere else the number is large. The median is 25.2 mills, about 235% of the county’s current non-school rate. Florida’s Constitution caps county and city operating millage at 10 mills each (Article VII, Section 9), so in most counties the break-even sits beyond what a single taxing authority could levy even before politics enters it.

Monroe is omitted because its home value series starts in 2016. “None possible” means the typical home is assessed at or under $250,000, so it has no non-school taxable value left in 2028. Millage is county-typical; cities, special districts and MSTUs add their own rates. Estimates, not tax bills.

Northeast Florida, side by side

Duval shows the pattern clearly. A typical Duval home is worth about $294,079. Bought recently and homesteaded, it saves about $2,304 a year in 2028 at the consolidated government’s typical non-school rate of 11.52 mills, and its bill falls from about $4,519 to about $2,215. Only $44,079 of non-school taxable value is left. Erasing the saving through the rate would take about 52.3 extra mills, roughly 4.5 times today’s entire non-school rate. One extra mill would cost that homestead about $44 a year and a non-homestead home of the same value about $294.

St. Johns and Nassau are the exceptions in our area. Higher values and lower non-school millage leave more value on the roll, so a rate increase of about six mills would erase a typical recent buyer’s saving. That is still a large increase on today’s rates, but it is in a range a county could discuss.

For the city’s side of the story, see Jacksonville and the $200 million budget gap. For your bill line by line, see the Duval County property tax guide.

Long-time owners are out of reach of the rate entirely

Save Our Homes has held long-time owners’ assessments far below market. In our model, a typical home bought in 2012 and homesteaded since is assessed at a median of about $155,789 today, after the yearly caps listed by the Pinellas County Property Appraiser. In 60 of 66 counties, that assessment is under $250,000, which means zero non-school taxable value in 2028. A millage increase of any size would not change that owner’s non-school bill. Their remaining bill is the school portion, which Amendment 3 does not touch. We walked through how the same street can carry four different tax bills in same street, four tax bills.

Fees are the lever that reaches everyone

A non-ad valorem assessment or fee, for fire service, solid waste or stormwater, does not depend on taxable value. It shows up as its own line on the tax bill and every parcel in the service area pays it. In the median county, a new or higher fee of about $149 a month would cancel the typical recent buyer’s full 2028 saving. In Duval the equivalent is about $192 a month.

This is the “taxing them in other ways” DeSantis described. Bay News 9 reported that he also floated a taxpayer bill of rights aimed at fees (Bay News 9, Nov. 5, 2026). No bill text has been filed and no session date has been set as of November 9, 2026, so treat any limit on fees as proposed, not law.

What the rules already say about raising the rate

The Legislature passed an implementing bill, SB 4-F, alongside the amendment. The Florida Association of Counties summary says it makes the rolled-back rate the maximum a governing body can adopt by simple majority, keeps the two-thirds vote needed for rates up to 110% of the rolled-back rate, and keeps the unanimous vote or referendum needed above that (Florida Association of Counties, Property Tax Reform Summary, June 2026). Kaufman Rossin describes the same structure in its update of November 3, 2026 (Kaufman Rossin, updated Nov. 3, 2026).

Here is the detail worth watching. The rolled-back rate is the rate that would raise the same revenue as last year from this year’s roll. Section 200.065(1), Florida Statutes, excludes new construction, boundary changes and a few other items when it computes that rate, but the 2025 text does not exclude value removed by a new exemption. As we read it, a smaller tax roll after Amendment 3 means a higher rolled-back rate, so a city could raise its rate toward the old revenue level without crossing the supermajority thresholds. The Legislature has addressed this before: the 2018 version of the statute carried a contingent add-back for that year’s proposed exemption, which voters rejected. Whether the special session adds a similar rule is one of the open questions on our Amendment 3 tracker. This is our reading, not legal advice; check the final statute.

The math above still applies. Even a rate increase that clears every vote threshold lands mostly on non-homestead property, because that is where the taxable value is.

What this means if you own, buy or rent

• Homestead owners: watch fee lines more closely than the millage rate on your August 2027 TRIM notice. A fee increase reaches your bill in full; a rate increase mostly does not.
• Buyers: your first bill resets to your price. Run the after-purchase calculator with the Amendment 3 panel to see the 2027 and 2028 bills, the escrow timing and what a fee would do. If you are moving from out of state, the December 31, 2026 residency date decides whether you get the larger exemption right away; see moving to Florida after Amendment 3.
• Landlords and second-home owners: a local rate increase falls on you at full weight. The new 5% non-school cap limits assessment growth, not rate changes; model it with the non-homestead cap calculator.
• Everyone: your full bill under the new exemption is in the Amendment 3 calculator.

How we built these numbers

We used the September 2026 Zillow Home Value Index for each county as the value of one typical home, FY2025-26 school and non-school millage from our county data, a $25,000 school exemption, and a non-school exemption of $50,000 today and $250,000 in 2028. Values and millage are held at today’s levels so the result isolates the rules. The long-time owner’s assessment starts at the 2012 value and rises each year by the lesser of the Save Our Homes cap or the market. Saving and break-even figures are for one typical home per county; real assessments, city millage, special districts and existing non-ad valorem assessments vary by parcel.

We do not estimate how much a city must raise to fill its own budget gap, because that depends on the full composition of its tax roll, which this analysis does not model.

Frequently asked questions

Can my city raise property taxes after Amendment 3?

Yes. Amendment 3 raises the homestead exemption but does not stop counties or cities from changing millage or fees. Under SB 4-F, a governing body can adopt up to the rolled-back rate by simple majority, needs a two-thirds vote up to 110% of that rate, and needs a unanimous vote or referendum above it. Governor DeSantis has said a special session will address local responses, but no bill text exists as of November 9, 2026.

Will a millage increase cancel my Amendment 3 savings?

Usually not on a homestead. After the $250,000 exemption applies in 2028, a typical recently bought homestead has a median of only $55,834 of non-school taxable value left, so erasing its median $1,792 saving would take about 25.2 extra mills, by Momentum Realty’s estimate. In 13 of 66 counties the typical home has no non-school taxable value left at all.

How much would a 1 mill increase cost me in 2028?

Multiply your non-school taxable value by 0.001. For a homestead assessed at $300,000, non-school taxable value in 2028 is $50,000, so one mill costs about $50 a year. In the median county, one mill costs a typical recent-buyer homestead about $56 a year and a non-homestead home of the same value about $306.

Can a fee take back my Amendment 3 savings?

Yes. Fees and non-ad valorem assessments do not depend on taxable value, so every parcel pays them in full. In the median county a new fee of about $149 a month would cancel a typical recent buyer’s 2028 saving; in Duval County the figure is about $192 a month. The special session may try to limit fees, but nothing has been filed yet.

How much does Amendment 3 save in Jacksonville?

On a typical Duval County home worth about $294,079, bought recently and homesteaded, the 2028 saving is about $2,304 a year at FY2025-26 millage, taking the bill from about $4,519 to about $2,215. School taxes are not reduced. The City of Jacksonville projects a revenue loss of $200 million in fiscal 2027-28 and $300 million in 2028-29, per News4JAX.

Who pays if cities raise millage after Amendment 3?

Mostly non-homestead property: rentals, second homes and commercial buildings, which receive no new exemption. In the median county one extra mill costs a non-homestead home about 5.5 times what it costs a recently bought homestead of the same value in 2028. Long-time homestead owners assessed under $250,000 pay no non-school tax at all in 2028, so a rate increase does not reach them.

Sources: Florida Realtors / News Service of Florida, “DeSantis plans special session on property tax amendment,” November 5, 2026; News4JAX, Jacksonville nonprofits and Amendment 3 revenue loss, November 5, 2026; Bay News 9, “Florida lawmakers to decide how Amendment 3 property tax relief will work,” November 5, 2026; Kaufman Rossin, Florida Amendment 3, October 7, 2026, updated November 3, 2026; Florida Association of Counties, Property Tax Reform Summary (SB 4-F, HJR 1F), June 2026; Section 200.065, Florida Statutes (2025 and 2018 versions, accessed November 9, 2026); Florida Constitution, Article VII, Sections 6 and 9; Pinellas County Property Appraiser, Save Our Homes annual increase history (accessed November 8, 2026); Zillow Home Value Index, county values 2012-2025 and September 2026, via Momentum Realty’s Florida housing tracker; FY2025-26 county millage from county property appraisers and Florida TaxWatch as compiled in Momentum Realty’s millage data (verified June 2026). Results are illustrative county-level estimates, not the assessment or tax bill of any property. Values are aggregate statistics, deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Momentum Realty is a licensed Florida real estate brokerage, not a tax advisor or law firm. Real estate commissions are always negotiable and are not set by law. Tax figures are illustrative estimates from county-level data and published millage, not a tax bill, appraisal or tax or legal advice; confirm assessed value, exemptions, millage and non-ad valorem assessments with your county property appraiser and tax collector. Equal Housing Opportunity.