Years of the Save Our Homes 3 percent cap build a gap between your home's market value and its taxable value. When you move within Florida, you can carry that gap to your next homestead, up to $500,000. Enter three numbers to estimate what transfers and what it saves you.
Save Our Homes caps how fast a Florida homestead's assessed value can rise, to 3 percent a year, no matter how fast the market climbs. After a few years that builds a real gap between what your home is worth and what you are taxed on. That gap, the assessment difference, is money. When you sell and buy another Florida home, you do not have to leave it behind. Portability lets you carry the gap to your next homestead, up to $500,000, which lowers the taxable value of the new home and your bill with it. Plenty of movers never file for it and quietly restart from zero.
How much transfers depends on whether your new home is worth more or less than your old one. If you are upsizing, meaning the new home's just or market value is equal to or greater than the old one's, you carry the full accumulated benefit, capped at $500,000. If you are downsizing to a less expensive home, you carry a proportional share: the new just value divided by the old just value, times your benefit, still capped at $500,000. So a move from a $400,000 home to a $200,000 home transfers half of the benefit. The calculator applies whichever rule fits your two values.
Portability is not automatic, and it is easy to lose. First, you must establish your new Florida homestead within three tax years of January 1 of the last year you held your old homestead exemption, which is measured from the tax year, not the day you sold. Second, you have to file for it: form DR-501T, the transfer of homestead assessment difference, goes in with your new homestead exemption application by March 1. Miss either one and the accumulated benefit is gone. If you are timing a move, run the homestead deadline checker alongside this, because the residency clock and the portability clock are different questions.
The $500,000 cap could change. One of the 2026 statewide ballot proposals would remove the cap on the transferable Save Our Homes benefit, which would matter most to owners of higher-value homes with large accumulated differences. Nothing changes unless voters approve it, and any change would take effect for future transfers, so treat the $500,000 cap as the current rule and confirm the final ballot language with the Florida Division of Elections. Track the property tax measures in the amendment tracker.
The calculator estimates your accumulated Save Our Homes benefit as your old home's just value minus its assessed value. For an upsize, where the new just value is at least the old just value, it transfers the full benefit, capped at $500,000. For a downsize, it transfers the benefit times the new just value divided by the old just value, capped at $500,000, which is the proportional method Florida county appraisers use (see the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser portability calculations and the Seminole County portability example). Estimated first-year savings equal the transferred benefit times your millage rate, since portability lowers your taxable value by that amount. Portability, the $500,000 cap, and the three-tax-year window are governed by Florida Statute 193.155, and the transfer is claimed on the Department of Revenue DR-501T form by March 1.
This is educational, not legal or tax advice. The homestead exemption, non-ad valorem assessments, and local millage all affect your real bill, and co-ownership, divorce, and surviving-spouse situations follow special rules. Confirm your numbers with your county property appraiser. Figures are estimates, deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Time your move against the December 31 residency line in the homestead deadline checker, estimate your full year-one bill in the Save Our Homes tax estimator, see whether your county's rate went down in the rollback and TRIM decoder, check whether your assessment is worth appealing in the property tax appeal tool, or open your county from the full Florida property tax hub.
Portability, the homestead deadline, and your sale price all interact. A Momentum agent can help you sequence the sale and purchase so you keep the benefit you have earned and price the move with real local data.
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