Data Analysis

A buyer closing on a home at the typical value in a Florida county today faces a first-year property tax bill 2.5x the median bill current owners in that county report, a Momentum Research analysis of all 67 counties found, with the multiple at 2 or higher in 55 of them.

In Miami-Dade the reset moves the bill from $3,516 to about $8,503 a year. In Pinellas it goes from $2,324 to about $6,443. The gap is the Save Our Homes cap at work, and it is the number most buyers never see until the first November bill.

A buyer purchasing a home at the typical value in a Florida county today should expect a first-year property tax bill about 2.5x the median bill current owners in that county report, according to a Momentum Research analysis of all 67 counties. The multiple is 2 or higher in 55 counties. In Miami-Dade the median owner reports $3,516 a year; a homesteaded purchase at the county's typical value of $523,890 bills at about $8,503, 2.4x. Broward moves from $3,610 to $7,619, Palm Beach from $3,600 to $8,114, and Pinellas from $2,324 to $6,443.

Why does a new buyer pay so much more than the neighbors?

Florida's Save Our Homes amendment caps the annual increase in a homesteaded property's assessed value at 3 percent or the change in the consumer price index, whichever is lower. An owner who bought in 2015 or 2019 is being taxed on an assessed value that has drifted far below what the house would sell for now. The cap does not travel with the house. When the property sells, the assessment resets to market value on January 1 following the sale, and the new owner's bill is computed on that full number, less the $50,000 homestead exemption.

That is why the seller's disclosed tax bill is close to useless as a forecast of the buyer's. The figures in this analysis put the two side by side for every county: the median real estate tax that owner-occupants reported to the Census Bureau, against the bill a buyer at the county's typical Zillow home value would receive at the current adopted millage.

Which large counties have the biggest reset?

Among the 15 most populous counties, Pinellas has the widest multiple at 2.8x, a product of the county's 19.39 total mills, one of the highest rates in the state, applied to a typical value of $374,245. Volusia is next at 2.5x, then Miami-Dade at 2.4x, Polk at 2.3x and Pasco at 2.3x.

In dollar terms the largest resets are in South Florida because the values are highest. Miami-Dade's gap is $4,987 a year, Palm Beach's is $4,514, Pinellas's is $4,119 and Broward's is $4,009. Orange County moves from $2,795 to $6,060, a $3,265 increase, and Hillsborough from $2,787 to $5,355. Duval, the least expensive of the big metro counties on this measure, still goes from $2,142 to $4,559.

The smallest multiples among large counties sit where either millage is low or the housing stock has turned over recently. Sumter, home to The Villages, has the lowest multiple in the state at 1.5x because so many of its owners bought within the last decade and are taxed close to market value already. St. Johns (1.7x), Sarasota (1.7x), Collier (1.8x) and Lee (1.7x) follow for similar reasons, along with the lower millage in St. Johns and Collier.

Where is the multiple highest?

The largest multiples are in small rural counties, and they need a caveat. Holmes County's median owner reports $527 a year in real estate tax while a purchase at the county's typical value of $187,642 would bill at about $2,723, 5.2x. Gulf County runs 5.1x, from $1,334 to $6,859. Dixie, Franklin, Union, Lafayette and Levy all exceed 4x. In these counties the owner-reported median reflects a large share of long-held and lower-value homes, so the ratio overstates what a typical buyer of a typical listing would experience. The direction is right; the magnitude is less precise than in the metro counties.

Monroe County, the Keys, has the highest first-year bill in the state at about $8,122 on a typical value of $960,827, despite the lowest millage in Florida at 8.82 mills. Current owners there report a median of $3,943.

What should buyers do with this number?

Budget the reset bill, not the seller's. Lenders escrow on the current bill for the first year, then re-escrow after the reassessment, which is where the payment shock lands in year two. A buyer in Palm Beach who underwrote the seller's $3,600 and receives a $8,114 bill sees the monthly escrow rise by roughly $376.

Buyers moving within Florida can carry part of their old cap with them. Portability lets a homesteaded owner transfer up to $500,000 of the difference between market and assessed value to a new homestead, which can cut the reset substantially. It only applies to owners who already hold a Florida homestead, so it does nothing for buyers arriving from another state, who are the group most exposed to the gap this analysis measures.

Every county in the table below links to a page that estimates the first-year bill at any purchase price, and to the county's homestead filing guide.

All 67 counties

Limitations

The owner-reported figure is the median annual real estate tax paid by owner-occupied households in the 2019 to 2023 American Community Survey five-year estimates, the most recent county-level release. Some of the gap therefore reflects millage and value changes between that period and 2026, not only the Save Our Homes cap. The owner median also includes condominiums, manufactured homes and non-homesteaded owners, and in small counties it is estimated from a limited sample.

The new-buyer figure is a model, not a bill. It applies the county's FY2025 to 26 typical total millage to the Zillow Home Value Index for July 2026, with the standard $50,000 homestead exemption, of which the second $25,000 does not apply to school millage. Municipal and special-district millage vary inside a county, CDD assessments are excluded, and the first bill after purchase is based on the January 1 assessment, which can differ from the sale price. Portability is not modeled. Zillow's index is a typical-value estimate, not a median sale price.

Sources and links

• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2019 to 2023 five-year estimates, table B25103, median real estate taxes paid, Florida counties.
• Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, July 2026, county level: zillow.com/research/data.
• FY2025 to 26 adopted total millage by county, compiled from county property appraisers and Florida TaxWatch: Florida property tax by county.
• Florida Department of Revenue, Save Our Homes assessment limitation and portability: floridarevenue.com.
• Related: Florida median home prices by county, Florida homestead exemption guides, Florida insurance costs by county.

Disclosure: Jon Brooks is a co-founder of Momentum Realty, a Florida real estate brokerage that owns and funds Florida Housing Intelligence. Momentum has a financial interest in Florida real estate transactions, including in markets named here. See our editorial standards.