What is a CDD fee?

The short answer, then the mechanics.

A Community Development District (CDD) is a special-purpose unit of local government created under Chapter 190, Florida Statutes. A developer petitions to form one so the district, rather than the developer, can sell tax-exempt bonds to pay for the roads, stormwater ponds, water and sewer lines, streetlights, entry features, pools and clubhouses a new community needs before the first house is sold.

The CDD fee is how those bonds get repaid and how the district keeps the lights on. Every parcel inside the district is assessed a share each year. The county tax collector bills it on the same statement as your property taxes, in the non-ad valorem assessments section, so most owners pay it through their mortgage escrow without ever writing a separate check.

Because it rides on the tax bill, an unpaid CDD assessment is treated like unpaid property tax: it can lead to a tax certificate and, eventually, a tax deed sale. That is the practical reason lenders escrow for it and title companies prorate it at closing.

Debt service and operations & maintenance.

Almost every CDD assessment has two components. The debt service portion repays the infrastructure bonds, with interest, on a fixed schedule that usually runs 20 to 30 years from the bond issue date. It is a fixed amount for your lot type; it does not rise with your home’s value. The operations and maintenance (O&M) portion funds the district’s annual budget: landscaping the common areas, running the amenity center, maintaining ponds and roads the district owns, insurance, management fees. O&M is set every year by the district board and can go up or down.

When you read a CDD fee, ask which parts you are looking at. A community whose bonds were issued in 2005 may have the debt portion paid off by the early 2030s, after which only O&M remains. A community platted last year is at the start of its schedule. Two homes with the same total today can have very different totals in ten years.

What a CDD fee typically costs.

There is no statewide figure; each district sets its own. In Northeast and Central Florida, published assessments for single-family lots commonly fall between roughly $700 and $3,500 per year in total, with large master-planned communities at the higher end because their amenity packages are larger. Townhome and condo lots are assessed at a lower rate than estate lots inside the same district, because assessments are allocated by lot size or benefit unit, not by home value.

We publish the actual per-village numbers for several districts so you can see the range in practice: Nocatee CDD fees by village, Epperson, Julington Creek Plantation, Lakewood Ranch, and the Jacksonville HOA and CDD database. On any community page on this site, the HOA/CDD block shows what is on record for that subdivision.

How a CDD fee differs from HOA dues.

An HOA is a private, non-profit association of owners governed by recorded covenants; it collects dues directly and enforces rules about your property. A CDD is a public body with a five-member board of supervisors, elected first by landowners and then, as the community builds out, by resident voters. Its meetings are public, its budget is adopted in a noticed hearing, and its assessment is collected by the tax collector rather than a management company.

Many communities have both. The HOA covers architectural control, gate access, and private common areas; the CDD covers the infrastructure it bonded and the amenities it owns. When you compare two neighborhoods, add the two together. The longer treatment is in CDD vs. HOA.

Can a CDD fee be paid off early?

The debt-service portion usually can. Districts allow owners to prepay the remaining principal allocated to their lot, which removes the debt line from future tax bills and leaves only O&M. Whether that is worth doing depends on the bond’s interest rate against what the money would earn elsewhere, and on how long you plan to own; a prepaid bond does not always come back as a higher sale price. The O&M portion cannot be paid off because it is an annual budget, not a loan. Details on the bond side are in CDD bond.

How to check the CDD fee before you buy.

Florida law requires a CDD disclosure in the sales contract for property inside a district (section 190.048, Florida Statutes), and the county property appraiser’s site shows the current year’s non-ad valorem lines for any parcel. Ask for three things: the total assessment for this lot type this year, how much of it is debt service and when that portion retires, and the district’s adopted budget for next year. New construction deserves extra care: the first tax bill on a newly platted lot may show only land value, so the assessment you see may not reflect the full amount once the home is on the roll. Our guide to CDD fees on new construction walks through that case.

Which communities have CDD fees?

CDDs are the default financing structure for large master-planned communities built since the late 1990s: Nocatee, RiverTown, SilverLeaf and Shearwater in St. Johns County; Wildlight in Nassau; Eagle Harbor and OakLeaf in Clay; Lakewood Ranch, Wesley Chapel’s Epperson, Babcock Ranch, Ave Maria and dozens of others across Central and Southwest Florida. Older, infill and most condo communities have none. Every community page on this site states whether a CDD is on record and links to the assessments we have collected.