Property Taxes in the Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne Metro (FL)

1. How Florida property tax works structurally

Florida has no state property tax and no state income tax — property tax is entirely local, and Florida's tax bills have a structural quirk worth understanding before comparing them to another state's. Each county's elected Property Appraiser determines just value (Florida's term for market value) for every parcel as of January 1 each year, then computes assessed and taxable value after exemptions and caps; a separately elected Tax Collector bills and collects. Each taxing authority — county, city, school board, and any special districts — sets its own millage rate (1 mill = $1 of tax per $1,000 of taxable value) independently. On top of that, Florida bills commonly carry non-ad-valorem assessments — flat or formula-based fees unrelated to property value, such as stormwater fees, solid-waste fees, and, in many of this metro's newer master-planned developments, Community Development District (CDD) bond and operating assessments under Florida Statutes Chapter 190. Lake Nona, for instance, includes multiple CDDs formed at different phases of its build-out — the Poitras East Community Development District (established 2018) and the roughly 380-acre Dowden Central Community Development District the Orlando City Council approved in March 2026 among them — each governing infrastructure for its own section of the development rather than Lake Nona as a whole. A CDD assessment is a real, recurring cost that doesn't show up in the millage rate at all — see our governance guide for how CDDs work and how they differ from HOA dues.

2. The homestead exemption: up to $50,000 off

Florida residents who make a property their permanent home may claim a homestead exemption: the first $25,000 comes off assessed value for all levies, and an additional $25,000 applies to assessed value between $50,000 and $75,000 — but that second $25,000 does not apply to school-district millage. Net effect: a homesteaded property valued at $75,000 or more gets up to $50,000 off taxable value for non-school levies, and $25,000 off for school levies. The filing deadline is March 1, with late filing permitted through roughly 25 days after the mid-August TRIM notice mailing (the exact late-filing cutoff Florida law sets). Applications go to the property appraiser in the county where the property sits — Orange, Volusia, or Brevard in this metro.

3. Save Our Homes: the 3% assessment cap, and portability

Claiming the homestead exemption also activates Save Our Homes (SOH), a 1995 constitutional protection that caps how much a homesteaded property's assessed value can rise each year at 3%, or the change in the national CPI, whichever is lower — regardless of how much the property's just/market value actually appreciated. This only limits the assessed-value figure used for the tax bill; the property appraiser still recalculates just value every year, so a growing gap ("SOH differential") can open between a long-tenured owner's assessed value and the property's real market value. That gap resets to just value whenever the property is sold, which is why a new buyer's first-year tax bill is often noticeably higher than the seller's had been. Homeowners can port some or all of that accumulated SOH benefit to a new Florida homestead — per Florida DOR guidance: up to $500,000, if the new homestead is established within any of the 3 tax roll years preceding the year of the new filing. Worth flagging as current, live news rather than settled law: a joint resolution moving through the 2026 Florida Legislature (and a related November 2026 ballot measure) would remove the $500,000 portability cap entirely — check the current status before relying on that figure for a purchase decision made after this page's last-verified date above.

4. The 10% cap on non-homestead property

A separate, higher cap applies to property that isn't homesteaded — rentals, second homes, and most commercial property — limiting annual assessed-value increases to 10% per year rather than SOH's 3%. Like the additional homestead exemption, this cap's protection doesn't extend to school-district levies. It resets to full just value on a change of ownership or control, the same as SOH.

5. Representative rates by county

We deliberately don't publish a single combined "the rate is X" figure — three counties, each layering city, school, and special-district millage on top of the county rate, reset annually through independent local budget cycles, so any combined number would be stale within months. One structural point is worth knowing up front, since it's a genuine contrast with our Jacksonville metro guide: none of Orange, Volusia, or Brevard County has a consolidated city-county government — all three run the standard Florida layering of an independent county government plus separately incorporated cities plus school district, each setting its own millage. Within Orange County, Orlando (which includes the College Park and Lake Eola-area neighborhoods, and most of Lake Nona following a series of annexations) and Winter Park (incorporated separately in 1887) are incorporated cities with their own millage; Dr. Phillips is unincorporated Orange County, so its residents pay county millage plus school millage but no separate city layer. In Volusia County, Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach are both separately incorporated cities. In Brevard County, Melbourne is a separately incorporated city (governed council-manager style, per the city's own charter).

Current-year combined millage rates for a specific address are best pulled from that county's Property Appraiser or Tax Collector site — we've deliberately shown structure rather than a specific rate figure here, since rates reset annually each fall and any number we published now would be stale within months. A Lake Nona or Dr. Phillips address may also carry a non-ad-valorem CDD assessment on top of the millage shown by the property appraiser's estimator — see Section 1. Sources: Orange County Property Appraiser (ocpafl.org); Volusia County Property Appraiser (vcpa.vcgov.org); Brevard County Property Appraiser (bcpao.us); Florida Department of Revenue Property Tax Oversight; general Florida reassessment statute (F.S. §192.042); Wikipedia entries for Orange County, Volusia County, and Brevard County, Florida (municipal incorporation and government-structure facts).

6. Appealing your assessment: the TRIM notice and VAB

Florida's TRIM (Truth in Millage) notice goes out from each county Property Appraiser in mid-August, showing the current year's proposed just/assessed/taxable value, each taxing authority's proposed millage, and public budget-hearing dates. A property owner who wants to formally contest an assessed value, exemption denial, or classification files a petition with the county's Value Adjustment Board (VAB) — a quasi-judicial body that hears evidence, often through an appointed special magistrate — within a window Florida law ties to the TRIM notice's mailing date (the same roughly-25-day window most Florida property appraisers cite for late homestead-exemption filing, since both are pegged to the same statutory clock). Confirm the exact current-year deadline with your county's VAB directly, since it moves with the TRIM mailing date each year.

7. How we keep this page current

The exemption amounts, Save Our Homes mechanics, and non-homestead cap in Sections 2–4 are set by the Florida Constitution and don't change often. The one live exception is portability's $500,000 cap in Section 3, which a 2026 legislative resolution and ballot measure could remove — worth re-checking if you're reading this after the 2026 general election. The rate table in Section 5 shows structure rather than a specific figure, since millage resets annually each fall; TRIM/VAB timing in Section 6 shifts with each year's TRIM mailing date. The CDD examples in Section 1 reflect Lake Nona's build-out as of this page's last-verified date — new CDDs are periodically created there as the development expands, so treat that list as illustrative rather than complete. If you spot something on this page that's changed, or notice a broken link, we'd like to know — see our contact information.