Property Taxes in the Tampa Bay Metro (FL)

1. How Florida property tax actually works

Florida's county property appraiser sets each property's just value (roughly, market value) as of January 1 each year. For a homesteaded property, a separate, capped assessed value is calculated from that just value (see Section 2) -- the two numbers can diverge significantly the longer an owner stays put. Exemptions, chiefly the homestead exemption covered in Section 4, are then subtracted from assessed value to reach taxable value, and it's taxable value that local millage (one mill = $1 of tax per $1,000 of taxable value) is actually applied to. Millage itself is set annually by several overlapping taxing authorities layered on one bill -- the county, the local school district, a city or municipality if the property sits inside one, and any special taxing districts -- so a single "the property tax rate is X" figure for a whole county is always an understatement of what a specific address actually owes.

Florida has no state income tax (see our relocating guide), which is part of why property tax and sales tax carry relatively more weight in the state's overall tax structure than in states that also tax income.

2. The Save Our Homes cap and portability

Once a property carries a homestead exemption, Florida's Save Our Homes (SOH) provision caps how much its assessed value can rise each year to the lesser of 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index -- 2.9% for the 2025 tax year -- regardless of how much the property's actual just value (market value) climbs. The longer an owner stays in a homesteaded property during a rising market, the wider the gap grows between just value and the much lower taxable assessed value; that gap is generally called the "SOH benefit." Portability lets a homeowner carry some or all of an accumulated SOH benefit, up to a statutory cap of $500,000, to a new Florida homestead when they move, reducing the new property's starting taxable value. Confirm the current portability cap and the exact math for a specific move with the receiving county's property appraiser.

3. The recapture rule -- what resets when a home sells

This is the single most consequential, least-advertised mechanic in Florida property tax for a buyer. Under Florida Statute 193.155, when a homesteaded property changes ownership -- most sales included -- the county property appraiser reassesses it at full just value as of January 1 of the following year, wiping out the seller's accumulated Save Our Homes benefit entirely. The new owner's own SOH cap then starts accruing fresh from that reset, higher base, not from wherever the seller's assessed value happened to sit. In plain terms: a seller's low property tax bill does not transfer to a buyer. A buyer evaluating a listing should budget from the property's just value and current millage, not from the tax bill shown on the listing -- the gap between the two can be substantial on a long-held property, especially in fast-appreciating Tampa Bay submarkets.

4. The homestead exemption, and the amendment on this November's ballot

Under current law, a permanent Florida resident who owns and occupies a property as their primary home can claim a homestead exemption that removes the first $25,000 of assessed value from taxation entirely, including school-district taxes. A second exemption, applying to assessed value between $50,000 and $75,000, removes up to roughly another $25,000-$26,000 -- Pinellas County listed this second tier at $26,411 as of 2025 -- but this second exemption does not apply to school taxes, only to the non-school portion of the bill. The two combined are often described as roughly a $50,000 total benefit for a qualifying homeowner, though the school-tax carve-out means the real dollar savings depends on a property's specific millage mix.

Pending, not current law: a constitutional amendment is on Florida's November 3, 2026 statewide ballot that would raise the non-school homestead exemption from $25,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028 (indexed to inflation afterward), with a five-year phase-in for new Florida residents who move in after December 31, 2026, and would also cut the annual assessment cap on non-homestead property (rental, vacation, and commercial property) from 10% to 5%. It needs 60% voter approval to take effect. This has not happened yet -- treat every dollar figure in this paragraph as proposed, not in effect, until and unless voters approve it this November.

Sources: Save Our Homes and portability, Miami-Dade Property Appraiser (miamidadepa.gov/pa/benefit/save-our-homes.page) and Fla. Stat. §193.155 (flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2022/193.155); Pinellas County Property Appraiser homestead exemption page (pcpao.gov/homestead-exemption); the 2026 ballot amendment, Ballotpedia (news.ballotpedia.org/2026/06/03/florida-voters-to-decide-expanded-homestead-tax-exemption-amendment-in-november).

5. Representative figures by county

The figures below are each county's countywide operating millage and an average effective property tax rate (tax paid as a share of home value) for FY2024-25 -- county-only numbers, not a full bill. A specific address's actual total millage also includes its school district, any city or municipality, and any special taxing district, so the full effective rate for a given property will run higher than the county figure alone.

Florida's statewide average effective property tax rate is roughly 0.75%, below the national average of about 0.89%. Lakewood Ranch and Longboat Key each straddle the Sarasota/Manatee county line, so which county's millage applies depends on the specific address.

Sources: Florida Association of Counties, "Florida County Property Tax Report -- All Counties," FY2024-25 (fl-counties.com); SmartAsset Florida Property Tax Calculator (smartasset.com/taxes/florida-property-tax-calculator). We did not independently re-verify each county's current-year municipal or school-district millage in this pass -- confirm a specific address's total combined millage with the relevant county property appraiser.

6. Appealing your assessment

Florida property appraisers mail a TRIM notice ("Notice of Proposed Property Taxes") each August, showing the coming year's proposed just value, assessed value, and taxes. An owner who disagrees can generally request an informal review directly with the county property appraiser's office first, and separately has the right to file a formal petition with the county's Value Adjustment Board (VAB) -- commonly reported as due within about 25 days of the TRIM notice being mailed, though we did not independently re-verify the exact current-year VAB filing deadline for each Tampa Bay county in this research pass. Confirm the specific deadline printed on your own TRIM notice, or directly with your county's property appraiser or VAB clerk, before relying on any date here.

7. How we keep this page current

The structural mechanics in Sections 1 through 3 (the just-value/assessed-value/taxable-value chain, the Save Our Homes cap, and the recapture rule) are settled state law and don't change often. The current-year exemption dollar figures in Section 4, the county millage figures in Section 5, and the appeal deadline in Section 6 are exactly the kind of numbers that shift year to year or county to county -- we've flagged what wasn't independently re-verified in this pass rather than guess, and the November 2026 ballot measure in Section 4 in particular should be rechecked after Election Day for its actual outcome. If you spot something on this page that's changed, or notice a broken link, we'd like to know -- see our contact information.