Save Our Homes in Florida

Two-story house at dusk after rain

 What Save Our Homes means

Save Our Homes is a cap on the assessed value of a homesteaded house. After the first year, that assessed value cannot go up by more than 3 percent or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less. The rule is in section 193.155, Florida Statutes. The Department of Revenue's January 2026 bulletin is the sheet the appraisers use.

It limits the value the county taxes. It does not limit the millage rate. It does not freeze the bill. A city or a school board can still change the rate. The cap only slows the assessment underneath that rate.

The gap that opens between market value and assessed value is the Save Our Homes benefit. That gap is what portability tries to move when you buy the next Florida homestead. The cap percent and the portable dollars are not the same number.

 It is not the homestead exemption

The homestead exemption takes dollars off assessed value. For 2026 the first $25,000 comes off every levy, including school taxes. A second piece, $26,411, comes off non-school levies only, and only on the band from $50,000 to $76,411. Those lines are the exemption. They are on our homestead exemption page.

Save Our Homes does not take a flat dollar amount off. It stops the assessed value from jumping with the market. The exemption then comes off whatever assessed value is left. You can have both. Most homesteaded houses do.

The cap lowers assessed value before the exemptions are applied, so it reduces the base for school taxes too. The second exemption does not. Read them as two lines on the TRIM notice, not as one discount.

 When the cap starts

The cap does not apply in the first year a house gets homestead. That year the property appraiser sets the assessed value at just value, which is the market value for tax purposes. The Department of Revenue states it this way: the limit begins the year after the property receives the homestead exemption.

If your homestead is first granted for 2026, the 2026 assessed value is just value. The cap first limits the increase on the 2027 tax roll. The Duval County Property Appraiser says the same thing in local words. Once the homestead is approved, you do not file a second form to turn the cap on. It is automatic the following year.

January 1 is still the occupancy date for the homestead itself, and March 1 is still the file date. The 2026 filing window is closed. The next occupancy date for a new homestead is January 1, 2027, filed by March 1, 2027. The cap on that new homestead would first bite on the 2028 roll.

 The 2026 cap is 2.7 percent

For 2026 the CPI change was 2.7 percent, so the cap is 2.7 percent. That is the Department of Revenue figure, revised January 2026, and it is the figure the Duval property appraiser posted. In years when CPI is above 3 percent, the cap stops at 3 percent. In 2024 the CPI change was 3.4 percent and the cap was 3 percent. In 2021 the CPI change was 1.4 percent and the cap was 1.4 percent.

The percentage is of last year's assessed value, not of this year's market value. A hot year in Mandarin does not become a 2.7 percent tax increase by itself. It becomes, at most, a 2.7 percent increase in the assessed value, and only on the part the cap covers.

Next year's CPI is not this year's. Do not budget 2027 with 2.7 percent typed in as if it were a promise. Pull the new bulletin when Revenue publishes it.

 A plain example

Take a house with a just value of $400,000 in the first year of homestead. Assessed value that year is $400,000. There is no Save Our Homes benefit yet. The exemptions still apply. The cap has not started.

The next year the market value is $460,000 and the cap is 2.7 percent. The most the assessed value can become is $400,000 times 1.027, which is $410,800. The benefit that year is $460,000 minus $410,800, or $49,200. That $49,200 is not taxed. It is also the start of the number people later try to port.

This is an illustration, not your parcel. Your TRIM notice is the only math that counts. A pool, a room addition, or a change in just value will move the lines.

House set back on a wide lawn

 When the market falls

Assessed value can still rise in a down market. Revenue's portability sheet says it in one sentence: even if the value of the home decreases, the assessed value may increase, but only by the limited amount. It will never go above just value.

Say assessed value is $300,000 and just value is $500,000. The market then falls to $450,000. At a 2.7 percent cap the assessed value can still move to $308,100. That is under the new just value, so the assessment goes up while the market went down. People call that recapture. The county is closing a little of the gap. It is not a mistake on the bill.

If the market falls below the capped assessed value, the assessment stops at just value. It does not stay up in the air above what the house is worth for tax purposes.

 What the cap does not cover

New construction is assessed at market value in the year it is built and added to the capped assessment. The Duval property appraiser is explicit. A pool, a large addition, or other new improvement comes on at market that year. That new piece joins the cap the following year. The older part of the house does not jump to market just because you built a pool.

The cap does not set your sale price. A buyer pays market. The seller's low assessment is not a feature the buyer inherits. It also does not cap insurance, a CDD assessment, or HOA dues. Those are not property-tax assessments under section 193.155.

It does not cap the tax rate. If millage goes up 8 percent and assessed value goes up 2.7 percent, the bill can rise by more than 2.7 percent. Look at both columns on the TRIM notice before you decide the cap "failed."

 Buying a house that already has a cap

The seller's cap dies with the seller's ownership. Duval states it plainly. At the end of the sale year the seller's exemptions and cap come off. The next year the county sets a new market value and a new assessed value from sales. The seller's Save Our Homes benefit does not ride in the deed.

Your assessed value drops below that new market value only if you bring portability from a Florida homestead of your own. If you are coming from Virginia, California, or a rental, there is no Florida benefit to bring. You will be taxed off the new just value, minus whatever homestead exemption you qualify for, until the cap starts the following year.

Ask for the current tax bill during the showing, and then assume it will reset. We will not underwrite an offer on the seller's assessment. Call (904) 309-0609 if you want that reset priced into the monthly number before you write.

 How you use it

You use it by getting the homestead approved. File Form DR-501 with the county property appraiser where the house sits. There is no separate Save Our Homes application. Duval, Clay, St. Johns, and Nassau all hang the cap on the homestead, not on a second filing.

Duval's online homestead file is homestead.coj.net. The explanation of the cap is on the Duval Save Our Homes page. Clay's file is exemption.ccpao.com, and the office site is ccpao.com. St. Johns posts homestead and portability at sjcpa.gov. Nassau's homestead page is on ncpafl.com. The statewide sheet is the Department of Revenue Save Our Homes PDF, revised January 2026.

After you are on the roll, the use is ordinary. Read the TRIM notice in late summer. The columns that matter are just value, assessed value, exemptions, and taxable value. If assessed value is far under just value, the cap is working. If they match, you are in the first year, the market fell through the cap, or the homestead is not on the account.

 What removes it

A sale to someone who is not a protected owner removes it. So does losing the homestead. If you move out and make another place your permanent residence, or you rent the whole house, the homestead should come off. The cap comes off with it. A wrongful homestead claim can become a lien, with a 50 percent penalty and 15 percent interest under section 196.161.

A transfer between spouses does not wipe the benefit by itself. The Duval property appraiser says a change between husband and wife, or between an owner and a natural dependent, does not lose the Save Our Homes benefit, though a new homestead application may be required. A death or a divorce that changes the title is a call to the appraiser, not a guess. File what they ask. Do not assume the cap survived because you still get the mail there.

Correcting an error on the roll is also in that family of changes. Fixing a name is not the same event as a sale.

 Taking it to the next house

Portability moves the assessment difference, not the house. You file Form DR-501T with the new county, with the new homestead application, by March 1. The old county certifies the amount. The full steps are on our homestead portability page. The rules below are the ones that change the dollars.

You must have had homestead on the old Florida house on January 1 of one of the three years before you establish the new one. Revenue measures that from January 1 of the year you abandoned the old homestead, not from three years after the closing date. Miss the window and the accumulated difference is gone.

The most you can transfer is $500,000. If the new house's just value is equal to or higher than the old house's just value, you can move the whole difference, up to that $500,000. If the new house is worth less, you do not keep the full dollar gap. You keep the same proportion. The difference was a share of the old just value. That same share of the new just value is what moves.

Example, not a quote from your file. Old just value $400,000, old assessed value $240,000, so the difference is $160,000, which is 40 percent. You buy a house with a just value of $300,000. Forty percent of $300,000 is $120,000. The new assessed value starts at $180,000, not at $140,000. Buy a more expensive house at a $500,000 just value and the whole $160,000 can move, because you are upsizing and you are under the $500,000 ceiling. The new assessed value would start at $340,000.

We will not invent the certified amount. Wait for the old county.

 The 10 percent rule is a different cap

Property that is not homesteaded can have a separate assessment limit of 10 percent a year under section 193.1554 for non-homestead residential property. There is a cousin limit for other real property. That is not Save Our Homes. It does not port. It does not come with the homestead exemption. A rental you kept after a PCS may be under the 10 percent rule and still be a bad homestead claim if you no longer live there.

Do not let a listing agent call a rental's assessment cap "Save Our Homes." The name matters, because only the homestead version builds a benefit you can carry to the next house you actually occupy.

 If the law changes

Ballot language shows up around this cap. As of this page, the 2026 tax roll uses the 2.7 percent cap in section 193.155. Do not price a house off a campaign card. If voters change the constitution, the property appraiser will publish the new assessed-value rule before it hits a bill. Until that notice, the rule in this page is the rule.

The TRIM notice remains the document. If a line on it does not match what you thought you filed, call that county's exemption desk before you call a title company.

 Keep going

• Florida homestead exemption
• Homestead portability
• Documentary stamp tax
• Florida property tax guide
• Buying a home in Jacksonville

Call (904) 309-0609.