Florida voters have approved Amendment 3, the property-tax overhaul that will raise the homestead exemption on non-school taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028 and cut the yearly cap on assessment increases for non-homestead property from 10% to 5%. Unofficial statewide results posted by the Florida Division of Elections show the measure winning 4,917,715 votes to 3,016,136, or 61.98%, against a constitutional threshold of 60%.
The margin over that threshold was roughly two percentage points. It was enough to rewrite how property is taxed in one of the country’s largest housing markets, starting with the Jan. 1, 2027 tax roll. The change reaches owner-occupants, newcomers, landlords, second-home buyers and commercial owners in different ways.
What Amendment 3 changes for homeowners
According to the ballot summary and full text published by the state, the larger exemption applies to county, municipal and other non-school levies. School taxes keep the existing $25,000 exemption. After 2028, the $250,000 figure is adjusted each year for inflation.
The jump is large. Florida’s Revenue Estimating Conference, the state’s official fiscal forecasters, explains in its impact analysis how the current system works. Today a homestead gets a first $25,000 exemption from all taxes, plus a second exemption from non-school taxes that covers assessed value between $50,000 and $76,411 in 2026, or about $26,400. Under the amendment, the first exemption applies only to school taxes, and a flat $150,000 exemption replaces the second one in 2027.
The amendment also tells the Legislature to set a uniform procedure that counties and cities can use to raise the exemption for their own levies, up to a home’s full assessed value. Special districts can do the same if their voters approve it in a referendum.
A five-year wait for newcomers
For agents who work with relocating buyers, the most consequential detail may be the residency rule. Buyers who were not Florida residents on Dec. 31, 2026 will get a smaller non-school exemption of $50,000 when they first qualify for a homestead. The ballot text says they move up to the full, inflation-adjusted amount “beginning with the fifth year of exemption,” and it adds the qualifier “to the extent permitted by the U.S. Constitution.”
The conference’s analysis says these buyers receive the lower exemption for four years and the larger one in the fifth. In its table, the newcomer exemption is $51,220 in 2028, compared with $250,000 for residents. Starting in 2030, counties and cities can shorten the five-year wait by a two-thirds vote of their governing bodies if they find a “critical local need.”
The forecasters also raised a practical problem. Their analysis says it is “unclear, particularly as time goes on, how property appraisers will be able to determine among new homeowners who was and who was not a permanent resident of the state at one specific point in history.”
Rentals, second homes and commercial property
The lower assessment cap covers property without a homestead: rental housing, second homes and commercial buildings. Starting Jan. 1, 2027, the non-school assessed value of these properties can rise no more than 5% a year, down from 10%. The amendment does not change school-tax assessments.
The rules on resetting value at a sale are not the same for every kind of property. Under the ballot text, residential property with nine or fewer units goes back to full market value after a change of ownership. For other non-homestead property, including commercial buildings, the Legislature “may provide” for that reset, and it must require reassessment after a qualifying improvement.
On our reading, a tighter cap makes tax bills more predictable for owners who hold property for years. It also means that, when a property does reset at a sale, the jump to full value could be larger. Buyers comparing a seller’s current tax bill with what they will pay should keep that in mind.
A $11.8 billion question for local budgets
The conference estimated that once the changes are fully in effect, local governments will collect about $11.83 billion less a year in non-school property taxes. It projected cash losses of $4.93 billion in fiscal 2027-28, $8.71 billion in 2028-29 and $10.71 billion by 2030-31. That estimate does not include any further exemption increases that local governments might adopt under the new procedures.
The amendment also limits what property taxes can pay for. Counties and cities must use them only for public safety, education and schools, infrastructure, natural resources, bond debt service, employee retirement benefits, and operations and administration. Other spending can still be approved by county officers or local governing bodies unless state law prohibits it.
Some local governments started preparing before the vote. St. Johns County put $100 million of capital projects on hold in September, citing state revenue projections.
How the measure got here
The Legislature placed the amendment on the ballot as joint resolution CS/HJR 1F, sponsored by Rep. Overdorf, according to the conference’s analysis. Its wording was challenged in court over the summer. A Leon County judge ordered the ballot language rewritten, and the attorney general then issued the revised title that appeared on ballots. Florida Realtors endorsed the measure in August.
Two other proposed amendments on the same ballot failed under the same 60% rule, according to the unofficial returns. Amendment 2, which would have exempted tangible personal property on agricultural land from taxation, received 58.21%. Amendment 1, on the state’s budget stabilization fund, received 40.9%.
The vote totals are unofficial until counties certify them. Most of Amendment 3 takes effect on its own on Jan. 1, 2027. The Legislature still has to write general laws to carry out parts of it, including the uniform procedure for local exemption increases and the rules for newcomers. Those details, and how property appraisers administer the residency test, will decide how the new system works when the 2027 rolls are prepared. More coverage is in our housing market section.
