There are plenty of reasons to love Florida! There’s warm weather year-round, beautiful beaches up and down both coasts, some of the best amusement parks in the country, property taxes . . . wait, what was that last one?
While Florida is one of only a handful of states with no state income tax, there are other ways local governments try to collect their “fair share”—including property taxes on any real estate you own in the Sunshine State.
If you’re wondering how property taxes work in Florida, who exactly owes this tax, and how much you might owe on the land underneath your feet, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s dive right in!
A property tax is paid by someone—an individual or a business—who owns a piece of real estate. How much you owe depends on how much your home is worth and the tax rate set by your local government.
According to the Florida constitution, all property tax rates are set by the state’s local governments—including county governments, city governments and school districts—and all the revenue from those taxes goes straight to them. That means the state itself actually doesn’t see or use any of that money.
Usually, local governments will charge property taxes using a millage rate. Take a deep breath, because millage rate can get a little confusing. Millage is a tax rate defined as the “dollars charged for each $1,000 of value.” 1 One mill equals one dollar of tax for every $1,000 of your property’s assessed value. We’ll get more into this a little later.
Property taxes are also based on the market value of your property, which is determined by Florida’s property appraisers at the beginning of each year. Property appraisers also review and apply exemptions, assessment limitations, and classifications that could lower your property's taxable value.
Then tax collectors are responsible for sending you your property tax bill (if you don’t already pay your property tax through your mortgage) and collecting your tax payments. They’re the folks who will answer questions about payment options and give refunds if you happen to overpay on your property taxes.
After collecting what you owe, the tax collector sends all that property tax money to your local governments. Then they’ll put those tax dollars to work! In Florida, property taxes are used to fund public schools and infrastructure, including roads, libraries and some medical services.
Every homeowner in Florida will have to pay property taxes based on their home’s value and the property tax rates in their county or city. But homeowners aren’t the only folks who are on the hook for property takes.
If you run a business that owns property, own any rental properties in the state (this includes those of you who live in another state), or inherited property from a loved one as part of their estate, guess what? You owe property taxes on those properties.
And there’s no minimum or maximum of property tax you could owe in Florida. Whether you have a $5,000 shack in the Everglades or a beach house in Tampa, you will owe real property taxes on that property.
Your property tax rate (and how much you’ll owe) depends on a few different factors, including the county you live in, the exemptions you qualify for, and the value of your home. Here’s the basic equation to help you figure out how much you owe in property tax:
(Taxable Value of Your Property / 1,000) x Millage Rate = Property Tax Owed
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Here’s a scenario to help paint the picture a little more clearly. Let’s say you own a home in Orlando, which is located in Orange County, and your county appraiser looks at your property and determines your home is worth $350,000.
But you might not owe taxes on the entire value of your property if you qualify for certain exemptions. For example, if you qualify for the homestead exemption (more on that later), that allows you to write off up to $50,000 worth of value from your home. Now you’ll only pay property tax on $300,000 of your home’s value. Nice!
Let’s say that the millage rate for Orange County is five mills. Remember, one mill equals $1 in property tax for every $1,000 of your home’s value. So in this case, you would pay $5 in property tax for every $1,000 of your home’s assessed value.
So, using the property tax equation we showed you above, here’s how you would calculate how much you owe:
($300,000 / 1,000) x 5 mills = $1,500
In this case, you would owe $1,500 in property tax for the year to Orange County. If that amount is included in your monthly mortgage payment, that means you’ll pay about $125 each month in property taxes as part of your payment.
According to the Tax Foundation, Florida ranks No. 26 when it comes to property taxes paid as a percentage of housing value, with an effective property tax rate of 0.91%. 2
But remember, not everyone in Florida has the same property tax rate. A homeowner living in the suburbs somewhere in the Florida Panhandle, for example, won’t pay the same property tax as the owner of a high-rise condo in downtown Miami.
Okay, so before we drop this huge table in your lap, we need to explain it a bit—particularly the term average effective property tax rate. Yeah, that’s not a phrase you hear every day (we don’t hear it every day either and taxes are, like, our thing).
Governments take joy in making things complicated for some reason, which is why your regular property tax rate is set by your local government in millage rates (remember that?). And like we just showed you, trying to calculate how much you owe using millage rates can feel like you’re back in eighth grade algebra class. Shudder.
Enter the effective property tax rate, which is the percentage of your home’s actual market value that you’ll pay in property taxes each year. All you have to do is multiply what your home is worth by the effective property tax rate, and that’s roughly how much you should expect to pay in property tax.
For example, if the effective property tax rate in your county is 1% and your house is worth $300,000, that means you’ll owe about $3,000 in property taxes. It’s that simple!
Here are the average effective property tax rates for every county in Florida:
County
Median Home Value 3
Median Annual Property Tax Payment 4
Average Effective Property Tax Rate
Alachua County
