Florida's Amendment 3: What the Property Tax Vote Is Actually Worth to Your Home
Amendment 3, by the Numbers
Florida's homestead exemption has been a fixed dollar amount in a market that compounds. On November 3 you decide whether to reset it. Here is what the measure actually does, what it is worth to your house, what it costs, and where the vote stands — sourced to the State of Florida so you can check every number.
AARON BOND · BROKER, ENGEL & VÖLKERS TAMPA DOWNTOWN · 2026 FLORIDA REALTORS DIRECTOR, DISTRICT 6
A disclosure before anything else
Florida Realtors — my trade association — is the sole funder of the committee campaigning for Amendment 3, at $18 million. I am a director of that association. You should weigh what I write accordingly. That is also why this post sticks to what the measure does and what the record shows, and does not tell you how to vote.
Last week I put the numbers together for the advisors in our shop. Enough clients have asked the same questions that I am publishing the whole thing. It is long. The short version is at the top; the rest is for anyone who wants to dig.
The short version
The non-school homestead exemption would go from $51,411 today to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. It replaces the current exemption rather than adding to it. The $25,000 school exemption, Save Our Homes and portability do not change.
Because it is a flat dollar amount, it is worth the same ≈$2,700 a year to a $425,000 home and a $3 million home in the City of Tampa — about 35% of the median home's bill and 5% of the mansion's. A long-held retiree's non-school bill can go to zero.
The state's own estimate: local non-school revenue down $4.9 billion in year one and $8.7 billion in year two. Counties, cities, sheriffs, firefighters and Florida TaxWatch oppose it.
It needs 60% to pass. The most recent independent poll has it at exactly 60.0% of decided voters, with a quarter undecided. The two closest precedents failed at 58.1% and 58.7%.
What is actually on the ballot
Amendment 3 came out of a June special session of the Legislature — it passed the House 75–26 and the Senate 30–9. In August a Leon County circuit judge threw out its original title, "Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes," as advocacy rather than explanation, and the Attorney General rewrote it. What you will read on the ballot is: "Increased Homestead Exemption; Lower Cap on Increases in Non-Homestead Property Assessments."
Homestead exemption, non-school levies
| Year | Florida resident by Dec. 31, 2026 | Arrived later |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 (today) | $51,411 | $51,411 |
| 2027 | $150,000 | $50,000 |
| 2028 | $250,000 | $50,000 |
| 2029 on | $250,000 + inflation | Full amount from year five |
- School taxes don't change. The $25,000 school exemption stays as it is, and school levies — about 39 cents of every property-tax dollar in Florida — are untouched by this measure.
- Save Our Homes (the 3%-or-inflation cap on your assessment) and portability (carrying up to $500,000 of that benefit to your next home) are preserved exactly as they are.
- Non-homestead property — rentals, second homes, commercial — gets its annual assessment cap cut from 10% to 5% on non-school levies.
- The test is residency, not a closing date. If you were a permanent Florida resident by December 31, 2026, you get the full amount when you homestead. Someone who moves here in 2027 starts at $50,000 and reaches the full exemption beginning in year five.
- Nothing changes on your 2026 bill. If it passes it takes effect January 1, 2027, shows up on your August 2027 TRIM notice, and first hits a tax bill in November 2027.
Sources: Florida Division of Elections, Ballot No. 3; CS/HJR 1F (2026F) enrolled text; Pinellas County Property Appraiser, Amendment 3 FAQ; Florida Department of Revenue, 2025 County Profiles.
Fifty years of a number that never moved
The exemption is a fixed figure. Home values are not. Every change in its history has been a one-time catch-up followed by a decade or two of silent shrinkage.
The exemption, by the year it changed
| Year | Non-school exemption | How |
|---|---|---|
| 1934 | $5,000 | HJR 20 (1933) |
| 1982 | $25,000 | SJR 4-E, phased in 1980–82 |
| 2008 | $50,000 | Amendment 1, approved 64.1% |
| 2025 | $50,722 | Amendment 5 (2024) added inflation indexing, 66.0% |
| 2026 | $51,411 | Annual inflation adjustment |
The Legislature measured the erosion itself. A 2006 House staff analysis found that if the $25,000 exemption had simply tracked inflation from 1982, it would have been $50,596 by 2006. The 2008 doubling, in other words, only restored what 1982's exemption had been worth — and then home prices left inflation far behind.
Homestead exemption as a share of the median Florida single-family sale price
Non-school exemption divided by the statewide median existing single-family sale price (Office of Economic and Demographic Research and Florida Realtors; 2026 uses the August median of $415,000). The 1998 figure is from the University of Florida's Shimberg Center and is a different series — shown for scale only.
Measured against the homes people actually own, it is the same picture. The median Florida homestead has a just value of $337,907, and the exemption covered 15% of it in 2025. The $25,000 school exemption covered 7%. In Tampa Bay, today's exemption is 12% of Hillsborough's median home, 11% of Pinellas's and 14% of Pasco's.
Sources: Florida House, HJR 353 (2006) staff analysis; EDR, Property Taxes: Homestead Distribution and Benefits (Sept. 2025), DOR data; Suncoast Tampa Association of REALTORS® monthly statistics, June 2026.
What it is worth, home by home
The new exemption applies only to non-school taxes, so the saving is the additional exempted value multiplied by the non-school tax rate. For any home assessed at $250,000 or more, the additional value is $98,589 in 2027 and $198,589 in 2028 — the same number whether the home is worth $300,000 or $3 million. Below $250,000, the exemption reaches the home's full assessed value and the non-school bill goes to zero.
City of Tampa — 13.5028 non-school mills, 6.34 school mills
| Home (assessed value) | 2027 saving | 2028 saving | Per month | Share of total bill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $200,000 — modest condo, older home | $1,331 | $2,006 | $167 | 64% |
| $300,000 — first-time buyer | $1,331 | $2,682 | $223 | 53% |
| $425,000 — Tampa Bay median | $1,331 | $2,682 | $223 | 35% |
| $750,000 — move-up | $1,331 | $2,682 | $223 | 19% |
| $1,500,000 — luxury | $1,331 | $2,682 | $223 | 9% |
| $3,000,000 — ultra-luxury | $1,331 | $2,682 | $223 | 5% |
"Share of total bill" is the 2028 saving as a percentage of the home's full 2026 property tax, school plus non-school, at City of Tampa rates. The property appraiser sets a buyer's first-year assessment and it is often below the sale price. Millage: Hillsborough County Property Appraiser, Final 2025 Millage Rates.
The one line to remember
It is a flat dollar amount, so it is regressive in dollars and progressive in percentages. The mansion and the starter home get the same $2,682. For the starter home that is a third to two-thirds of the entire tax bill; for the mansion it rounds to nothing. Whatever you think of the policy, it is an affordability measure for the bottom of the market dressed as a tax cut for everyone.
The same saving across Tampa Bay — 2028, home assessed at $250,000 or more
| Where you live | Non-school mills | 2027 | 2028 | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Petersburg | 13.6267 | $1,343 | $2,706 | $226 |
| City of Tampa | 13.5028 | $1,331 | $2,682 | $223 |
| Unincorporated Hillsborough | 11.9115 | $1,174 | $2,365 | $197 |
| Unincorporated Pasco (with fire district) | 10.5429 | $1,039 | $2,094 | $174 |
| Unincorporated Pinellas | 9.0299 | $890 | $1,793 | $149 |
2025 certified millage less school board levies: Hillsborough County Property Appraiser; Pinellas County Tax Collector; Pasco County Property Appraiser. Pinellas non-school rates vary from 7.65 to 16.63 mills by fire district. The Pinellas Property Appraiser's own published illustration at the countywide average rate: about $1,203 in 2027 and $2,423 in 2028.
In the unit buyers actually think in
At today's 30-year mortgage rate, one percentage point changes the payment on a $340,000 loan by about $233 a month. So for a buyer at the Tampa Bay median, the 2028 benefit is worth roughly a point of interest rate. For a first-time buyer on a $240,000 loan it is worth about 1.4 points. For a $1.2 million jumbo, about a quarter of a point. And property taxes live inside your escrow payment, which lives inside the debt-to-income ratio a lender underwrites — for a buyer near the edge, $220 a month is the difference between approved and not. For current rates, talk to a lender; we don't quote them.
The homeowner who bought in 1985
Think of a couple who bought in South Tampa or Seminole Heights in the mid-1980s and never left. For their first decade there was no cap at all — every dollar of appreciation flowed straight into their assessed value. Since 1995, Save Our Homes has held increases to 3% or inflation, but a Department of Revenue rule means the assessed value has climbed every single year regardless, and the cap has hit the full 3% in nine of those years.
Compounded, that roughly doubles an assessed value between 1995 and today. A home assessed at $115,000 when the cap began is assessed near $230,000 now — while its market value may be $600,000 or more. The current exemption shields $51,411 of it.
Illustration — assessed value $230,000, City of Tampa
| Today | 2027 | 2028 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-school tax | $2,411 | $1,080 | $0 |
| School tax | $1,300 | $1,300 | $1,300 |
| Total | $3,711 | $2,380 | $1,300 |
| Saving | — | $1,331 | $2,411 ($201/mo) |
Because $250,000 is more than their assessed value, the non-school portion of their bill disappears entirely in 2028 — a 65% cut in the total bill, on a fixed income, with the house untouched. The same arithmetic applies to anyone whose assessed value sits under $250,000, and statewide that is a large share of Florida's 5.2 million homesteads, because Save Our Homes and the exemptions already remove about half of homestead value from the tax rolls.
2028 saving as a share of the total property tax bill, City of Tampa
Sources: Florida Department of Revenue, Save Our Homes (rev. Jan. 2026); EDR, Sept. 2025. Illustration only — run your own property through your county's tax estimator.
What this would do to the market
A long-tenured owner's biggest reason not to sell is losing a capped assessment. Portability already lets them carry the cap; a $250,000 exemption makes the next home's bill small enough that the lock-in argument weakens. If it passes, expect more listings from owners who have been sitting on 1990s assessments — which is exactly the inventory buyers have been waiting for.
Who pays
Because Amendment 3 came from the Legislature rather than a petition, there is no Financial Impact Statement on the ballot. The official figure is the Legislature's own Ad Valorem Revenue Estimating Conference, adopted July 10, 2026:
County levies only — Florida Association of Counties analysis
| County | FY 2027–28 | FY 2028–29 |
|---|---|---|
| Hillsborough | −$219.5M | −$373.7M |
| Pinellas | −$120.2M | −$198.6M |
| Pasco | −$124.3M | −$208.9M |
| All 67 counties | −$2.94B | −$5.05B |
County figures exclude cities and special districts, which is why they are smaller than the state total. The amendment also limits what counties and cities may spend property taxes on — the provision the court found the original ballot summary failed to disclose.
Who is on which side
- For: the Governor, the Republican Party of Florida, and Florida Realtors, whose board voted to support it on August 23.
- Against: the Florida Association of Counties, the Florida League of Cities, the Florida Sheriffs Association, Florida Professional Firefighters, the Florida Fire Chiefs, the Fraternal Order of Police — and, on September 26, Florida TaxWatch, which called it "not really a tax cut so much as a tax shift." The Florida Chamber took no position; its CEO said reaching 60% would be "pretty hard."
- Money: the "Vote Yes on 3" committee has raised $18,000,000 — six checks from Florida Realtors between September 3 and 14, and nothing from anyone else. The three opposition committees have raised $558,368. Roughly 32 to 1.
Sources: EDR, Revenue Estimating Conference, July 10, 2026; Florida Association of Counties, County Revenue Impacts of HJR 1F; Florida Division of Elections, committee 93318 and contribution records as of October 6, 2026.
Where the vote stands
Public polls on Amendment 3 — Florida pollsters
| Poll | Fielded | Yes | No | Undecided |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNF Public Opinion Research Lab — 848 likely voters, ballot question | Jul 8–17 | 61 | 32 | 7 |
| UNF — same voters, after being told of the $11.8B shortfall | Jul 8–17 | 45 | 47 | 8 |
| St. Pete Polls for Florida Politics — 913 likely voters | Sep 15–17 | 45 | 30 | 25 |
| Sachs Media — 800–850 voters, forced choice, sponsor undisclosed | Jun–Aug | 63–64 | 36–37 | — |
A James Madison Institute poll (74%) asked about "the Governor's proposal," not the ballot question, and is not comparable. No public poll has been fielded since September 17.
Two findings matter more than any headline number.
Among voters who have decided, it sits at exactly 60.0%. St. Pete Polls' 45–30 is 60.0% of those who have chosen. The Sachs numbers, which force a choice, land at 63–64%. Either way the measure is on the threshold — not comfortably above it, not clearly below it.
Information moves it 16 points. UNF asked the same voters twice. On the ballot question alone, 61% said yes. After one sentence about the local budget shortfall, 45% — and net support flipped from +29 to −2. Homeowners went from 64% to 49%; independents from 60% to 40%. The opposition does not need to persuade people; it needs to inform them. The yes side's money is what reaches the undecided first.
In the Tampa media market, St. Pete Polls found 44% yes, 30% no. Republicans statewide were at 63% with a fifth undecided — a soft base for a measure carried by the Governor and the party.
The 60% rule, and what it has done to measures like this
Since 2008 a Florida constitutional amendment needs 60% of those voting on it. Of 59 amendments on the ballot from 2008 through 2024, 33 passed. Across the last three election cycles the rate fell to 6 of 15, and in 2022 and 2024 alone, nine measures won a majority and still failed.
Every property-tax amendment under the 60% rule — certified results
| Year | Measure | Yes | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Portability, extra $25,000 exemption, 10% non-homestead cap | 64.1% | Passed |
| 2012 | Combat-disabled veterans' discount | 63.3% | Passed |
| 2012 | Cut non-homestead cap 10%→5%; first-time-buyer exemption | 43.2% | Failed |
| 2012 | Surviving spouses of veterans and first responders | 61.7% | Passed |
| 2012 | Tangible personal property exemption | 45.5% | Failed |
| 2012 | Low-income long-term seniors | 61.3% | Passed |
| 2018 | Additional $25,000 homestead exemption | 58.1% | Failed |
| 2018 | Make the 10% non-homestead cap permanent | 66.5% | Passed |
| 2020 | Portability window 2→3 years | 74.5% | Passed |
| 2020 | Discount for spouses of disabled veterans | 89.7% | Passed |
| 2022 | Flood-resistance improvements excluded from assessment | 57.3% | Failed |
| 2022 | Extra homestead exemption for teachers and first responders | 58.7% | Failed |
| 2024 | Inflation indexing of the homestead exemption | 66.0% | Passed |
Florida Division of Elections, official results, results.elections.myflorida.com — pulled October 6, 2026. Florida Senate staff analyses of SJR 232 (2019) and HJR 61 (2021) for the overall counts.
The pattern is hard to miss. Florida passes property-tax measures that are narrow, inexpensive and aimed at a sympathetic group — veterans, widows, seniors, first responders — by twenty points or more. It has never passed a broad homestead exemption increase under the 60% rule. The two that tried failed at 58.1% and 58.7%, and each would have cost local government a fraction of what Amendment 3 would. The cleanest comparison is 2018, when on the same ballot the measure that kept an existing cap drew 66.5% and the one that created a new exemption drew 58.1% — an eight-point penalty for the new benefit over the status quo. And the only prior attempt to cut the non-homestead cap to 5% drew 43%.
What to watch, and what to do
My read of the data
More likely than not to fall short of 60%, by a margin small enough that $18 million of late advertising could close it. I would rather give you the honest number than the comfortable one.
For it to pass, three things have to be true on November 3. The undecided have to break at least 60–40 yes — from 45–30–25, it needs 15 of those 25 points, and if they split the way decided voters have, it lands at 60.0% with no room for rounding. The informed-voter erosion UNF measured has to not happen, even as sheriffs and firefighters say the cost out loud. And history has to be wrong for the first time.
Working for it: the court-rewritten ballot language actually polled five points better than the original; a midterm electorate is older and more homeowner-heavy, and those are its best groups; and the yes side can outspend the no side on every channel through election day. Working against it: the undecided share, the information effect, a Republican base at only 63%, and a precedent record with no exceptions.
What I'd do either way
Plan on current law. If it passes, your August 2027 TRIM notice will show it and we will write about it the week after the election. If it fails, nothing changes.
Run your own number. Every figure above is an illustration at 2025 tax rates. Your county property appraiser publishes an estimator — Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco all have one — and that, not a neighbor's bill and not this post, is what to plan around.
If you are buying this fall, buy the house that works at today's bill. If Amendment 3 passes, the saving is a bonus. If it doesn't, you were never counting on it.
Aaron Bond is Broker at Engel & Völkers Tampa Downtown and a 2026 Florida Realtors Director for District 6. Florida Realtors is the sole funder of the Vote Yes on 3 committee. Sources: Florida Legislature (CS/HJR 1F enrolled text and votes; Senate and House staff analyses); Office of Economic and Demographic Research (Revenue Estimating Conference, July 10, 2026; Homestead Distribution and Benefits, Sept. 2025; Florida Economic Estimating Conference); Florida Division of Elections (ballot language, committee and contribution records, certified results 2008–2024); Florida Department of Revenue (Additional Homestead Exemption Adjustment; Save Our Homes; 2025 County Profiles); the Pinellas County Property Appraiser, Hillsborough County Property Appraiser, Pinellas County Tax Collector and Pasco County Property Appraiser; Florida Association of Counties; Florida League of Cities; Florida TaxWatch; UNF Public Opinion Research Lab; St. Pete Polls; Sachs Media; Florida Realtors; Suncoast Tampa Association of REALTORS®; Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, University of Florida. Savings are illustrations on stated assessed values at 2025 certified millage, not quotes for any property. This is market and policy commentary, not legal, tax or investment advice, and not a rate quote.
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