Why Amendment 3 would change some lines on your tax bill, not all of them
Property-tax bills are built from separate city, county, school and district levies. The larger homestead exemption would apply to covered non-school lines while the school exemption stays at $25,000.
Your savings would depend on your assessed value, the taxing authorities on your parcel and the millage each one adopts. School taxes follow a different exemption.
A property-tax bill is not one tax applied to one value. It is a stack of separate levies, and Amendment 3 would change some of those lines while leaving others alone.
For an Orlando homeowner, a bill can include Orange County Public Schools, the City of Orlando, Orange County, the library district and the water-management district. Each authority applies its own millage to the taxable value that applies to that levy.
Start with assessed value, not the sale price
The property appraiser sets assessed value after applying assessment limits such as Save Our Homes. Exemptions come next.
For an eligible homestead under Amendment 3, covered non-school lines would use a $150,000 homestead exemption in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. The school line would keep the existing $25,000 exemption.
That means the same house can have one taxable value for schools and a different taxable value for the city or county.
Then apply each tax rate
For each levy, subtract the exemptions that apply from assessed value. Divide the remaining taxable value by 1,000 and multiply by that authority's millage.
If the exemption is larger than the value left to exempt on a covered line, that line reaches zero. It does not become negative.
The final bill can still include stormwater fees, assessments and other non-ad valorem charges that are outside this calculation.
A home's listing price or recent sale is not a substitute for the property appraiser's assessed value. And because local boards can vote on millage later, a projection using today's rate is only a projection.
Estimate savings
MODELCity of Orlando sourced levy package. City of Orlando example levy lines. Current-law baseline effective 2026. Not inflated to 2027. School millage excluded.
Sources
Notes
- None.
Read next
- Market value, assessed value and taxable value are not the same number Amendment 3 changes an exemption and one assessment cap. It does not set every local tax rate, and it does not produce the same savings for every home.
- Homeowners get the direct break. Renters do not. The size of the benefit depends on assessed value and local tax rates. Newer Florida residents would wait, while some rental and commercial property would get a tighter assessment cap.