For buyers · Miami-Dade
What the tax will actually be, not what the seller pays
The tax figure on a listing is the seller's bill, and on a house somebody has owned for years it can be less than half of what you will pay. Florida resets the assessed value the January after a sale, and the cap that kept their bill low belongs to them, not to the house. This works out your number from the same three figures the county publishes for every address, free.
Your estimated annual property tax
This is an estimate. It derives the tax rate from the seller's own bill, which is why it needs no millage table and cannot go stale — but it assumes your rate matches theirs, which holds for the same address and not across jurisdictions. Non-ad-valorem items such as a community development district assessment or solid waste appear on the bill as separate lines and are not modelled here. The Property Appraiser sets the real figure.
Why the number moves so much
The assessment resets, and the cap does not come with the house
While a property is homesteaded, Save Our Homes caps how fast its assessed value can rise — 3% a year or the change in CPI, whichever is lower, no matter what the market does. Hold a house through a decade like the one south Miami-Dade just had and the assessed value falls a long way behind what the house is worth.
That gap is the seller's accumulated benefit. It is personal to them. The January after the sale, the assessed value resets to market value — roughly what you paid — and your bill is calculated from there. Two identical houses on the same street can carry wildly different tax bills purely because of when each owner bought.
Your assessed value is usually a bit below what you paid
This is the part most online calculators get wrong, and it works in your favour. Sections 193.011(1) and (8) of the Florida Statutes require the Property Appraiser to consider the net proceeds a seller actually receives — after commission, documentary stamps, title, survey and the rest. In practice appraisers commonly apply a deduction of around 15% for those costs, known as the first and eighth criteria.
So a $525,000 purchase is often assessed nearer $446,000 rather than the full price. It is discretionary rather than automatic, which is why it is an editable field above — set it to zero if you want the cautious number. On a typical south Miami-Dade purchase the difference is well over a thousand dollars a year, so a calculator that ignores it is not being conservative, it is simply wrong.
If it is not your primary residence, it gets worse
No homestead means no exemption and no 3% cap. Non-homestead property is capped at 10% a year instead, and that cap does not apply to school taxes at all. For an investment purchase the tax line is materially higher, and it is the single most common thing missed when someone works out whether a rental actually cash-flows.
Portability, if you are selling one Florida home to buy another
You can carry accumulated Save Our Homes benefit to your next Florida homestead — up to $500,000 of it — which directly reduces the assessed value of the new property. You must establish the new homestead within three years of 1 January of the year you abandoned the old one, and file form DR-501T with your homestead application by 1 March. The calculator above does not model portability; if it applies to you, your real number is lower than it shows, sometimes by a lot.
Want this run on an actual address?
Send me the one you are looking at. I will pull the real record, include the non-ad-valorem lines the calculator cannot see, and tell you what the monthly figure genuinely becomes once tax and insurance are in it — which is the number that decides what you can afford, not the price.
Common questions
Why is my property tax higher than the seller's was?
Because the assessed value resets. Florida's Save Our Homes provision caps annual assessment increases at 3% or CPI while a property is homesteaded, so a long-time owner's assessed value sits well below market value. That accumulated benefit belongs to the owner, not the property. The January after a sale the assessment resets to market value and your bill is calculated from there.
How do I estimate Miami-Dade property tax before I buy?
Take the seller's current assessed value and current annual tax from the Property Appraiser record, which gives you the effective rate for that exact address, then apply that rate to what you are paying rather than to what they were assessed at. That avoids relying on a published millage rate, which varies by municipality and changes every year.
What is the Florida homestead exemption worth in 2026?
$25,000 off assessed value for all taxes, plus a second band on assessed value above $50,000 that applies to non-school levies only. That second band is adjusted for inflation annually and is $26,411 for 2026, up from $25,722 in 2025. Homesteading also brings the 3% Save Our Homes cap, which over time is usually worth far more than the exemption itself.
Do property taxes go up more on an investment property?
Yes. Without homestead there is no exemption and no 3% cap; non-homestead property is capped at 10% a year and that cap does not apply to school taxes. For a rental purchase the tax line is meaningfully higher than for the same house bought as a primary residence.
Can I keep my old tax savings when I move within Florida?
Partly. Portability lets you transfer up to $500,000 of accumulated Save Our Homes benefit to a new Florida homestead, reducing the new property's assessed value. You must establish the new homestead within three years of 1 January of the year you abandoned the old one, and file form DR-501T alongside your homestead application by 1 March.
Sources
- Save Our Homes 3% cap, the reset to just value on a change of ownership, and portability rules — Florida Department of Revenue, PT-112, under section 193.155, Florida Statutes.
- Homestead exemption structure, including the non-school second band — Florida Department of Revenue, PT-113, under section 196.031, Florida Statutes.
- The 2026 inflation-adjusted figure of $26,411 for the additional exemption — Florida Department of Revenue.
- The cost-of-sale deduction, under which the appraiser considers net proceeds after the usual costs of sale — sections 193.011(1) and 193.011(8), Florida Statutes. The roughly 15% figure is customary practice, not a statutory rate.
- Assessed values, tax amounts and exemption status for any address — Miami-Dade Property Appraiser.
General information for Miami-Dade buyers, not legal, tax or accounting advice, and not a valuation. Figures are estimates derived from public records you supply. Millage rates, exemption amounts and statutory caps change. The Property Appraiser determines assessed value and the Tax Collector issues the bill. A proposed constitutional amendment on the 3 November 2026 ballot would change homestead exemptions from 2027 if approved.