The Florida Homestead Deadline Is About Residency, Not Closing

Almost everyone who has asked me about Amendment 3 has asked the same question: do I need to buy before the end of the year?

The answer is no, and the question is aimed at the wrong thing.

If Amendment 3 passes on November 3, the line it draws is about where you were a permanent resident on December 31, 2026, not about whether you closed on a house by then. You can establish Florida residency this year, buy in 2028, and still be treated as an existing resident. You can close in November 2026, stay domiciled in New Jersey, and not be.

For anyone moving to South Florida in the next eighteen months, that distinction is worth real money, and the clock on it runs out in about fifteen weeks.

Market briefWhat is actually on the ballot

Amendment 3 raises the homestead exemption for non-school levies in two steps: up to $150,000 of assessed value beginning January 1, 2027, and up to $250,000 beginning January 1, 2028, indexed for inflation afterward. It also lowers the annual assessment increase cap on non-homestead property from 10% to 5%, effective January 1, 2027.

It needs 60% approval and takes effect January 1, 2027 if it passes.

One procedural note that matters if you are reading coverage from earlier this year. A circuit judge ruled the original ballot title and summary legally defective on August 4, 2026, finding the title read as a political slogan rather than a statement of the amendment's purpose. The Attorney General submitted rewritten language on August 14, 2026, and the measure stays on the ballot as Amendment 3 under a new title. Articles published before mid-August quote language voters will not see. The mechanics I describe below come from the enrolled joint resolution, which the rewrite did not change.

The broader picture of what the amendment does and does not do is covered in the earlier piece on Amendment 3.

Market briefThe part almost every summary gets wrong

School taxes do not move.

The exemption for school district levies stays at $25,000. The $150,000 and $250,000 figures apply only to levies other than school district levies. Every dollar of assessed value above $25,000 remains fully taxable for school purposes, exactly as it is now.

That is not a footnote. In South Florida it is roughly a third of the bill:

Sources: Broward County Property Appraiser 2025 millage rate table; Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser 2025 adopted millage chart. School figures combine operating, voted operating where applicable, and school debt service.

Anyone telling you Amendment 3 eliminates your property tax bill is describing a third of it that it does not touch.

Market briefThe December 31, 2026 line

Here is the language that creates the deadline. The amendment applies reduced treatment to a person who takes title on or after January 1, 2027 and "had not maintained a permanent residence in this state as of December 31, 2026."

Read it carefully. The test is permanent residence on that date. Not ownership. Not a filed homestead exemption. Not a closing.

County property appraiser guidance published on the amendment reads it the same way: those who establish Florida residency by December 31, 2026 would be eligible for the higher exemption amounts when they do buy a home and apply for homestead.

Permanent residence is a factual determination, made in the first instance by the property appraiser under section 196.015, Florida Statutes. The statute lists the factors, and they are the ordinary evidence of having actually moved: a recorded declaration of domicile, where dependent children are registered for school, place of employment, the date non-Florida residency was terminated, Florida voter registration, a Florida driver license or ID with evidence that out-of-state licenses were relinquished, Florida license tags, the address on your federal returns, where your bank and checking accounts are registered, and proof of paying utilities at the property.

None of those require you to own anything. A renter who genuinely relocates and documents it is establishing permanent residence.

Market briefWhat a 2027 arrival gets instead

Someone who was not a permanent Florida resident on December 31, 2026 starts at $25,000 for school levies and $50,000 for all other levies, with the increased exemption arriving, in the constitutional language, "beginning with the fifth year of exemption."

County appraiser guidance translates that as four years at the reduced amount, with the larger exemption starting January 1 of the fifth year. Some legislative analysis and much of the press has described it as a five-year wait. Both phrasings describe the same rule, which is why the reporting has looked contradictory all summer.

Market briefWhat the timing is worth

A rough illustration, using 2025 millage and assuming a home assessed above the exemption ceiling.

Because the current non-school exemption already reaches $50,000, the new money is the incremental exempt value: $100,000 in 2027, $200,000 in 2028.

Illustration only. Assumes 2025 millage rates hold, assessed value above $250,000 after other exemptions, and no change in school tax liability. Your own figure depends on your municipality, your assessed value, and the millage actually adopted each year. Confirm with the county property appraiser.

For a household arriving in 2027 rather than 2026, the difference compounds across four years before the full exemption arrives. That is the whole argument for documenting your move this year if you were moving anyway.

It is not an argument for moving on a schedule that does not suit you, and it is not an argument for buying anything before you are ready. The deadline rewards establishing residency, which is the cheaper half of relocating.

Market briefThe March 1 deadline is a different deadline

These get conflated constantly.

December 31, 2026 is the residency test in the proposed amendment. March 1 is the annual filing deadline for the homestead exemption itself, under section 196.011(1)(a), Florida Statutes, and it applies every year regardless of what happens in November.

You must own and occupy the property as your permanent residence as of January 1 to claim the exemption for that year, and file by March 1. Broward County publishes its timely filing period and a late filing deadline on the property appraiser site; late filing is available under section 196.011(9), Florida Statutes, which allows an application and a petition to the value adjustment board where extenuating circumstances are shown.

Filing is free. Both counties take it online: Broward at bcpa.net, Miami-Dade through the property appraiser's online exemptions portal.

Market briefIf you already own in Florida

Portability is the piece existing owners forget, and it is separate from anything on the ballot.

Under section 193.155(8), Florida Statutes, you can transfer your accumulated Save Our Homes assessment difference to a new Florida homestead if you had a homestead exemption as of January 1 of any of the three immediately preceding years. The transferable amount is capped at $500,000. It requires form DR-501T filed as an attachment to the homestead application on the new property.

Three years is a real window and people let it lapse, usually after renting for a while between homes. If you sold a Florida homestead in 2024 or later and have not bought again, check the date before you check anything else.

Market briefIf you own investment property

The non-homestead assessment cap drops from 10% to 5% per year beginning January 1, 2027, applying to non-homestead residential and nonresidential property alike, on non-school assessed values.

That gets very little attention relative to how much it matters for anyone holding rentals or a second home long term. It does not reduce your current assessment. It slows how fast the assessed value can climb toward just value in a rising market. For a long hold, that compounds. Whether it changes anything about how you would structure a purchase is a question worth running the numbers on rather than assuming, and it is the kind of thing the investment and portfolio work is built around.

Market briefThe honest caveats

Four of them, and I would rather say them than have you find out later.

It has to pass. Sixty percent is a real threshold. Polling in 2026 has shown support in the low sixties, and a University of North Florida survey fielded in July 2026 found support falling from 61% to 45% when respondents were told the fiscal estimate. Polling is not a prediction.

The revenue impact is large and unresolved. The Revenue Estimating Conference put the cash impact on local non-school property tax revenue at roughly $4.95 billion in fiscal year 2027-28 and $8.78 billion in 2028-29, with a recurring impact near $11.86 billion. The amendment does not say how counties and cities close that gap.

The new-resident provision carries a hedge. The revised ballot summary describes the fifth-year structure as applying "to the extent permitted by the US Constitution." Durational residency requirements have been litigated before. Nobody should treat the four-year clock as settled law until it has been applied, and that is a question for an attorney rather than for me.

Implementing detail is still coming. The constitutional text directs the Legislature to prescribe uniform procedures by general law. Administrative mechanics, including how the clock is tracked and how it interacts with portability, may land there.

Market briefWhat I would actually do before December 31

If you are moving to South Florida on any timeline that lands in 2027, and you were planning to relocate anyway, the cheap move is to establish and document Florida permanent residence this year. Declaration of domicile, driver license, voter registration, vehicle registration, and the paper trail section 196.015 asks for. Ownership can follow whenever the right property does.

If you are already here and homesteaded, you do not need to do anything before December 31. You are in the existing-resident class already.

If you are on the fence about relocating at all, a possible tax change is a bad reason to decide. It is a good reason to get the sequencing right once you have decided, which is what relocation planning is for.

If you are working out how a 2026 or 2027 move should be sequenced, that is the relocation conversation. Get in touch and we can map it against your actual timeline.

This is general information about a measure that has not been voted on yet, not tax or legal advice. Before you act on the timing, confirm your own situation with the county property appraiser and with a CPA or attorney who can look at your facts.