Homestead Portability Planner
How much of your Save Our Homes benefit can you take with you?
Years of Florida homestead often leave your assessed value well below market value. When you move to a new Florida home, you can usually carry much of that gap with you. Estimate your benefit, the new home’s assessed and taxable value, and your filing deadline, whether you are moving within Marion County, to The Villages, or anywhere in the state.
How this is calculated
The benefit you move. Your Save Our Homes difference is your current home’s just value minus its assessed value, as of January 1 of the year you leave. If the new home is worth the same or more, the whole difference moves, up to $500,000. If it is worth less, the difference shrinks in proportion: new just value ÷ old just value. The amount moved is still capped at $500,000.
The new home’s assessed value. Its just value minus the benefit. The tool uses your purchase price as the just value. The property appraiser may set a different figure.
Homestead exemption. The first $25,000 of assessed value is exempt from all property taxes. A second exemption covers assessed value above $50,000 for non-school taxes only. That second amount grows with inflation each January: $25,722 for 2025 and $26,411 for 2026. The tool uses the latest published figure.
Tax. Taxable value × millage ÷ 1,000. With a school millage, school taxes use the school taxable value and the rest use the non-school value. Without one, the whole rate is applied to the non-school value, which runs a little low. Non-ad valorem assessments (like garbage or fire fees) are not included.
Deadline. The new home must be your homestead on a January 1 within three years of January 1 of the year you left the old one. File the homestead application (Form DR-501) and the transfer form (DR-501T) with the county property appraiser by March 1.
Not included. Moves where owners split up or combine homes, which have their own rules. Other exemptions (for seniors, veterans or disability). Year-to-year changes after the first year, which are capped at 3% or inflation, whichever is lower. This is an estimate. Only the county property appraiser sets your values.
What “portability” means
Florida’s Save Our Homes rule limits how fast a homestead’s assessed value can rise: 3% a year or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Over time a gap opens between what your home is worth and what you are taxed on. Portability lets you move up to $500,000 of that gap to your next Florida homestead.
It is not automatic. You have to apply, with the homestead application, by March 1. And the new home has to become your homestead within about three years of leaving the old one. Miss the window and the benefit is gone.
Selling a home and buying another is also a money decision: where the sale proceeds go, how a smaller or larger tax bill fits your retirement budget, and what the move means for your income plan. That is where a second set of eyes helps.
Moving in Florida?
Make the move part of your retirement plan.
In one complimentary meeting we’ll look at your home sale, your new tax bill and your income, so the numbers work before you sign.