- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed eliminating property taxes in the Sunshine State.
- The move is aimed at reducing financial strain on homeowners who've seen their taxes soar.
- But the revenue is critical for local government services, including the public school system.
Watching your home value soar is a great feeling for many homeowners. Getting hit with a much higher property tax bill as a result, not so much.
In Florida, Republican lawmakers are responding to homeowners' uproar over the rising levies, which have surged in recent years as demand for real estate has skyrocketed and prices have followed. Gov. Ron DeSantis recently began pushing to eliminate property taxes in the Sunshine State through a constitutional amendment.
Florida homeowners have faced some of the sharpest surges in property taxes in the country recently. The median property tax bill in Jacksonville and Tampa rose almost 60% between 2019 and 2024, a Redfin report found. Miami and Fort Lauderdale homeowners saw their taxes rise 48% in the same period.
The median Florida homeowners' tax bill spiked 47.5% between 2019 and 2024, the property data firm CoreLogic found.
Overall, US median property taxes rose from $2,287 to $2,826 between 2019 to 2023 — a 23.6% increase, BI reported earlier this year.
Florida's average effective property tax rate of 0.79% of a home's assessed value is a little below average compared to the rest of the country.
Real property taxes paid as a share of owner-occupied housing values tend to be higher in the Northeast, according to a Tax Foundation analysis of 2023 rates.
You can hover over the map below to see what rates looked like in each state and Washington, DC.
New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut had the highest rates among states and Washington, DC. Hawaii had the lowest rate at 0.27%. Rates were low in some Mountain states, including Colorado and Nevada.
Older homeowners have told BI that the growing taxes, alongside higher home repair and insurance costs, are particularly hard to manage on a fixed income. Florida is home to many of these property-owning retirees and has also seen a particularly sharp rise in insurance costs, adding to the burden on homeowners.
Property taxes fund critical local services and infrastructure, including schools, police and fire departments, and roads.
In Florida, which has no personal income tax, the locally-imposed levy brings in about $50 billion in annual revenue. Property taxes in the Sunshine State generate between 50 and 60% of school district funding, 18% of county revenue, and 17% of municipal revenue, the Florida Policy Institute recently reported.
Without the tax on homeowners, the state would need to double its sales tax to 12%, at least, to generate sufficient revenue, the Institute reported.
Florida would be the first state in the US to eliminate property taxes, though others have tried. Last year, North Dakota voters rejected a ballot measure to end property taxes based on a home's assessed value.
