Florida's Property Tax Amendment Is on the November 3 Ballot. What It Means for Commercial Property Owners

Florida voters will decide on November 3 whether to approve Amendment 3, a property tax measure that would sharply raise the homestead exemption for homeowners and cut the annual cap on assessment increases for commercial and other non-homestead property from 10% to 5%. It needs 60% of the vote to pass. As Traded’s coverage lays out, both halves come with a catch, and the commercial half matters for every owner of industrial, retail, office and apartment property in the state.

What the amendment does

For homeowners, the primary-residence exemption would rise from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, then grow with inflation. For non-homestead property, which includes warehouses, shopping centers, office buildings and rental housing, the cap on how fast a property’s assessed value can rise each year would fall from 10% to 5%. The Florida Policy Institute estimates a combined hit to local government revenue of about $12 billion a year. Lawmakers removed a proposed state fund that would have backstopped local governments, and only school funding is protected.

The catch for commercial owners

A 5% cap gives owners a firmer ceiling when they underwrite future tax costs. That is real predictability. But a cap limits how fast the assessed value grows, not the tax rate applied to it. If homestead exemptions cut deeply into residential tax collections, cities and counties still have to fund police, fire, roads and parks, and they retain the power to raise millage rates. Barry Lapides of Berger Singerman told Traded he is not convinced savings will reach renters and flagged exactly that risk on the other side of the ledger. Commercial property could end up carrying a larger share of the local tax burden even with a tighter cap.

What this means for you

If you own commercial or industrial property, run your budget both ways: with the 5% cap and a stable millage rate, and with the cap plus a higher rate. In South Florida, where assessments have risen quickly, the gap between a building’s assessed and market value can be large, and the cap would slow how fast that gap closes. If you are a tenant on a triple-net lease, property taxes flow through to you, so the outcome affects your occupancy cost directly. If you are buying, remember that in Florida a sale typically resets a property’s assessed value to market, so the cap protects existing owners more than new ones.

AXCESS Commercial helps owners model the real cost of holding property, and works across South Florida leasing space, listing buildings for sale and managing properties with taxes and expenses in view.

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