Reference Guide  ·  Last updated July 31, 2026

Florida Homestead Portability: How to Keep Your Save Our Homes Savings When You Sell

Most Boca Raton homeowners who have owned for a decade or more believe that selling means giving up the low property tax bill they have built. That belief keeps good sellers frozen in homes that no longer fit. It is also wrong.

What are the numbers I need to know?

Item	Detail
Maximum transferable benefit	$500,000 of assessment difference
Transfer window	Three tax years from abandoning the prior homestead
Forms required	DR-501 for the new homestead exemption, plus DR-501T to port the benefit
Annual filing deadline	March 1
Save Our Homes annual cap	3 percent, or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower
Geographic limit	Florida to Florida only. Benefits do not cross state lines.
In effect since	2008
Palm Beach County portability line	561.355.2866

What is Save Our Homes, and why is my tax bill so different from my neighbor's?

Save Our Homes is the constitutional cap that limits how fast the assessed value of a Florida homestead can rise. Once your homestead exemption is approved, the assessed value used to calculate your taxes can only increase by 3 percent per year, or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. Market value is free to climb at whatever rate the market dictates. Assessed value is not.

Over ten or fifteen years of appreciation, those two numbers separate widely. The gap between them is your assessment difference, sometimes called the Save Our Homes differential or the Save Our Homes benefit. It is the reason a homeowner who bought in Boca Raton in 2013 can pay a fraction of what the neighbor who bought last year pays on a nearly identical house.

That differential is not a discount the county grants you each year. It is an accumulated asset. And when you sell, it is the thing most people wrongly assume they forfeit.

What is homestead portability?

Portability, added to the Florida Constitution in 2008, allows you to carry your accumulated assessment difference to your next Florida homestead instead of losing it. Without portability, selling resets your assessed value to full market value on the next home, and the tax bill on the new property reflects that reset immediately.

With portability, up to $500,000 of the differential moves with you. Your new home is assessed at its market value minus the ported amount, and your Save Our Homes cap starts running again from that lower figure.

How much of my benefit can I actually transfer?

That depends on whether the next home is worth more or less than the one you are leaving. The calculation is different in each direction.

If you are moving up

When the market value of the new homestead is equal to or greater than the market value of the old one, you transfer the entire assessment difference, capped at $500,000. If your differential is larger than $500,000, the excess is left behind permanently.

If you are moving down

When the new home is worth less, you transfer a proportional share rather than the full amount. The property appraiser applies the same ratio of assessed value to market value that you had on the old home. In practice, you keep the same percentage of tax protection, applied to a smaller number.

What does portability look like in real dollars?

Two examples, both using a millage rate of 17.0 mills for illustration, consistent with the recent Boca Raton combined rate. Millage rates in Palm Beach County vary by municipality and taxing district, and school district levies are calculated on a slightly different exemption base than non-school levies. These examples simplify that split to show the shape of the benefit. Your property appraiser and your CPA can give you the exact figures for a specific address.

How long do I have to use my portability benefit?

You must establish your new Florida homestead within three tax years of abandoning the previous one. The clock is measured in tax years, not calendar months, and the last qualifying homestead date is treated as January 1 of the year you sold.

If you sell a homesteaded property at any point during 2026, the last qualified homestead date is January 1, 2026, and you have until January 1, 2029 to establish the new homestead. Miss that window and the accumulated benefit is gone permanently. There is no extension and no appeal.

This matters more than it sounds. Sellers who plan to rent for a while, travel, or wait out the market frequently let the window close without realizing there was a window.

How do I file for portability?

1. Confirm your current assessment difference. It appears on your TRIM notice each August, and the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser publishes a portability estimator.
2. Close on the new Florida home and occupy it as your permanent residence.
3. File Form DR-501 with the county property appraiser to establish homestead on the new property.
4. File Form DR-501T, the transfer of homestead assessment difference form, in the same filing.
5. Submit both by March 1 of the tax year in which you are claiming the exemption.
6. Verify the ported amount appears correctly on the following August TRIM notice, and contest it promptly if it does not.

Portability is not automatic. The property appraiser does not apply it for you because it was earned on a different parcel, potentially in a different county. If you do not file DR-501T, you do not get it.

Does Amendment 3 on the November 2026 ballot change portability?

Amendment 3 appears on the Florida statewide ballot on November 3, 2026. It requires 60 percent voter approval to take effect. If ratified, it would raise the homestead exemption applied to non-school levies from the current $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, and it would reduce the annual assessment cap on non-homestead property from 10 percent to 5 percent.

What it does not do is change the portability rules described on this page. The $500,000 transfer cap, the three tax year window, and the DR-501T filing requirement are unaffected by the proposal as passed by the Legislature. A larger homestead exemption would sit on top of your ported assessment difference rather than replacing it.

A separate proposal, HJR 211, would have eliminated the $500,000 portability cap entirely. It did not survive the session and is not on the ballot.

For the full breakdown of what the measure would and would not change, see Florida Amendment 3 explained.

What are the most common ways sellers lose this benefit?

• Never filing DR-501T. The single most common failure. Establishing homestead on the new property does not port the old benefit.
• Letting the three year window close while renting, traveling, or waiting for the right listing.
• Buying outside Florida. Portability is a Florida constitutional provision and stops at the state line.
• Missing March 1 and losing a full tax year of the benefit.
• Assuming a differential above $500,000 transfers in full. Anything above the cap is left behind.
• Removing a spouse or changing title in ways that affect how the differential is divided. If more than one person held the prior homestead, the split follows specific rules worth reviewing with the property appraiser before closing.

Frequently asked questions