Florida Amendment 3 property-tax calculator goes live ahead of vote

Amendment 3 calculator lets voters run the numbers county by county

A public-facing calculator launched on October 5, 2026, letting Florida residents see how Amendment 3 would affect property-tax revenue in their jurisdiction if the constitutional amendment passes. The tool is built around two core levers: an expanded non-school homestead exemption and a tightened cap on annual assessment growth. Reporting describes the proposed assessment cap as a reduction from the current 10%, and specifies that the exemption increase would apply to non-school property taxes only, with school taxes unaffected.

Together, those two changes reshape the math a homeowner would run against any standard mortgage-payment or tax-planning workflow, including the kind readers typically walk through with a Mortgage Calculator for Beginners: A Simple Walkthrough.

What the exemption actually changes, year by year

Two outlets describe the same exemption schedule with one discrepancy worth flagging rather than resolving. One report says the non-school homestead exemption would rise from $25,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, with annual inflation indexing after that. Another says the current exemption is US$50,000, rising to US$150,000 in 2027 and US$250,000 in 2028.

Because the underlying figures are close but not identical, the headline here is the new ceiling (US$150,000, then US$250,000) rather than the precise starting point. A voter or homeowner who needs the exact number for their parcel should check the calculator itself or county records before relying on either figure. The kind of follow-up computation this implies is a property-tax delta combined with a mortgage-payment estimate, the workflow covered in How to Calculate a Mortgage Payment With an Interest Rate.

Cross-border exposure: Canadian snowbirds face higher bills

Reporting from a Canadian business outlet frames Amendment 3 as a risk for non-resident property owners. Because the expansion applies only to the homestead exemption, snowbirds who do not claim Florida homestead would not receive the larger deduction, while the reduction in non-homestead property-tax revenue still has to be backfilled somewhere in county budgets. The piece notes the amendment was approved by Florida lawmakers before going on the ballot, and walks through how the US$150,000 and US$250,000 figures would alter the position if enacted.

For a Canadian owner running the numbers against the loonie-to-dollar conversion, an Extract Numbers from Text pass on a local tax notice is a reasonable starting move.

County-level stakes: Broward's $6.51 billion levy illustrates the scale

One regional post cites Broward County property taxes levied at $6.51 billion in 2025, up 92.6% from a decade ago, and points to the same homestead-exemption increase as the relevant policy lever. That figure is a useful benchmark for any voter trying to interpret the calculator's county-level output: it shows how large the underlying tax base is, and therefore how material even a percentage-point shift in revenue can in principle become. The piece reinforces that Amendment 3 would raise the homestead exemption on non-school property taxes specifically.

Campaign-finance context around the calculator

A separate report finds that supporters of Amendment 3 have outspent opposition 38-to-1, according to OpenSecrets, framing the calculator rollout inside a broader information environment. The same piece reiterates that the measure would significantly increase the homestead property tax exemption and would not affect school taxes. For a reader trying to weigh the calculator's output against the public debate, the spending asymmetry is the relevant context, not a reason to discount the numbers themselves.

A Panhandle forum adds another public-input channel

A Shumaker Advisors-organized Panhandle forum on the amendment was reported separately, giving voters in that region a second venue to see the proposal explained. The forum covers the same exemption schedule and annual inflation indexing described above. For readers who cannot make a forum, the calculator itself is the direct path to a personal fiscal estimate.

What to check before the vote

Two concrete follow-ups are available now. First, run a parcel-level scenario in the Amendment 3 calculator published on October 5, 2026, and compare its homestead-exemption and assessment-cap output against an existing payment estimate using the Mortgage Calculator. Second, for non-homestead owners including Canadian snowbirds, model the residual non-homestead tax bill after the exemption shift, since the new US$150,000 and US$250,000 ceilings do not apply to them.

A cross-check against county-level figures such as Broward's $6.51 billion 2025 levy puts the personal result in context. The vote itself is the next binding deadline; no specific election date is printed in the evidence above.