Florida voters have approved Amendment 3, the constitutional amendment that raises the homestead property-tax exemption to $250,000 by 2028 — the result of a campaign Awaaz Punjab followed through the autumn, when Governor Ron DeSantis took the $250,000 pitch to Miami and the state's sheriffs and firefighters warned the tax cut would pull deputies off rural streets. On Tuesday the voters decided: about 62 percent said yes, clearing the 60 percent supermajority a Florida constitutional amendment needs, and the warnings now become the implementation test for every county and city budget in the state.
Source: Jax Times — Florida voters pass Amendment 3
The Associated Press declared Amendment 3 approved at 9:46 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3, with about 98 percent of votes counted and 4,872,369 voters supporting it against 2,986,360 opposed, according to AP results reported by Lake and Sumter Style. The later unofficial count from the Florida Division of Elections, reported by the Jax Times at about 11:30 p.m. Eastern, put the same result at 4,907,469 yes votes (62 percent) to 3,007,685 no votes (38 percent) across 7,915,154 ballots. The figures remain unofficial until the state certifies the election; the state Elections Canvassing Commission is scheduled to certify results on November 17.
Source: Lake and Sumter Style — Voters approve Amendment 3
What Changes: $50,000 Becomes $150,000, Then $250,000
Today a Florida homestead — the permanent home a resident owns and lives in — receives an exemption of up to $50,000 of assessed value. Amendment 3 raises the part of that exemption that applies to non-school property taxes (county, city and special-district levies) in two steps: to $150,000 of assessed value starting January 1, 2027, and to $250,000 starting January 1, 2028, with annual inflation adjustments beginning in 2029. The school-tax portion of the exemption does not change — homeowners will still receive a tax bill, and the school part of it is untouched. The amendment, titled on the ballot 'Increased Homestead Exemption; Lower Cap on Increases in Non-Homestead Property Assessments' and campaigned for as 'Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes,' was placed on the ballot by the Florida Legislature as CS/HJR 1F in a June 2026 special session.
Source: Kaufman Rossin — Florida voters approved Amendment 3: what happens next
The second half of the amendment is aimed at everyone who owns property that is not their homestead — second homes, rental houses, investment and commercial property. For those properties, the annual cap on how fast the assessed value can rise for non-school taxes falls from 10 percent a year to 5 percent a year, also starting January 1, 2027. That slows the growth of tax bills on non-homestead property even in years when market values jump.
Source: Jax Times — Florida voters pass Amendment 3
The December 31 Deadline That Decides Who Gets It First
The detail that will matter most to anyone planning a move: the larger exemption's earliest phase is tied to Florida residency at the end of this year. Homeowners who qualify for the homestead exemption as Florida permanent residents on December 31, 2026, receive the increased exemption on the new schedule — $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. A person who establishes Florida residency after January 1, 2027, generally waits until the fifth year of homestead eligibility before receiving the increased benefit, subject to federal constitutional requirements, according to the amendment summaries reported from the Florida Department of State. In plain terms: a family that moves to Florida in 2027 does not get the $250,000 exemption on arrival — a family already homesteaded in Florida on New Year's Eve does.
Source: Lake and Sumter Style — Voters approve Amendment 3
The statewide margin hid local divides. In Duval County — Jacksonville — voters also backed Amendment 3, but more narrowly: 193,085 votes in favour, 56.5 percent, against 148,416 against, 43.5 percent, in the unofficial results reported by the Jax Times. Jacksonville's own City Council Auditor has produced estimates of what the amendment will do to city revenue; the Jax Times notes those estimates remain projections, not realised budget changes, and that final certification is still pending. That is the argument that ran through the whole campaign, and it is now the governing question of 2027: the AP's pre-election reporting noted the amendment could leave local governments scrambling for revenue, and Florida sheriffs and firefighters warned during the campaign — in coverage Awaaz Punjab published before the vote — that rural counties could lose deputies and services when the non-school tax base shrinks.
Source: Jax Times — Florida voters pass Amendment 3
Florida's Punjabi and wider South Asian communities — homeowners in Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and the truckers and small-business owners who have bought homes along the I-4, I-75 and I-95 corridors — are exactly the households this amendment prices. An existing homesteader's county and city tax bill falls as $200,000 more of the home's assessed value leaves the non-school tax rolls by 2028. The flip side is the deadline: a family planning to relocate to Florida for trucking, business or retirement reasons in 2027 faces the five-year wait for the larger exemption, so the December 31, 2026 residency date — not the house purchase alone — is the date that counts.
Results stay unofficial until state certification, scheduled for November 17. The amendment itself takes effect on January 1, 2027: the $150,000 non-school homestead exemption and the 5 percent non-homestead cap begin then, the $250,000 step follows on January 1, 2028, and inflation adjustments start in 2029. Homeowners will first see the change on their August 2027 TRIM notices — the annual proposed-tax mailing — and in their November 2027 tax bills. Counties and cities, meanwhile, must write their 2027 budgets against a smaller non-school tax base, which is where the sheriffs' warnings will be tested.
One caution belongs on the record: every figure in this story is an unofficial election-night count, and the savings any individual household sees will depend on its county's and city's millage rates and on the assessed — not market — value of the home. What Tuesday settled is the constitutional question. Florida's homestead exemption, unchanged in its basic $50,000 shape for years, is now set by the state constitution to quintuple for non-school taxes by 2028.