Lee County · 2025 rates

Fort Myers Beach property tax for home buyers

Your property tax resets to about what you pay for the home. Enter your price to see what you'd pay in Fort Myers Beach, with and without the homestead exemption.

Fort Myers Beach property tax at a glance

• Combined 2025 rate: 13.43 mills, or 1.34% of taxable value.
• At $400,000: about $5,360 a year ($447 a month) if it isn't your main home, or about $4,830 a year with the homestead exemption.
• Fort Myers Beach has the 4th-highest combined rate of the 7 taxing districts we track in Lee County.
• Its rate is higher than 13% of the 290 Florida taxing districts we track.
• Lee County's parcel-weighted average is 1.40%, so Fort Myers Beach is below the county average.
• The same $400,000 home costs about $240 a year more in Fort Myers Beach than in Bonita Springs (1.28%).

What is millage?

Millage is how Florida writes property tax rates. One mill means $1 of tax for every $1,000 of your home's taxable value. The combined rate in Fort Myers Beach is about 13.43 mills (1.34%), so every $100,000 of taxable value costs about $1,340 a year.

Taxable value is the county property appraiser's value for your home, minus any exemptions you qualify for. After you buy, it resets to about what you paid.

Why rates differ from city to city and county to county

Your rate isn't one tax. It's several added together, and each of these sets its own millage every fall:

• The county, for the sheriff, courts, county roads and parks.
• The school board, the same rate for everyone in the county.
• Your city, if the home is inside city limits, for city police, fire and parks.
• Special districts: the regional water management district, and in some areas fire rescue, hospital, library or mosquito control.

Homes inside a city pay the city's millage on top of the county's. Homes in unincorporated areas skip city taxes but may pay a county fire or services district instead. Counties differ because each one has its own budget, property values and mix of districts. Across the 290 Florida taxing districts we track, rates run from 0.82% in Key West to 2.55% in Waldo.

In Lee County alone, rates run from 1.28% in Bonita Springs to 1.65% in Fort Myers.

Property tax in Fort Myers Beach at different prices

What is the homestead exemption?

The homestead exemption is a discount on the taxable value of the home you live in full time. If you own and live in the home on January 1, you can apply with the Lee County property appraiser by March 1.

• The first $25,000 of value is exempt from all property taxes.
• A second $25,000 (the value between $50,000 and $75,000) is exempt from everything except school taxes.
• At $400,000 in Fort Myers Beach, that saves about $530 a year: your bill drops from about $5,360 to about $4,830.
• It also starts your own Save Our Homes cap, explained below.

Second homes, vacation homes and rentals don't qualify.

Save Our Homes: why long-time owners pay so much less

Save Our Homes limits how fast the county can raise the taxable value of a homesteaded home: no more than 3% a year, or the rate of inflation if that's lower. It doesn't matter how fast home prices climb.

Over the years, a gap opens between what the home is worth and what it's taxed on. That gap comes on top of the $50,000 homestead exemption, so a long-time owner can end up paying tax on a fraction of the home's value. A home worth $400,000 that has been homesteaded for 10 years could still be valued at about $268,800 for tax purposes, before the exemption.

The gap doesn't pass to the buyer. When the home sells, its value resets to the sale price. (Florida's portability rule lets a homesteaded seller carry up to $500,000 of their own savings to their next Florida home, which helps them, not you.) Once you homestead the home, your own cap starts, and your taxable value can only creep up from there.

Why the tax bill on the listing is lower than yours will be

The property tax shown on a listing is what the current owner pays. If they've lived there a long time, that number can be far lower than what you'll pay. Here's a simple example.

A simple example in Fort Myers Beach

• Linda bought her home 10 years ago for $200,000. She has lived in it ever since, so she gets the homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes cap.
• Home prices went up a lot. Today the house would sell for $400,000. But the cap only let the county raise Linda's taxable value a little each year, so the county still values it at about $268,800.
• Linda's tax bill this year: about $3,070. That's the number you see on the listing.
• Now you buy the house for $400,000. The county resets the value to what you paid. Your first full-year bill: about $5,360, or about $4,830 once you file for your own homestead exemption.

Same house, same street, but your bill is about 1.7 times hers. Plan your budget around your number, not the one on the listing.

If Amendment 3 passes on November 3, 2026

Florida voters will decide Amendment 3 on November 3, 2026. It needs 60% of the vote to pass. If it fails, nothing on this page changes. If it passes, for homes with a homestead exemption it would:

• Raise the exemption on non-school property taxes (county, city and special districts) from $50,000 today to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, then adjust it for inflation.
• Keep school taxes at today's $25,000 exemption.
• Make people who move to Florida on or after January 1, 2027 wait five years before getting the larger exemption. Until then they would keep the $50,000 exemption.
• Lower the yearly limit on value increases for homes without a homestead exemption (second homes, rentals) from 10% to 5%.

What it could mean in Fort Myers Beach: for a homesteaded home valued at $400,000, the yearly bill could go from about $4,830 today to about $4,030 in 2027 and about $3,230 in 2028, about $1,600 less per year.

Keep in mind: the state estimates Amendment 3 would cost local governments about $12 billion a year statewide, and it doesn't replace that money. It would require the property tax that's left to go to core services such as law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services, but cities and counties could still cut or scale back other services like parks, libraries and road work, delay projects, or raise other fees. The effect on services would differ from place to place. These estimates assume about 5.4 mills of the rate is school tax, typical for a Florida school district; your district's split may differ.

Before you budget

Not included: flat charges on the same tax bill, such as CDD fees, solid waste, stormwater, and some fire or lighting districts. They can add a few hundred to several thousand dollars a year, especially in newer CDD communities.

Estimate your costs

• Closing costs and tax escrow for a home in Fort Myers Beach — free, pre-filled with this tax rate
• True Cost Calculator — monthly cost of ownership for a specific address
• Save Our Homes explained — why the seller's tax bill doesn't transfer

Checking a specific listing?

• House Detective — permit history, open code violations, flood forensics, and hidden red flags for a specific Fort Myers Beach address
• Offer Recommender — the highest offer that wins without overpaying, from comparable sales and 40+ market signals

Other Lee County tax rates

• All Lee County taxing districts
• Fort Myers — 1.65%
• Cape Coral — 1.54%
• Sanibel — 1.41%
• Unincorporated Lee County — 1.31%
• Estero — 1.30%
• Bonita Springs — 1.28%

Rates are 2025 combined millage (county, school board, city, water management and special districts) from county property appraiser and tax collector millage sheets and Florida Department of Revenue taxing-authority reports. Estimates multiply the purchase price by the combined rate. The property appraiser's value is often somewhat below the sale price, so treat these as a conservative budget, not a bill. Rates are set each fall, and your parcel's exact district can differ. Homestead figures assume about 5.4 mills of the rate is school tax.