What Is a TRIM Notice? Florida's Truth in Millage Notice, Explained

Each summer — usually in August — your county Property Appraiser mails a document titled "Notice of Proposed Property Taxes" — known across Florida as the TRIM Notice, short for "Truth in Millage." If you own a home in Florida, this single piece of paper is the most important document in your property tax year. It is also one of the most misunderstood.

What the TRIM Notice actually is

Florida law requires every county Property Appraiser to send each property owner a notice of proposed taxes before the final tax rates are set. The TRIM Notice is that notice. It shows the county's opinion of your home's market value, the assessed value after any caps, the exemptions on record, the proposed tax rates from each taxing authority (county, city, school board, special districts), and an estimate of what your tax bill would be under those rates.

Two things on it matter more than everything else combined: your market value, and the date the notice was mailed. The first is the county's official opinion of what your home was worth on January 1 of this year. The second starts the clock on your right to challenge it.

The TRIM Notice is not a bill

This is the most common misunderstanding. Nothing on the TRIM Notice is due. Your actual tax bill arrives separately, later in the year, from the Tax Collector. The TRIM Notice is a proposal — the county telling you what it intends to tax you, before the taxing authorities hold their public budget hearings and adopt final rates.

Because it is not a bill, many homeowners file it away unread. That is exactly the mistake the system quietly counts on: the notice carries the one deadline that decides whether you can contest your assessment at all.

The 25-day deadline hiding in plain sight

Florida law gives you 25 days from the mailing of your TRIM Notice to file a petition with your county's Value Adjustment Board (VAB), the body that hears assessment disputes. The exact deadline is printed on your notice — that printed date, not a rule of thumb, is the one that governs. Miss it and the value on the notice stands for the entire tax year, whatever the market evidence says; late petitions are accepted only in narrow good-cause cases, so do not count on being the exception.

The petition is the formal start of a property tax appeal. It does not commit you to a hearing, and filing it does not by itself raise or lower anything — it preserves your right to present evidence while you decide how far to take it.

How to read the numbers

Market (just) value — and the assessed value below it

The market value — labeled "just" or "market" value on the notice — is the county's opinion of what your home was worth on January 1. It is produced by mass appraisal — statistical models run across thousands of parcels at once — not by anyone walking through your kitchen. Mass appraisal is efficient, and it is also how individual homes end up valued above what comparable sales nearby would support. If your home has been homesteaded for years, the assessed value printed below the market value will be lower — that is the Save Our Homes cap doing its job, and it is normal. The number to test against recent sales is the market value, not the capped one. If the county's market value looks higher than what similar homes on your street actually sold for, you may be over-assessed.

Exemptions and the Save Our Homes cap

If the home is your primary residence, check that your homestead exemption is listed. Florida's homestead exemption reduces your taxable value, and the Save Our Homes provision caps how fast the assessed value of a homesteaded home can rise — 3% per year or the change in inflation, whichever is lower. (Non-homestead property gets a separate, looser 10% cap.) The filing deadline for homestead is March 1. A missing exemption on your TRIM Notice is worth a call to the Property Appraiser on its own, no appeal needed.

The three tax columns

Most notices show last year's taxes, the proposed taxes under this year's rates, and what your taxes would be if every authority kept its budget flat (the "rolled-back" figure). The gap between the columns is the local budget debate; the market value underneath them is the part you can actually challenge.

What to do when yours arrives

• Find the mailing date on the notice and count out your petition deadline. Put it on a calendar.
• Check that every exemption you qualify for is listed.
• Compare the market value on the notice against recent sales of similar homes near you — not listing prices, closed sales.
• If the county's number is above what the market supports, consider filing a VAB petition before the deadline.

You do not have to do the comparison alone. Our free check pulls your county assessment record and recent comparable sales for your address, so you can see in about a minute whether the gap is worth acting on.