Ian Parry
This year, the Florida Legislature worked for 117 days to pass our state budget—their sole Constitutional job during the annual legislative session.
And at long last, they got it done, even after extending the session well past the normal 60 days to do so.
The final product? Succinctly, an investment for Floridians.
It’s now up to Governor Ron DeSantis to sign the $115.1 billion budget for the next fiscal year. In its present-day form, it values slightly under what DeSantis proposed in February, and is roughly $3.5 billion smaller than the current fiscal year’s budget. The governor also has the option to veto any of the proposal’s line-items as he sees fit, and anticipation is high that he could do so with a heavy pen!
But still—the budget, altered or not, leaves significant and looming questions unanswered for many Floridians. Chief among them was whether the state property tax or sales tax would be cut—a heated debate just a month ago—and now a budget exists that addresses neither comprehensively.
Instead, tax relief ultimately manifested in a $1.3 billion package that includes a $904 million plan to permanently eliminate the two percent sales tax on business leases. The remaining funds were designed to institute permanent tax exemptions on back-to-school items, disaster preparedness supplies, bulk gold, silver and platinum valued under $500, and health and safety devices like sunscreen and life jackets.
Assuming the reforms stay in place, admission tickets to state parks in Florida will also be exempt from the sales tax, and from September 8 to December 31, camping, hunting, and fishing supplies will see a tax holiday.
As Senate President Ben Albritton (R-Wauchula) stated in a press release, this tax relief will help to keep Florida more affordable for families and businesses alike. The package’s elimination of the rent tax is particularly resourceful for Florida businesses, as Florida has been the only state to ever levy taxes on companies that rent commercial property.
This has not come without pushback, however. Senate Minority Leader Lori Berman (D-Palm Beach) has expressed that the tax cut deal does not add any “new, great ideas” to help individual Floridians. Indeed, the budget failed to deliver on House Speaker Danny Perez’s (R-Miami) initiative to permanently reduce the statewide sales tax rate from 6% to 5.25% as well as Governor DeSantis’s efforts to implement property tax reforms to alleviate the housing affordability crisis that many Floridians cite as a prime concern.
However, the benefits on tax breaks for small businesses and families will still be felt in many ways.
With school supplies seeing a codified August tax holiday every year, families have greater freedom to plan their finances and ensure that their children have the right equipment to attain the best educational experience. Mom-and-pop shops now avoiding taxes on their rent will be able to continue to compete in our growing state, and many of these savings are sure to be passed down to consumers.
And it’s not just families and businesses that will save more money to overcome potential hardships. The end of the legislative session also delivered a 2026 ballot amendment that allows voters to decide whether to expand Florida’s Budget Stabilization Fund by $1.5 billion over two years. This allows for expanded financial reserves that the government would be able to use to stabilize particular economic crises, such as a recession.
When coupled with the newly passed Debt Reduction Program, which will transfer $250 million from General Revenue to speed up state debt payments, the Legislature is working to invest in stability for the years ahead across the board—and families should breathe a sigh of relief after experiencing this decade’s rates of inflation and the rising cost of living.
In a nutshell, many of the initiatives seen in the 2026 Budget provide substantial investments in Floridian families, industries, and their shared economic environment. But those investments came at the expense of many others. President Albritton’s Rural Renaissance initiative was just one that was sidelined for the year. It would have contributed hundreds of millions to growing the healthcare, agriculture, and education industries in some of our most fiscally constrained counties.
Nevertheless, the future still seems bright for the Sunshine State. Fortunately, HB 7031, the official tax relief package bill, requires a study be conducted on the most effective way to lower or abolish property taxes on homestead properties for future reforms.
And so, as the budget lands on Governor DeSantis’ desk, with action required by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year, many will be watching to see what is vetoed or not for the coming year. DeSantis has threatened to veto at least $500 million of the budget in a rebuke to Speaker Perez’s arguments.
Time will tell…
