Last updated September 17, 2026
Moving From New York to Boca Raton: The Tax and Homestead Guide (2026)
The honest version of the New York-to-Boca tax story is not the one in the brochures. Boca Raton does not have low property taxes. In your first year of ownership, the tax bill on a median Boca house runs about 1.7 percent of the purchase price, which is more than Nassau County, close to Westchester, and roughly double what a one-family house in Queens or Brooklyn pays. What Florida removes is everything else: the state income tax, the city income tax if you live in the five boroughs, and the estate tax. For a household earning $500,000, that is roughly $30,000 to $49,000 a year before you have looked at a single listing. This guide walks through each piece with the actual 2026 numbers, then shows the two deadlines and one audit that decide whether you keep the savings.
See what Boca Raton homes closed for Closed BeachesMLS prices, houses and condos separately, updated with the market. Or call (561) 395-8418 and talk through your move with a broker, not a form.
What Boca Raton costs to own right now
Palm Beach County is the number one county in the United States for net income arriving through domestic migration, $22.7 billion of adjusted gross income from 2019 through 2023, and the three largest out-of-state sources are Nassau County, Manhattan, and Suffolk County. The people making this move are not guessing about prices, so here is the baseline they are buying into.
From January 1 through August 31, 2026, the median closed single-family home in Boca Raton was $1,032,500 across 1,544 sales, up 12.8 percent from $915,000 in the same period of 2025. The median condo or townhouse closed at $360,000 across 1,583 sales, flat year over year. Houses sold in a median 26 days at 96 percent of list; condos took 52 days. Fifty-one percent of house buyers and 64 percent of condo buyers paid cash.
Carrying that median house with 20 percent down at 6.76 percent (Freddie Mac, week of September 10, 2026) works out to about $7,775 a month: $5,363 principal and interest, $1,405 property tax with homestead, $527 insurance at the county average, and a $480 median HOA fee where one applies. For how Boca stacks against its neighbors on the same basis, see Boca Raton vs. Delray Beach and Palm Beach County vs. Broward County. The median condo carries at about $3,279 a month, of which $764 is the association fee. Not sure whether to buy or rent for the first year or two? Rent vs own in Boca Raton shows the year owning pulls ahead, with a calculator.
Property tax: Boca versus the same house in New York
Take that $1,032,500 house and put it in four places. The comparison below uses each area's published effective rate or, for Boca, the actual 2025 millage with a first-year homestead exemption.
| Location | Basis | Annual tax on a $1,032,500 house | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boca Raton, year 1 homesteaded | 17.0029 mills less $25,000 and $26,411 exemptions, plus $480 non-ad valorem | about $17,300 | 1.68% |
| Westchester County | 1.94% county effective rate | about $20,000 | 1.94% |
| Nassau County | 1.46% county effective rate | about $15,100 | 1.46% |
| New York City, Class 1 house | 19.843% rate on a median 3.9% assessment ratio | about $8,000 | roughly 0.8% |
Three things to notice. First, Boca's first-year bill is a real number and it is not small; anyone who tells you Florida property taxes are low is describing a homeowner who bought fifteen years ago. Second, New York City one-family homes are genuinely cheap to tax because state law caps Class 1 assessment growth at 6 percent a year and 20 percent over five years, which has pushed the median assessment ratio to 3.9 percent against a 6 percent target. If you are leaving a house in Brooklyn or Queens, your property tax will go up in Boca. Third, the Nassau figure is a county average across 53 school districts; individual bills vary by five times or more depending on district, so run your own.
The 17.0029 mills break down as 6.321 school (3.073 state-required plus 3.248 local), 4.5 county, 3.6476 city operating plus 0.0173 debt, and the rest in health care district, children's services, library, drainage and water management. On October 1, 2026, Boca's residential fire services assessment rises from $155 to $224 per dwelling unit, the first change since 2022; Solid Waste Authority and Lake Worth Drainage District assessments add roughly $255 more.
Why Boca's property tax gets cheaper the longer you stay
This is where the Florida structure stops looking like New York's. Under section 193.155, Florida Statutes, a homesteaded property is assessed at just value as of January 1 of the year after you buy, and after that its assessed value can rise by no more than 3 percent a year or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. That is the Save Our Homes cap, and it applies regardless of what the market does.
Run it forward. If Boca prices grow 5 percent a year for a decade, that $1,032,500 house would carry a market value near $1.6 million in year ten, but its assessed value could be no higher than about $1.35 million. At today's millage that gap is worth roughly $4,300 a year in tax you do not pay, and it compounds every year you own. Neighbors who bought in 2010 are paying a fraction of what a new buyer pays on an identical house next door. That is the reason a long-time Boca owner rarely sells to downsize across town without first checking portability.
Two cautions. The cap resets on any change of ownership, so the seller's low tax bill on the listing sheet is not your tax bill; budget from the purchase price. And the cap protects assessed value, not the millage rate, which each taxing authority sets every September.
Portability, the ability to carry up to $500,000 of that accumulated cap difference to a new Florida homestead within three tax years, does not help a New York arrival on the first purchase because there is no prior Florida homestead to port from. It becomes valuable on your second Florida home.
The homestead exemption and the deadline that waives it
Florida's homestead exemption takes up to $25,000 off assessed value for all taxes, plus a second exemption on the value between $50,000 and $75,000 for non-school taxes. Since Amendment 5 passed in 2024, that second exemption is indexed to inflation each January 1: it is $25,722 for 2025 and $26,411 for 2026. The Palm Beach County Property Appraiser puts the typical saving at $750 to $1,000 a year, but the far larger prize is that the exemption is what switches on the Save Our Homes cap.
The rules are strict and the county says so plainly: you must own the property and make it your permanent residence as of January 1, and you must file by March 1 of the tax year. Under Florida law, missing March 1 waives the exemption for that year, which also delays the start of your cap by a full year. Palm Beach County accepts e-filing at pbcpao.gov, in-person filing at five service centers, or mail.
Timing matters for New Yorkers specifically. If you close in Boca in November 2026 and are living there on January 1, 2027, file between then and March 1, 2027, and the exemption applies to the 2027 tax bill you receive in November 2027. If you close in February 2027, you were not a permanent resident on January 1 and your first exemption year is 2028; you will pay 2027 taxes at full assessed value. A late-winter closing costs a year of both exemption and cap. Where the choice exists, close before December 31.
One item to watch, not to count on: Amendment 3 on Florida's November 3, 2026 ballot would replace the second exemption with a $150,000 non-school exemption in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. It needs 60 percent of the vote and is not law; our 2026 property tax ballot explainer covers what it would and would not change. Budget on today's rules.
The homestead application also asks for a Florida driver license, Florida vehicle registration, and voter registration or a Declaration of Domicile. Those are not paperwork for its own sake; they are the same documents New York will ask about in the next section.
Income tax: the number that actually pays for the move
Florida has no personal income tax. New York State's 2026 schedule for married joint filers runs from 3.9 percent at the bottom to 6.85 percent between $323,200 and $2,155,350 of taxable income, then 9.65 percent to $5 million, 10.3 percent to $25 million and 10.9 percent above that; the FY2026 budget trimmed the lower brackets by a tenth of a point and extended the high-income rates through 2032. New York City adds its own resident tax of 3.078 to 3.876 percent, with the top rate starting at $90,000 of joint taxable income.
Approximate 2026 liability, married filing jointly, using the state and city schedules:
| New York taxable income | NYS tax | NYC resident tax | Suburban resident total (Westchester, Nassau) | City resident total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | about $13,600 | about $9,500 | about $13,600 | about $23,100 |
| $500,000 | about $30,000 | about $19,200 | about $30,000 | about $49,200 |
| $1,000,000 | about $64,300 | about $38,500 | about $64,300 | about $102,800 |
Put that beside the housing math. At $500,000 of income, a Westchester family saves about $2,500 a month in state income tax by becoming a Florida resident, and a Manhattan family saves about $4,100. The entire property tax and insurance line on the median Boca house is about $1,930 a month. The move does not pay for itself through property tax; it pays for itself through income tax, and the property tax is the part you have to plan around.
The federal side changed in 2025. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act raised the SALT deduction cap from $10,000 to $40,000 for 2025, indexed one percent a year through 2029 ($40,400 in 2026), phasing back toward $10,000 between $500,000 and $600,000 of income. A Florida resident with a $17,300 property tax bill and no state income tax fits comfortably under the cap; a New York resident at the same income was already losing most of the deduction. These are estimates from published rate schedules for planning purposes, not tax advice; have your CPA run your actual return both ways before you list your New York house.
Estate tax: the difference that shows up once
New York's estate tax basic exclusion is $7,350,000 for deaths in 2026, and it has a cliff: an estate more than 5 percent over the exclusion loses the exclusion entirely and is taxed from the first dollar at rates up to 16 percent. New York does not allow a surviving spouse to use the deceased spouse's unused exclusion.
Florida's estate tax statute, chapter 198, is written as a pickup of a federal credit that no longer exists, so no Florida estate tax is collected and there is no inheritance tax. For a household near the New York cliff, that difference alone can exceed a decade of property tax. It only counts if your domicile has actually changed, which is the last and most contested piece.
The New York residency audit and how to not fail it
New York does not accept a Florida address as proof you left. Its Department of Taxation and Finance runs residency audits under published Nonresident Audit Guidelines, and the burden is on you to show by clear and convincing evidence that you abandoned New York domicile and acquired Florida domicile. Separately, even if your domicile is Florida, you are taxed as a New York statutory resident in any year you maintain a permanent place of abode in New York and spend 184 or more days there.
Auditors work through five primary factors before anything else: Home (size, value and use of each residence), Active Business Involvement, Time (a day count, and partial days in New York count as New York days), Items Near and Dear (where the art, heirlooms, pets and family photographs live), and Family Connections. The Florida Bar's guidance for New Yorkers perfecting domicile lists the practical steps: file a Declaration of Domicile with the Palm Beach County Clerk under section 222.17, Florida Statutes; apply for homestead; obtain a Florida driver license and register vehicles; register to vote in Palm Beach County and vote; move bank deposit boxes, physicians, and advisors; update your will and estate plan to Florida; and keep a contemporaneous day log with travel receipts.
Two habits protect the savings. First, if you keep a New York apartment, count days ruthlessly and stay under 184; the statutory residency test does not care about intent. Second, make Boca the larger and more used home, not the vacation home. A $1 million Boca condo held alongside a $4 million Westchester house you still visit every weekend is the fact pattern auditors win on.
Insurance and fees: the offsets you have to budget
Florida gives back on tax and takes some of it on insurance and association fees. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation's July 2026 county averages put Palm Beach County homeowners insurance including wind at about $527 a month for a house at the Boca median, roughly $6,300 a year; most New York arrivals find that is the single largest increase in their monthly carry. The actual premium is set by roof age, opening protection, elevation and deductible, so a 2015 concrete-block house with impact glass east of I-95 prices very differently from a 1978 house with an original roof.
Association fees are the other line. Among Boca single-family closings with a fee, the median HOA is $480 a month; among condos it is $764, and 59 percent of Boca condo listings state that the fee includes building insurance. Boca's median condo was built in 1983, which puts most of the stock inside Florida's milestone inspection and structural reserve rules; 8.4 percent of 2026 condo listings mention a special assessment. For a New Yorker used to Manhattan common charges, the numbers are familiar; the difference is that the fee is now carrying a windstorm policy and a reserve schedule the state audits.
Selling in New York while buying in Boca
Most New York-to-Boca moves are sell-then-buy, and the order matters for taxes. Closing your New York sale and your Boca purchase in the same calendar year, with the Boca closing before December 31, gets you homestead on January 1 and a clean part-year New York return. If you already own in Florida and are moving up or down within the state, start with what your current home is worth so portability is part of the plan. Selling in New York first also settles the New York capital gains question while you are still a New York resident, which is usually simpler than the alternative.
PBP Real Estate is licensed in Florida only; our relocating to South Florida hub and the Boca Raton relocation guide cover neighborhoods, schools as facts and the practical move. For the New York side, we refer you to a vetted local broker through our referral network, disclose that arrangement in writing, and stay as your single point of contact so the two closings line up. On the Boca side, Gia Freer, PBP's broker of record, has held a Florida license since 2000 (BK689801).
Talk through the move before you list in New York
The order of the two closings decides your first homestead year, your part-year New York return and how many days you can spend up north. Gia Freer, PBP’s Broker of Record, licensed in Florida since 2000, will walk through the Boca side with real closed data and coordinate the New York sale through our referral network, disclosed in writing.
Boca Raton homes and closed prices or call (561) 395-8418. Conversations are confidential and there is no cost to having one.
Sources and method
- BeachesMLS closed sales, January 1 through August 31, 2026, retrieved September 16, 2026; information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. PBP internal cost-of-living dataset.
- Freddie Mac PMMS via FRED MORTGAGE30US, week ending September 10, 2026.
- Palm Beach County Property Appraiser, Taxing Authority Code Description 2025, code 06154 (Boca Raton, 49,654 parcels, 17.0029 total mills); Homestead Exemption page (January 1 / March 1 rules).
- Florida Department of Revenue, PT-113 Property Tax Information for Homestead Exemption; Additional Homestead Exemption Adjustment (revised January 2026: $25,722 for 2025, $26,411 for 2026).
- Florida Statutes 2026: s. 193.155 (Save Our Homes assessment, change of ownership), s. 196.031 (homestead exemption), s. 222.17 (declaration of domicile), ch. 198 (estate tax).
- Boca Post, September 9, 2026: Resolution 104-2026, residential fire services assessment $155 to $224 effective October 1, 2026.
- Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Property Insurance Stability Unit report, July 2026 (county average premium including wind).
- New York Department of Taxation and Finance: Tax Law s. 601 as amended by the 2025-26 enacted budget (Hodgson Russ summary, May 16, 2025); Publication NYS-50-T-NYS (1/26); Estate tax basic exclusion table ($7,350,000 for 2026); Permanent Place of Abode bulletin (184-day statutory residency); Nonresident Audit Guidelines (2021), five primary factors.
- NYC Department of Finance property tax rates, tax year 2026 (Class 1, 19.843 percent); NYC Comptroller fiscal note on the Class 1 assessment ratio (median 3.9 percent, FY2024).
- Westchester County effective rate 1.94 percent and Nassau County effective rate 1.46 percent / median bill $11,129: county-level aggregations of NY ORPS roll data (Abode Money; longislandpropertytax.com; propertytaxpeek.com, March 2026). Treat as approximations; individual bills vary by school district.
- MIAMI Realtors analysis of IRS county-to-county migration data 2022-2023 (Palm Beach County net AGI inflow $22.7 billion 2019-2023; top sources Nassau 959, New York County 734, Suffolk 732 filers; out-of-state mover average income $244,700), March 24, 2026.
- Anchin, "NY SALT Deduction and the One Big Beautiful Bill," September 29, 2025 ($40,000 cap, $40,400 in 2026, phase-down $500,000 to $600,000).
- The Florida Bar Journal, "Moving from New York to Florida: Perfecting Domicile."
Income tax figures are computed from published 2026 rate schedules for illustration and are not tax advice. Consult a CPA licensed in New York and Florida before changing domicile.
Written by Gia Freer, Broker of Record at PBP Real Estate, LLC, licensed in Florida since 2000 (BK689801), brokerage license CQ1064615. PBP Real Estate is licensed in Florida only and does not give tax or legal advice; consult a CPA and attorney licensed in New York and Florida. This page was researched with AI assistance and reviewed by a licensed human before publication.
New York to Boca Raton: questions and answers
Will my property taxes go down if I move from New York to Boca Raton?
Probably not in year one. A median Boca house carries about a 1.7 percent first-year effective rate, above Nassau County's 1.46 percent and roughly double a New York City one-family house. Boca's advantage is the Save Our Homes cap, which limits assessed value growth to 3 percent a year after your first homestead year.
When do I have to file for the Florida homestead exemption?
You must own and permanently occupy the home on January 1 and file with the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser by March 1 of that year. Missing March 1 waives the exemption for that year and delays your Save Our Homes cap by a year.
How many days can I spend in New York after moving to Florida?
If you keep a permanent place of abode in New York, 184 or more days there in a year makes you a New York statutory resident regardless of where you are domiciled. Partial days count. If you have no New York abode, the question is domicile, decided on the five primary factors in New York's audit guidelines.
Does Florida have an estate tax?
No estate tax is collected and there is no inheritance tax. New York's 2026 exclusion is $7,350,000 with a cliff that removes the entire exclusion once an estate exceeds it by more than 5 percent.
Can I bring my Save Our Homes savings from New York?
No. Portability transfers accumulated cap savings between Florida homesteads only, up to $500,000, within three tax years. Your first Boca purchase starts the clock.
How much is homeowners insurance in Boca Raton?
The July 2026 FLOIR county average including wind works out to about $527 a month on a median-priced house. Roof age, opening protection and elevation move the actual quote substantially.
Free to reuse with attribution and a link to PBP Real Estate. Figures, tables and charts on this page may be quoted, screenshotted or embedded. Keep the source line and link to www.pbprealestate.com/new-york-to-boca-raton-tax-homestead-guide/. Aggregates only: no address, listing number or listing-level record is published here.