Florida Sales & Discretionary Surtax Calculator

How this calculator works

Florida sales tax looks deceptively simple from a distance — a flat 6% state rate, a small county add-on, done. The actual mechanics ship with three Florida-specific wrinkles that out-of-state buyers, online sellers, and even some Florida small businesses get wrong on a regular basis. This calculator handles all three, plus the broader exemption framework, in one pass:

1. The 6% state rate on tangible personal property under F.S. § 212.05. The base rate has not moved in decades; it is the floor on every taxable transaction.
2. The county discretionary surtax under F.S. § 212.054. Each Florida county may adopt an additional surtax of up to 1.5%, subject to voter approval. As of the latest review, statewide combined rates range from 6% flat (a handful of "no-surtax" counties) to 7.5% (Hillsborough, Duval).
3. The $5,000 single-item surtax cap under F.S. § 212.054(2)(b)1. The surtax applies only to the first $5,000 of the sales price of any single item of tangible personal property — the most counterintuitive provision in the entire Florida sales-tax code, and the biggest driver of error on big-ticket purchases.
4. The narrow taxable-services list. Florida is one of a small handful of states that does NOT tax services as a general rule. Most services — professional, personal, residential — are simply outside the sales-tax base.
5. The Florida-unique commercial-rent tax under F.S. § 212.031, the only commercial-rent sales tax in the country.

Each of these gets its own section below.

The $5,000 surtax cap, worked

The cap is the single most-misunderstood Florida sales-tax mechanic. Mechanically:

• The state 6% rate applies to the FULL sales price.
• The county discretionary surtax applies only to the FIRST $5,000 of the sales price of any single item of tangible personal property.
• The cap is per ITEM, not per invoice. A $10,000 invoice covering two distinct $5,000 forklifts gets the cap applied to each forklift separately — full surtax on each $5,000 item, no savings. A $10,000 invoice covering one $10,000 boat gets the cap once.
• The cap does NOT apply to taxable services, and it does NOT apply to commercial rent. Services and rent are taxed in full on the entire amount.

Worked example: $3,000 boat in Broward (cap does NOT engage)

A $3,000 used jon-boat purchased in Broward County (1.0% surtax) is entirely below the $5,000 threshold. The cap has no effect:

• State tax: $3,000 × 6% = $180
• Surtax: $3,000 × 1% = $30
• Total Florida sales tax: $210
• Effective rate: 7.00%

This is the simple case. The cap exists but never binds.

Worked example: $10,000 boat in Miami-Dade (cap DOES engage)

A $10,000 used center-console boat purchased in Miami-Dade County (1.0% surtax) trips the cap:

• State tax: $10,000 × 6% = $600 (full amount)
• Surtax: $5,000 × 1% = $50 (first $5,000 only — the cap)
• Total Florida sales tax: $650
• Effective rate: 6.50%

The uncapped surtax would have been $10,000 × 1% = $100. The cap saves $50 on this transaction. As the purchase price grows, the cap savings grow with it: a $100,000 commercial machine in a 1% surtax county saves $950 versus the uncapped surtax computation.

The cap mechanic surprises out-of-state buyers and out-of-state online sellers most often. A Georgia retailer selling a $10,000 generator to a Florida buyer in Miami-Dade should bill $650, not $700. Many remote-seller checkout systems naively compute combined rate times purchase price, missing the cap — and over-collect Florida tax. The buyer's remedy is a refund claim against the seller, who in turn must claim a refund against the DOR on a corrected return.

Worked example: $40,000 vehicle in Hillsborough

Motor-vehicle sales are tangible personal property and get the cap. A $40,000 vehicle purchased in Hillsborough County (1.5% surtax):

• State tax: $40,000 × 6% = $2,400
• Surtax: $5,000 × 1.5% = $75 (first $5,000 only)
• Total Florida sales tax: $2,475
• Effective rate: 6.19%

The dealer collects and remits the tax (Form DR-15) and the county tax collector verifies it at registration. Without the cap, the buyer would have paid $40,000 × 7.5% = $3,000 — a $525 savings under § 212.054(2)(b)1.

Services are mostly non-taxable in Florida

Florida is in a small minority of states that does not tax services as a general rule. F.S. § 212.05 defines the sales-tax base in terms of the sale of tangible personal property plus a narrow ENUMERATED list of taxable services. The default is non-taxable; the burden is on the DOR to point to a specific statutory inclusion.

Taxable services (the enumerated list, primarily under F.S. § 212.05(1)(i)):

• Commercial (nonresidential) cleaning services
• Nonresidential pest control
• Detective, burglar-protection, armored-car, and other protection services
• Commercial real-property rental, handled separately under F.S. § 212.031

Non-taxable services (the much longer list — anything not in the enumerated set):

• Residential cleaning, residential pest control, residential lawn / landscaping services
• Professional services — legal, accounting, medical, engineering, architectural, real-estate brokerage
• Personal services — haircuts, manicures, dry cleaning, tailoring, personal training
• Most repair-of-tangible-personal-property labor (the parts are taxable; the labor is generally not, with edge cases)

For most small-business owners providing services in Florida, the default is "no sales tax to collect or remit." Where it bites: a commercial cleaning company that thinks of itself as a generic "cleaning company" and fails to register; a residential pest-control company that picks up a commercial account and fails to bifurcate; a security firm that treats its services as professional consulting rather than enumerated protection services. The classification line is administered by DOR rule 12A-1.0091 et seq. and a long line of TIPs (Tax Information Publications); checking the specific service against the statutory list is the conservative path.

The Florida-unique commercial-rent tax

Florida is the only U.S. state that imposes its general sales tax on the rental of commercial real property. The tax sits at F.S. § 212.031 and has been a fixture of Florida law since 1969. The state rate has been stepped down by the legislature over recent sessions (4.5% in 2024, 2.0% in 2025, with further reductions discussed); the county discretionary surtax applies on top of the state rate.

Importantly, the $5,000 cap does NOT apply to commercial rent. The cap is specific to single-item tangible-personal-property sales. Every dollar of commercial rent is in the surtax base. On a $50,000 monthly office lease in a 1.5% surtax county, the surtax alone is $750 per month, plus state-rate tax — material on a large commercial pro-forma.

What is "commercial" rent for § 212.031: office, retail, warehouse, industrial, and any other rental of commercial real property. What is NOT commercial rent and is therefore non-taxable: residential rentals (apartment, single-family home), rentals of agricultural land used for agriculture, and rentals of public-housing units. Short-term residential rentals (under six months — the "tourist tax" base) are subject to a different statutory regime under F.S. § 212.03 plus county tourist-development taxes.

The landlord collects from the tenant and remits monthly on Form DR-15. Florida-specific tenants and out-of-state landlords often miss this tax entirely until the first DOR audit; baking it into pro-formas is a Florida real-estate fundamental and is one of the reasons sophisticated Florida commercial-rent comps look higher than apples-to-apples comps elsewhere.

What this calculator does NOT do

This calculator handles per-transaction state-plus-surtax math. It does not:

• Replace a Form DR-15 return. Florida sales-tax returns are filed monthly (DR-15) or quarterly (smaller filers); this calculator gives you the per-transaction exposure, not the period-level reconciliation.
• Compute Florida USE tax accruals. Use tax under F.S. § 212.06 is the companion to sales tax for property purchased outside Florida and brought in. The rate, surtax, and cap mechanics are identical; this calculator covers the math even when the transaction is technically a use-tax accrual rather than a sales-tax collection.
• Handle multi-item invoices with per-item cap analysis. The per-item cap requires per-item pricing. This calculator computes one item at a time; for a complex invoice, run each line item separately.
• Compute the boat / aircraft surtax-dollar maximum. F.S. § 212.05(1)(a)2 places a separate $5,000-of-surtax-tax cap on a single boat or aircraft transaction; for nearly all pleasure-craft purchases the regular $5,000-of-sales-price cap binds first. For very large boats or aircraft purchases, run a hand check against § 212.05(1)(a)2.
• Handle non-sales-tax Florida transactional taxes. Documentary stamps on a deed (F.S. § 201.02), mortgage stamps (§ 201.08), non-recurring intangible tax (§ 199.133), and property tax (§ 196 / § 200) are handled by our Documentary Stamp Tax Calculator and Property Tax Calculator.

How this page is maintained

The Florida state 6% rate has been stable for decades. The county surtax rates change almost every year — counties hold referenda, surtaxes expire or are extended, new transportation or infrastructure surtaxes are adopted. We refresh the county-rate table after each Florida DOR DR-15DSS update (typically published in December for January-1 effective rates) and after each Florida legislative session in case of statewide-rate changes (especially on the commercial-rent rate, which has been on a stepped-down trajectory).

Last reviewed: 2026-05-15 against F.S. § 212.05, § 212.054, § 212.054(2)(b)1, § 212.031, § 212.08 and the current Florida DOR Form DR-15DSS county-rate table.