TRIM notice Miami-Dade 2026: how to read your August notice line by line

Last updated: July 2026

The TRIM notice Miami-Dade property owners receive each August is the Notice of Proposed Property Taxes, mailed by the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser under Florida's Truth in Millage law [1]. It is not a bill. It is a disclosure showing three different values for your property (market, assessed, and taxable), the exemptions applied, and the tax each local taxing authority proposes to levy for the coming year. It also starts a clock: under Florida Statute 194.011, a petition challenging your assessment must be filed with the Value Adjustment Board on or before the 25th day following the mailing of the notice [2]. In Miami-Dade that deadline typically lands in mid September, and the exact date is printed on the notice itself.

This guide walks the August 2026 notice line by line: what each value line means, how the Save Our Homes cap works this year, how to read the millage columns, and how to decide whether contesting the value is worth your time. The general appeals playbook is a separate post. This one is about reading the document in front of you.

What the TRIM notice is, and what it is not

The format of the notice is set by Florida Statute 200.069, which is why every county's version looks similar [3]. The document does two jobs at once.

First, it is the property appraiser's statement of your property's value as of January 1, 2026, along with the exemptions and assessment caps applied to it. If you disagree with anything on the value side, your remedy is the Value Adjustment Board, and the clock is already running.

Second, it is the taxing authorities' disclosure of the millage rates they propose to adopt. The county, the school board, your municipality, the water management district, and several smaller districts each set their own rate at public budget hearings in September. The notice lists the date, time, and place of each hearing. If your complaint is the tax rate rather than your value, the VAB cannot help you. The budget hearing is the venue for that.

Keeping those two tracks separate is the most useful thing to understand about the document.

The three values, line by line

The value section shows last year's figures next to this year's. The three lines mean different things, and the differences are where most of the confusion lives.

Market value

Also labeled just value. This is the property appraiser's opinion of what your property was worth on January 1, 2026, based largely on sales of comparable properties during the prior year. It reflects the market roughly a year in arrears, so a cooling market can take a cycle to show up here. This is the only number on the notice you can meaningfully contest at the VAB, because everything below it is arithmetic.

Assessed value and the Save Our Homes cap

Assessed value is market value minus any assessment limitation. For homesteaded property, the Save Our Homes cap limits the annual increase in assessed value to the lower of 3 percent or the change in the Consumer Price Index. For 2026 the cap is 2.7 percent, matching CPI, per the Florida Department of Revenue [4]. Over a long hold in an appreciating market, the gap between market and assessed value compounds into meaningful annual savings, which is why a long-tenured owner often pays far less tax than a new buyer of a comparable house next door.

Two mechanics are worth knowing. The cap resets on sale: a buyer's assessed value starts over at market value in the year after purchase, so a seller's current tax bill tells a buyer little about their own future bill. And under the state's recapture rule, if your assessed value sits below market value, the appraiser raises it by the cap amount even in a year when your market value is flat or falling. A rising assessed value in a soft market is usually recapture at work, not an error.

Non-homestead property has its own cap, which limits assessed-value increases to 10 percent per year, though that cap does not apply to school district levies [5].

Exemptions and taxable value

Below assessed value, the notice lists your exemptions: homestead, the additional homestead, and any senior, veteran, disability, or other exemptions you hold. Taxable value is assessed value minus exemptions, and it can differ by taxing authority because some exemptions do not apply to school levies.

This is the section to proofread. If you bought in 2025 or early 2026 and filed for homestead, confirm the exemption actually appears. A missing exemption is usually a fixable clerical issue, and it is far easier to fix in August than after the bill arrives in November.

The millage columns: who is proposing what

The lower section is a table with one row per taxing authority and, for each, dollar figures under three headings: your taxes last year, your taxes this year if each authority's proposed budget change is adopted, and your taxes this year if no budget change is adopted. The structure comes straight from the statute [3].

Read across each row and ask one question: is any increase coming from my value or from the rate? If the proposed rate is flat but your taxable value rose, the increase is a valuation story. If the rate itself is up, that authority is proposing to collect more per dollar of value, and the hearing information on the notice tells you when and where that decision gets made. A typical Miami-Dade bill stacks the county, the school board, a municipality or the unincorporated area levy, the water management district, and other special districts, so small moves across several rows can add up.

Non-ad valorem assessments, such as solid waste or special district fees, generally do not appear on the TRIM notice. They show up on the November bill, so the TRIM total will usually run somewhat below the final bill.

The 2026 calendar and the 25-day VAB deadline

The working calendar looks like this:

January 1, 2026. Valuation date. Every value on the notice keys to this date.
August 2026. The property appraiser mails TRIM notices to Miami-Dade owners [1].
25 days after mailing. Deadline to file a VAB petition on valuation issues under Florida Statute 194.011 [2]. The specific date is printed on your notice. Miami-Dade petitions are filed with the Clerk of Courts, which administers the VAB independently of the property appraiser, with a filing fee of 15 dollars per property [6]. File early enough to confirm receipt, since arrival at the clerk is what counts, not intent.
September 2026. Taxing authorities hold their public budget hearings and adopt final millage rates.
November 2026. The tax collector mails the actual bill, with early-payment discounts for paying ahead of spring.

Before filing anything, contact the property appraiser's office. An informal conference is free, requires no petition, and resolves a meaningful share of disputes, particularly exemption and clerical issues. Filing the VAB petition by the deadline preserves your rights while that conversation happens.

When appealing is worth it

Treat it like any other underwriting decision: expected savings against cost and effort.

The savings math is straightforward. A successful petition lowers taxable value, and the tax saving is the reduction multiplied by your combined millage rate. A reduction that sounds large in headline terms can translate to a modest annual number once you run the multiplication, so run it before committing time.

The strength of the case matters more than the size of the bill. The question a VAB special magistrate weighs is whether the January 1 market value is supportable. Useful evidence includes closed sales of comparable properties from 2025, condition issues a mass-appraisal model cannot see, such as deferred maintenance or an un-renovated interior in a renovated comp set, and errors in the property record such as wrong square footage. A homesteaded owner whose assessed value sits far below market usually has little to gain, because even a successful market-value reduction may not reach below the capped assessed value that actually drives the bill.

Where a petition tends to pencil: recent purchases where the new assessment landed above what the buyer paid, non-homestead and investment property riding the 10 percent cap, condos in buildings with known issues the model has not caught up with, and any property with a factual error in the record.

If you are weighing a challenge partly because you want to know what the property would trade for today, those are related but different questions. The appraiser's January 1 value and today's listing value can sit far apart in a moving market. A current valuation of your property answers the second question with live comparables, and if the numbers suggest this is a year to reposition rather than hold, the selling process starts with that same analysis.

Frequently asked questions

Is the TRIM notice a bill?

No. It is a disclosure of proposed taxes and your assessment. The bill comes from the tax collector in November. Nothing is due in August, but the notice is your only window to contest the value behind the November bill.

What if I miss the 25-day deadline?

The VAB can consider late petitions only in narrow good-cause circumstances, and not reading the notice does not qualify. As a practical matter, missing the deadline means living with the assessment for the year and starting earlier next cycle.

Why did my assessed value rise when the market cooled?

Usually the recapture rule. If your capped assessed value sits below market value, state rules direct the appraiser to raise assessed value by the cap amount, 2.7 percent for homesteads in 2026 [4], even in a flat year. Assessed value keeps climbing toward market value until the two converge.

Does filing a petition pause my tax bill?

No. State law requires petitioners to pay at least a statutory portion of the contested taxes before the delinquency date, or the petition is dismissed. Budget for the November bill as if the appeal will fail, and treat any refund as upside.

Should I hire a representative or file myself?

For a single clerical error or a clear comp story, owners routinely self-file for the 15 dollar fee [6]. For higher-value properties or portfolios, contingency-fee representatives are common, and the decision is the same expected-value math: their percentage of any savings against your time.

More questions about how the notice interacts with a purchase or sale you are planning are covered on the FAQ page, or reach out directly.

Gabriel

Sources

Gabriel A. Moyers, PA. eXp Realty. Florida License #3407280. Equal Housing Opportunity. This article is general information as of July 2026 and is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Verify current figures against authoritative sources before acting.