How much will I save by moving to Florida?

Exactly what your previous state was taking from you, which is on your last state return. There is no Florida-side number, because Florida is not charging you anything to subtract. For a retired household living on Social Security in a state that already exempted it, the saving can be close to zero. For a high earner leaving a state with a top rate above 10 percent, it is large.

Is Social Security taxed in Florida?

Not by Florida, because Florida taxes no individual income at all — Social Security included, along with pensions, IRA and 401(k) withdrawals, annuities and investment income. Federal tax on Social Security is unaffected by where you live; moving states does not change your federal return.

What does Florida charge instead?

Sales tax and property tax, mainly. The state sales tax is 6 percent and most counties add a discretionary sales surtax on top, which the Department of Revenue publishes county by county in form DR-15DSS. Property tax funds county services, schools and special districts, and Marion County's 2026 proposed millage runs from about 12.9 to 19.1 mills depending on the taxing district.

Do I have to do anything to stop paying my old state's income tax?

Usually yes, and it is not automatic. Most states want evidence that you have genuinely changed domicile rather than acquired a second address — driver's licence, vehicle registration, voter registration, where you actually spend your days, where your primary home is. Some states are notably persistent about auditing departures. Florida offers a Declaration of Domicile you can file with the Clerk of Court, and doing the whole checklist rather than half of it is the point.

What no state income tax actually saves you in Florida

Q: Does Florida have a state income tax?

No, and it is prohibited rather than merely absent. Article VII, Section 5(a) of the Florida Constitution says no tax upon the income of natural persons who are residents or citizens of the state shall be levied by the state or under its authority, beyond amounts creditable against federal tax. Changing that requires amending the constitution, not passing a bill.

It is the most quoted line in every Florida relocation pitch and the least specific. The saving is not a number Florida sets. It is a number your former state set, and you already know it.

Every relocation pitch leads with this and almost none of them finish the sentence. "No state income tax" is true. What it is worth is a different question, and the answer is not in Florida. It is on your last state return.

What the rule actually is

Florida does not have an individual income tax, and the reason is structural rather than political. Article VII, Section 5 of the Florida Constitution:

No tax upon estates or inheritances or upon the income of natural persons who are residents or citizens of the state shall be levied by the state, or under its authority, in excess of the aggregate of amounts which may be allowed to be credited upon or deducted from any similar tax levied by the United States or any state.

That is a constitutional prohibition, which matters when you are making a twenty-year decision. Seven other states also have no individual income tax; not all of them have it written into the constitution.

The prohibition covers all individual income, which is broader than people assume. Wages, self-employment income, pensions, Social Security, IRA and 401(k) withdrawals, annuity payments, capital gains, dividends, rental income, business income that flows through to a personal return. Florida taxes none of it.

The arithmetic, which takes ninety seconds

The saving is not a rate Florida charges. It is the rate your old state charged, applied to your own income. So:

Find last year's state income tax return.
Find the line that says what you actually paid the state, after credits — not the top marginal rate, which is not what most people pay.
That is the annual saving, in the first approximation.

Then adjust for two things that make it smaller or larger than it looks:

Your old state may already have exempted the income you have. Several states do not tax Social Security, and several exempt a large slice of pension income for people over a certain age. A retired couple leaving one of those states can find the real saving is close to nothing.
Some states pursue departing residents. Changing your mailing address is not changing your domicile. If your old state audits departures, the saving is contingent on doing the whole change properly.

Where Florida takes it back

A state with no income tax funds itself from somewhere else. In Florida, it is mostly sales tax, property tax and tourism.

Sales tax. The state rate is 6 percent, and most counties add a discretionary sales surtax on top of it. The Department of Revenue publishes the current surtax county by county in form DR-15DSS — worth looking at rather than assuming, because the surtax varies, some of it expires and gets renewed, and some of it applies only to the first portion of the price of a single item.

Sales tax is a regressive substitution: it takes a larger share of a modest income than of a large one, because a modest household spends nearly all of what it earns. If you are moving here on a low fixed income, the income tax saving may be smaller than the sales tax increase. If you are moving here on a high income, it almost certainly is not.

Property tax. Counties, school districts and special districts fund themselves from ad valorem taxes, and in a state with no income tax they are doing more of the work. Marion County's 2026 proposed millage runs from about 12.9 mills in McIntosh to about 19.1 in part of the city of Ocala; that plus non-ad valorem assessments is your bill, and Marion County property taxes explained takes it apart. Florida's counterweight is the homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes assessment cap, which are genuinely generous to long-term owner-occupiers and do nothing at all for renters.

Tourism. A substantial share of Florida's sales tax is paid by people who do not live here. That is the structural reason the arrangement works at all, and it is also why it is sensitive to a bad tourism year in a way an income-tax state is not.

Who gains most, in order

Ranked by how much the absence of an income tax is actually worth:

High earners leaving high-rate states. The saving scales directly with income and with the rate you escape. This is the case where the headline is understated rather than overstated.
Retirees with substantial taxable retirement income — large IRA or 401(k) withdrawals, a taxed pension, investment income — leaving a state that taxed it. Florida taxes none of it.
People with a large one-off gain, where domicile in the year of the sale is worth more than every other line in this article combined. That is a conversation for a tax professional before the transaction, not after.
Ordinary wage earners leaving a low-rate state. Real, modest, and smaller than the sales tax and insurance differences that come with the move.
Retirees whose income was already exempt where they lived. Close to zero from this line specifically. The case for moving has to be made on housing cost, climate or family, because it will not be made here.

Establishing domicile, properly

If your former state has an income tax, the move only works if you actually become a Florida resident rather than a Floridian for postal purposes. The recognised markers are boring and they are exactly the things on the first-30-days checklist:

Florida driver's licence, and surrender of the old one.
Florida vehicle registration and title.
Voter registration in Marion County.
Homestead exemption on your Florida home, which is a statement to a government body that this is your permanent residence.
A Declaration of Domicile filed with the Clerk of Court, which is a formal, dated record of intent.
And the substance underneath all of it: where you actually spend your time, where your belongings are, where your doctors are, where your family is.

A high earner leaving a state with an active residency audit programme should get professional advice on this before the move rather than after the first letter. The paperwork is cheap. The reconstruction is not.

The one-line version

No state income tax is a genuine, constitutionally protected advantage, and its size is set entirely by the state you are leaving. Work it out from your own return, subtract the sales tax you will pay on the way through, and then judge the move on housing cost, insurance and the life — because for most households those three are bigger numbers than this one.