Florida Half-Cent Sales Tax: Approval, Uses, and $5,000 Cap

In Florida, the phrase “half-cent sales tax” covers two different things. One is an automatic revenue-sharing program under Chapter 218 of the Florida Statutes, where the state sends a slice of its 6% sales tax to counties and cities every month with no local vote involved. The other is a discretionary county surtax under Section 212.055, usually 0.5% or 1%, added on top of the state rate after voters approve it for specific purposes like roads, schools, or public buildings. Both are often called “half-cent” in casual conversation, but they operate under separate statutes and work very differently.¹²

The Automatic Revenue-Sharing Program

The program literally named the “Local Government Half-Cent Sales Tax” lives in Florida Statutes 218.60 through 218.67. Sales tax collected by dealers inside a county flows into the Local Government Half-Cent Sales Tax Clearing Trust Fund held in the State Treasury. The Department of Revenue then pays it back out every month to the county government and every municipality within that county.¹

Nobody votes on this one. Local governments do not opt in and do not set a rate; the state collects and redistributes automatically. The split is population-based. A county’s share is calculated by dividing its unincorporated population plus two-thirds of the incorporated population by the total county population plus two-thirds of the incorporated population. Each municipality’s share uses the same denominator but puts its own population on top.³ The weighting tilts slightly toward unincorporated areas, which reflects the service load counties carry outside city limits.

Discretionary County Surtaxes Under Section 212.055

The surtax program is where the public debate usually happens. Section 212.055 lets counties add a sales surtax on top of Florida’s 6% state rate, almost always after a voter referendum. The statute authorizes several distinct surtax types, each with its own eligibility, rate ceiling, and spending rules.⁴

Charter County and Regional Transportation System Surtax, up to 1%, for charter counties, consolidated governments, and counties under interlocal agreements with regional transit authorities. Surtaxes approved after July 1, 2020 cannot last longer than 30 years. Proceeds fund roads, bridges, bus systems, rapid transit, and on-demand transportation.
Local Government Infrastructure Surtax, 0.5% or 1%, available to every county, for construction and planning of public infrastructure, land for recreation or conservation, energy efficiency rebates, and landfill closures.
Small County Surtax, 0.5% or 1%, limited to counties with 50,000 or fewer residents as of April 1, 1992. Infrastructure when approved by referendum; operations too if enacted by extraordinary vote of the county governing body.
Indigent Care and Trauma Center Surtax, up to 0.5% in counties of at least 800,000 for indigent health care, and up to 0.25% in smaller counties for trauma services (expires after four years unless reenacted).
School Capital Outlay Surtax, up to 0.5%, requested by school boards for school construction, renovation, land acquisition, and buses.
Emergency Fire Rescue Services Surtax, up to 1%, for fire rescue services and facilities. Not available to counties already imposing two separate surtaxes without expiration dates.
Pension Liability Surtax, up to 0.5%, for unfunded pension obligations.

When Floridians hear a county is “considering a half-cent sales tax,” they usually mean the Local Government Infrastructure Surtax, which is the most widely used of the group.

How the Infrastructure Surtax Gets Approved

A county commission enacts the infrastructure surtax by ordinance, but the ordinance only takes effect after a countywide referendum. There is a second path: municipalities representing a majority of the county’s population can pass uniform resolutions calling for a referendum, which then goes to voters the same way.⁴

The rate is 0.5% or 1%. Not a sliding scale between them. For surtaxes adopted after July 1, 1993, the ordinance itself sets how long the levy runs, and voters can extend it by approving a new referendum.

Every discretionary surtax referendum must be held at a general election. A ballot measure reenacting an expiring surtax must appear at a general election within the 48 months before the reenacted surtax would take effect, and can appear only once in that window. The infrastructure surtax ballot has to include a brief description of the projects the money will fund, plus a simple “FOR / AGAINST” question stating the cent amount, and the ballot language must meet Section 101.161’s clarity requirements. Skipping a required performance audit or failing to follow the statutory steps can void the referendum entirely.⁵

What Surtax Money Can and Cannot Pay For

The spending rules are tighter than many people assume. Infrastructure surtax proceeds can pay for construction, reconstruction, and improvement of public facilities expected to last at least five years, plus related land acquisition, design, and engineering. They can also pay for land for public recreation or natural resource conservation, energy efficiency rebates for property owners (if a separate local ordinance is approved by referendum), and the closing of county- or city-owned landfills ordered shut by the Department of Environmental Protection.⁴

What it generally cannot do: cover day-to-day operating costs. You can build a fire station with infrastructure surtax dollars; you cannot pay the firefighters’ salaries out of them. Two narrow exceptions: counties under 75,000 required to close a landfill can use proceeds for long-term maintenance tied to that closure, and certain counties where taxable property values fall below 60% of just value can spend proceeds on operating and maintaining parks and recreation facilities built with surtax funds.

Other surtax types work differently. The charter county transportation surtax explicitly covers operations and maintenance of transit systems and roads. The small county surtax, when adopted by extraordinary vote rather than referendum, can fund operating expenses for any public purpose named in the ordinance. So whether surtax money can touch operations depends entirely on which surtax a county levied.

The $5,000 Cap on Single Sales

The discretionary surtax applies only to the first $5,000 of any single sale of tangible personal property. Buy a $20,000 boat in a county with a 1% surtax and you pay the surtax on $5,000 (an extra $50), not on the full purchase. The cap was built in to keep the surtax from stacking heavily on large purchases.⁶

The cap does not reach every taxable transaction. Prepaid calling arrangements, admissions, transient rentals like hotel stays, and taxable services are all subject to the surtax on the full amount with no $5,000 ceiling.

What Is Exempt

The surtax rides on top of the state sales tax, so anything exempt from Florida’s 6% is also exempt from the surtax. Most grocery items, prescription drugs, medical equipment, and prosthetic devices carry no surtax. Prepared food sold for immediate consumption is taxable and therefore surtaxable, but unprepared groceries are not. Farm equipment and certain installation or delivery charges are also exempt.

Combined Rate Limits

Florida caps how much counties can stack. The infrastructure surtax, small county surtax, indigent care surtax, hospital surtax, and pension liability surtax share a combined ceiling of 1% when layered together. Counties with a publicly supported medical school or very small populations have a slightly higher 1.5% combined ceiling for certain combinations involving the voter-approved indigent care surtax.⁴

The charter county transportation surtax (up to 1%) and the school capital outlay surtax (up to 0.5%) sit outside that combined cap. That is why some Florida counties carry total surtax rates noticeably above 1%. Dealers who sell or deliver into a county with an active surtax must collect it regardless of where the dealer is physically located.⁷

What This Means at the Register

For a Florida shopper, the practical result is that your sales tax rate changes when you cross a county line. The 6% state portion is the same everywhere, and the automatic Chapter 218 half-cent program is invisible to you because it happens behind the scenes between the state and local governments. The number that moves is the discretionary surtax layer, which depends on what your county has voted for. On most everyday purchases the surtax is small; on a large single-item purchase of tangible goods, the $5,000 cap limits how much extra you pay; on hotel stays, admissions, and services, no cap applies and you owe the full surtax on the entire amount.⁶

1
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 218.61 – Local Government Half-Cent Sales Tax; Designated Proceeds; Trust Fund
2
Florida Dept. of Revenue. Florida Sales and Use Tax
3
Justia Law. Florida Statutes 218.62 – Distribution Formulas
4
Justia Law. Florida Statutes 212.055 – Discretionary Sales Surtaxes; Legislative Intent; Authorization and Use of Proceeds
5
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 212.055 – Discretionary Sales Surtaxes
6
Florida Dept. of Revenue. Discretionary Sales Surtax
7
Florida Dept. of Revenue. Florida’s Discretionary Sales Surtax