Hialeah Senior Tax Refunds: Income Limits, Deadline, and Savings

If you own your home in Hialeah and are 65 or older, you can qualify for the Hialeah senior property tax exemption, an additional reduction of up to $50,000 off your home’s taxable value on top of the standard homestead exemption. It is a reduction in taxable value rather than a refund check, and for the 2026 tax year your total household income must be under $38,686 to qualify.¹ The City of Hialeah has adopted this exemption by local ordinance.²

Who Qualifies

Three things decide whether you get the exemption:

You must be 65 or older on January 1 of the tax year you are applying for.
You must already hold a standard Florida homestead exemption on the property, meaning it is your permanent residence.
Your total household adjusted gross income for the prior year must not exceed $38,686 for the 2026 tax year.¹

The income ceiling is adjusted every January 1 based on the change in the Consumer Price Index.³ If you were a little over the limit last year, check again this year before assuming you don’t qualify.

What Counts as Household Income

This is where many applicants get caught out. Under Florida law, household income means the federal adjusted gross income of every person living in the home, not just the owner. Boarders and renters are excluded, but a spouse, an adult child, or anyone else sharing the home as a housing unit counts.³

Adjusted gross income includes wages, taxable interest and dividends, pension and IRA distributions, taxable Social Security benefits, capital gains, rental income, and most other items reported on a federal return. If a working adult child lives with you, their earnings count toward the household total and can push you over the limit. The exemption is tied to the household, not the homeowner alone.

How to Apply

The application runs through Form DR-501SC, the Sworn Statement of Adjusted Gross Household Income. You can download it from the Florida Department of Revenue or pick it up at the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser’s office.⁴ The form asks you to list every person living in the home and report their individual income.

Documents to Gather

What you supply depends on whether each household member files a federal tax return.

For anyone who files, you will need their IRS Form 1040 and any W-2s. If an extension was filed, include Form 4868. For anyone who does not file, bring their Social Security statement (Form SSA-1099) if applicable, an IRS transcript request (Form 4506-T or 8821), and the Statement of Income section completed on the DR-501SC itself.

You also need proof of age. Any one of these works: a Florida driver’s license or ID card, a certified birth certificate, a permanent resident card, a marriage certificate, certified school or census records, or a life insurance policy that has been in force for more than two years.⁴ Pulling everything together before you start the form will save you repeated trips.

Deadline and Where to File

Applications must be received or postmarked by March 1 to apply for the current tax year. Missing that date normally waives the exemption for the year.⁵

You can file with the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser at the main office:

Stephen P. Clark Center
111 NW 1st Street, Suite 710
Miami, FL 33128⁶

A satellite office in Cutler Bay at 10710 SW 211th Street, Suite 207, also accepts applications. The property appraiser’s website offers online filing, which tends to be the fastest route.

A Larger Exemption for Long-Term Residents

Florida law authorizes a second, more generous senior exemption that can wipe out your entire taxable value for participating taxing authorities. The requirements are much tighter: you must have lived in the same home as your permanent residence for at least 25 consecutive years, be 65 or older, meet the same household income limit, and the home’s market value must have been less than $250,000 in the first year you applied.³ Adopting this version requires a supermajority of the local governing body, so a city or county that offers the standard $50,000 exemption may not offer this one. Confirm with the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser which taxing authorities on your bill have adopted it.⁷

What It Actually Saves You

The exemption lowers taxable value, not your tax rate, and the dollar savings depend on the millage rates of the taxing authorities that participate. As a rough example, say your home has an assessed value of $200,000. With the standard $50,000 homestead exemption and the additional $50,000 senior exemption, your taxable value for participating authorities drops to $100,000. At a combined local millage rate of 20 mills, the additional $50,000 reduction saves you about $1,000 a year.

One detail affects every bill: the senior exemption is a local option, so each taxing authority on your bill decides independently whether to participate.⁷ The school board does not participate, so school district taxes are calculated on your value after the standard homestead exemption only. The City of Hialeah and Miami-Dade County make their own adoption decisions, so the exemption may appear on some lines of your tax bill and not others.

What Happens After You File

Nothing arrives immediately. In late summer, the property appraiser mails a Notice of Proposed Property Taxes, known as the TRIM notice, showing your assessed value, every exemption applied, and the taxes each authority proposes to levy.⁸ If the senior exemption is on the TRIM notice, your November tax bill will reflect the lower amount. If it is not there, or if you think your assessed value is wrong, you can petition the Value Adjustment Board. For an exemption denial, the petition must be filed within 30 days of the property appraiser mailing the denial notice.⁹

If You Miss the March 1 Deadline

Missing the deadline is not automatically fatal. You can submit a late application to the property appraiser up to 25 days after the TRIM notices are mailed, and if the property appraiser finds your circumstances warrant it, the exemption can still be granted for the current year.¹⁰

If the property appraiser denies the late application, you can petition the Value Adjustment Board within that same 25-day window. The petition carries a nonrefundable $15 fee. The board can grant the exemption if you show extenuating circumstances that prevented timely filing. A postal error that caused your original application to arrive late is specifically recognized as valid grounds. The threshold for “extenuating circumstances” is real, so treat March 1 as a hard deadline when you can.

Refiling Every Year

The senior exemption is not a one-time filing. You must submit the DR-501SC sworn income statement every year to confirm your household income still falls below the limit. Your age and homestead status carry forward on their own, but income changes year to year, and the property appraiser needs current documentation. Forget to refile, or let your income climb above the threshold, and the additional exemption drops off your account for that year. If income drops back down the next year, you can reapply.

1
Florida Department of Revenue. Two Additional Homestead Exemptions for Persons 65 and Older
2
City of Hialeah. Ordinance No. 2026-022
3
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 196.075 – Additional Homestead Exemption for Persons 65 and Older
4
Florida Department of Revenue. Florida Code 196.075 – Senior Citizen Exemption for Persons Age 65 and Over
5
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 196.011 – Annual Application Required for Exemption
6
Property Appraiser of Miami-Dade County. Contact the Property Appraiser
7
Property Appraiser of Miami-Dade County. Senior Citizen Exemptions
8
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 200.069 – Notice of Proposed Property Taxes
9
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 194.011 – Assessment Notice, Objections to Assessments
10
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 196.011 – Annual Application Required for Exemption