The municipalities of the Orlando metro
Florida has no state income tax, and this is the page where you find out where the money comes from instead. These are 24 municipalities across four counties, each with its own hub and its own two calculators, measured on the same indexes and the same month as the Charlotte metro elsewhere on this site — which makes the comparison between them the most useful thing here.
All 24, sorted by distance from downtown
Home values and rents are Zillow's indexes for June 2026, computed the same way in every municipality. The millage column is what each council and county actually adopted for 2025. The rate column is neither of those — it is what a homesteaded buyer really pays on the price, after an exemption that comes off the school district's levy and everything else's by different amounts. The derivation is below.
| Municipality | County | Miles | Typical home | Year on year | Millage | Buyer's rate | Tax a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orlando | Orange | 0 | $375,175 | -2.4% | 18.0878 | 1.61% | $6,043 |
| Winter Park | Orange | 5 | $470,915 | -0.3% | 15.7363 | 1.44% | $6,785 |
| Eatonville | Orange | 5 | $254,523 | -1.2% | 18.7316 | 1.57% | $3,992 |
| Belle Isle | Orange | 6 | $539,163 | +0.3% | 16.2223 | 1.50% | $8,097 |
| Maitland | Orange | 6 | $484,058 | +0.4% | 16.6803 | 1.53% | $7,401 |
| Altamonte Springs | Seminole | 9 | $294,290 | -2.9% | 17.5683 | 1.50% | $4,423 |
| Windermere | Orange | 10 | $714,453 | -1.7% | 15.1803 | 1.43% | $10,248 |
| Casselberry | Seminole | 10 | $347,940 | -2.8% | 18.1808 | 1.59% | $5,548 |
| Ocoee | Orange | 10 | $416,127 | -2.6% | 16.3878 | 1.48% | $6,161 |
| Longwood | Seminole | 12 | $459,779 | -1.0% | 16.3034 | 1.48% | $6,812 |
| Winter Springs | Seminole | 12 | $427,735 | -2.0% | 16.1883 | 1.46% | $6,246 |
| Winter Garden | Orange | 13 | $569,557 | -2.2% | 16.2943 | 1.51% | $8,627 |
| Oviedo | Seminole | 14 | $511,370 | -0.9% | 16.7784 | 1.54% | $7,872 |
| Apopka | Orange | 14 | $398,039 | -1.8% | 15.8754 | 1.43% | $5,686 |
| Lake Mary | Seminole | 16 | $469,231 | -1.7% | 14.3929 | 1.31% | $6,165 |
| Kissimmee | Osceola | 17 | $359,462 | -4.1% | 17.4114 | 1.54% | $5,521 |
| Sanford | Seminole | 19 | $344,300 | -3.1% | 18.1284 | 1.59% | $5,466 |
| Saint Cloud | Osceola | 21 | $393,440 | -3.7% | 17.8989 | 1.60% | $6,280 |
| Clermont | Lake | 24 | $432,288 | -3.6% | 16.6766 | 1.51% | $6,527 |
| Mount Dora | Lake | 24 | $391,992 | -1.5% | 18.7725 | 1.68% | $6,572 |
| Tavares | Lake | 28 | $311,326 | -2.4% | 19.3042 | 1.67% | $5,197 |
| Eustis | Lake | 29 | $338,814 | -1.8% | 19.8623 | 1.74% | $5,889 |
| Groveland | Lake | 29 | $371,965 | -4.1% | 17.7866 | 1.58% | $5,879 |
| Leesburg | Lake | 36 | $277,781 | -4.7% | 15.9477 | 1.36% | $3,785 |
Values are Zillow's home value index, a quality-controlled estimate of what a mid-tier home is worth rather than a record of what sold — which is what makes twenty-four municipalities comparable. Note that 22 of the 24 fell year over year; this metro has been softening for two years. Rents are on each municipality's page rather than in this table, because Zillow publishes no index for Eatonville and one blank cell in a comparison column is worse than none.
The homestead exemption, and the neighbour paying half what you pay
Florida assesses at full market value, and a purchase resets the assessment to the price — so unlike Ontario or North Carolina there is no assessment lag to correct for. What there is instead is an exemption, and it does not apply evenly. The first $25,000 of taxable value comes off for every taxing authority; a second $25,000 comes off for all of them except the school district, which in these four counties levies between 5.249 and 6.449 mills. So a homesteaded buyer's bill is the school millage on the price less $25,000, plus everything else on the price less $50,000 — worth roughly $800 a year, and worth nothing at all if you forget to file for it with the county property appraiser by 1 March.
Then there is Save Our Homes, which is why the seller's tax bill tells you nothing. A homesteaded property's assessed value may rise no more than 3% a year, or the change in the consumer price index if that is lower, for as long as the same owner holds the exemption. Across a decade of rising prices that compounds into an enormous gap — and it resets to full market value the January after a sale. A neighbour who bought in 2015 can be paying half what you will pay for an identical house on the same street. If you already own a Florida homestead you can port up to $500,000 of the accrued benefit to the next one; if you are arriving from out of state, you cannot.
The spread across this metro: Lake Mary charges the least at 1.31% and Eustis the most at 1.74%, a factor of 1.32. In dollars the range is wider still — $3,785 a year in Leesburg against $10,248 in Windermere — because the cheapest rates and the most expensive houses are not in the same places. Windermere at $714,453 and Eatonville at $254,523 are both in this metro.
Orlando against Charlotte, on the same indexes in the same month
Both American metros on this site are measured with Zillow's ZHVI and ZORI for June 2026. That is deliberate, and it makes the difference between them legible in a way two separately-sourced markets never would be. The median effective property tax rate across the Orlando metro is 1.53%; across the Charlotte metro it is 0.88% — a factor of 1.7. Home insurance runs $310 a month here against $180 there, because Florida is the most expensive state in the country for it and North Carolina is not.
Put those together on a $400,000 house and the Orlando owner pays roughly $9,836 a year in tax and insurance against about $5,667 in the Charlotte metro — a difference of $4,169 a year on an identical house, before a dollar of principal or interest. Florida's absence of a state income tax is real and worth money; this is where a large part of it comes back.
The Charlotte metro's own figures are on its comparison page, and the city at the middle of it is covered neighborhood by neighborhood. Charlotte's benchmark price on those pages is a Canopy MLS median sale price rather than a Zillow index — a different series again — which is why this comparison uses the metro tables on both sides rather than the two city figures. Charlotte's own median is $440,000.
Community development districts
None of this includes a community development district assessment. A CDD is a special-purpose government that borrows to build a master-planned community's roads, drainage and amenities and repays the bonds through a non-ad-valorem line on your tax bill — commonly $1,200 to $3,000 a year in the newer parts of Florida. It is in no millage, it is not in any figure here, and it is the first thing to check on a new-build address.
This matters more in central Florida than almost anywhere. Horizon West, Lake Nona, much of Saint Cloud, the newer subdivisions in Groveland, Apopka and Winter Garden, and a great deal of unincorporated Osceola County are all CDD-financed. Two houses on opposite sides of a road can carry annual costs $2,000 apart with identical millage, and the difference will not appear in any table on this site — including this one. It is on the property appraiser's record for the specific parcel, and it is the first thing to look up on a new-build address.
The related trap is the boundary itself. A great many addresses in this metro carry a city's postal name and sit in the unincorporated county — Windermere is the worst offender, where Isleworth, Keene's Pointe and most of the Butler chain are outside a town of two square kilometres. The unincorporated millage is a different number, and in Orange County it includes county fire and sheriff levies that an incorporated address does not pay.
Four counties, and the county sets most of your bill
A city levies between 2.6 and 7.4 mills here; the county, the school district and the water management district levy the rest, and the school district alone is more than most cities. That is why two municipalities in different counties can have similar city rates and quite different bills.
Orange County · school district 6.4490 mills
Orlando The centre of the metro and only a tenth of it, with the highest city millage in Orange County. · Winter Park An 1880s resort town that became the metro's most established address, with its own electric utility. · Eatonville One of the first Black-incorporated towns in America, with the highest municipal millage in Orange County. · Belle Isle Lakefront houses on the Conway chain, nine kilometres from downtown and next to the airport. · Maitland An office park, an art centre and a lake district, ten kilometres from downtown. · Windermere The most expensive housing in the metro, on the Butler chain, with dirt roads by choice. · Ocoee West Orange County's middle-market suburb, and the site of the worst election-day violence in American history. · Winter Garden The metro's most successful downtown revival, and the gateway to Horizon West. · Apopka The metro's fastest-growing large city, and one of its cheapest tax bills for the money.
Seminole County · school district 5.2490 mills
Altamonte Springs The metro's apartment capital, and the cheapest typical home value inside the beltway. · Casselberry The highest total millage in Seminole County, on a lake-strewn 1960s suburb. · Longwood An 1870s railroad town with a historic district and a SunRail platform in it. · Winter Springs A planned 1970s suburb of forty thousand, with the lowest city millage in Seminole County. · Oviedo A celery town turned university suburb, with the second-highest home values in Seminole. · Lake Mary The lowest total millage in this metro, funded by the largest office corridor outside downtown. · Sanford The county seat on Lake Monroe, the end of the SunRail line, and Seminole's highest millage.
Osceola County · school district 5.3060 mills
Kissimmee The metro's second-largest city, the tourist corridor's labour base, and its own utility. · Saint Cloud The fastest-growing city in the metro, up a fifth since 2020, at the second-highest effective rate.
Lake County · school district 6.0850 mills
Clermont Hills, lakes and the National Training Center, at the lowest millage in Lake County. · Mount Dora The prettiest downtown in central Florida, at one of its higher tax rates. · Tavares The county seat, a seaplane base, and the second-highest effective tax rate in this metro. · Eustis The highest total millage and the highest effective tax rate of these twenty-four. · Groveland Up a third since 2020, and still the cheapest way into a new house in this metro. · Leesburg The furthest and cheapest place on this list, growing faster than anywhere but Saint Cloud.
What is missing from this list is most of where the metro actually lives. Horizon West, Dr. Phillips, Lake Nona, Hunter's Creek, Meadow Woods, Four Corners and Poinciana are unincorporated — several of them larger than half the towns above — and have no municipal rate to put in a table. So is the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, formerly Reedy Creek, which levies 8.58 mills of its own over the Disney property and the two cities inside it. Both omissions are limits of what a municipal comparison can show.
Sources
Every number above is published by someone else and dated: two Zillow indexes for June 2026, four county property appraisers' final 2025 millage tables, and the Census Bureau's population estimates. The homestead derivation is Florida's own arithmetic applied to those rates rather than an adjustment invented here. These are the figures on this page that are estimates:
- The split of rent by bedroom count, derived by scaling each place's rent index by the Orlando market's published one-, two- and three-bedroom ratios — the level is measured, the shape is assumed
- Eatonville's rent, which Zillow does not publish an index for and which falls back to the median of the other twenty-three
- Home insurance at $310 a month, in the most expensive state in the country for it and the cheapest part of that state
- The condominium fee at $450 a month, where there is a condominium — and Florida's 2022 reserve legislation has moved these sharply upward on older buildings
- The utilities an owner pays over a renter, at $150 a month
- Maintenance at 1% of the home's value a year
- Every forward-looking rate: appreciation, rent growth, cost inflation and the return on the invested difference
- The private mortgage insurance rate, which is priced per borrower by credit score rather than published as a schedule
- And, most consequentially, nothing at all for a community development district assessment — see the note on every page
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted — city file, June 2026 — Zillow Research, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed — city file, June 2026 — Zillow Research, retrieved 2026-08-14
- 2025 Orange County Final Tax Rates — Orange County Property Appraiser, via the Florida Department of Revenue Property Tax Data Portal, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Final 2025 Millage Rates, fiscal year 2025-26 — Seminole County Property Appraiser, retrieved 2026-08-14
- 2025 Osceola County final millage rates by taxing authority — Osceola County Property Appraiser, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Lake County 2025 final millage rates — Lake County Property Appraiser, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Annual estimates of the resident population for incorporated places, 2020 to 2024 — United States Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey — Freddie Mac, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Average cost of homeowners insurance in Florida, 2026 — MoneyGeek, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Conforming loan limit values for 2026 — Federal Housing Finance Agency, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Documentary stamp tax — Florida Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Governmental leasehold intangible personal property tax and the non-recurring intangible tax on mortgages — Florida Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Property tax exemptions and additional benefits — Florida Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-08-14
- Chapter 2023-17, Laws of Florida — preemption of rent control — The Florida Senate, retrieved 2026-08-14
Nothing here is a listing, a lender quote or financial advice. Millage is set every September, exemptions are claimed by 1 March, and Florida's insurance market has moved further and faster than any other figure on this page. Confirm anything you plan to act on, and read the research and sourcing methodology for how the line between a fact and an assumption is drawn on this site.