Most business owners in South Florida see their tangible personal property assessment once a year, in August, on a notice that arrives around the same time as the one for their building. They glance at the number, decide it looks about like last year, and move on.
That number has a specific origin, and it is not the county. It starts with a form the business filed itself.
What is tangible personal property in Florida?
Tangible personal property is the equipment a business owns and uses to operate. Furniture, fixtures, machinery, tools, computers, signs, kitchen equipment, medical and dental equipment, office furnishings.
Section 193.052 of the Florida Statutes requires all of it to be reported to the county property appraiser every year. Real estate is assessed separately, carries its own value, and follows its own path to get there.
Where does the assessment come from?
From your own filing. The county does not build a tangible personal property value from scratch. It works from the return you submitted.
Form DR-405, the Tangible Personal Property Tax Return, is due to the county property appraiser by April 1 each year under section 193.062, and it covers what you owned as of January 1. On it you list each asset, the year you acquired it, and what you paid. The price you paid is recorded as your own opinion of value, not the county’s.
Everything after that is the county working from your numbers.
How do Florida counties calculate the value?
The property appraiser starts with the cost figures you reported and runs them through four steps.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Index factor | Historical cost is trended forward to current replacement cost, using equipment index tables published by the Florida Department of Revenue |
| 2. Depreciation | Applied on effective age rather than actual age, expressed as a percent good |
| 3. Economic life | Each asset type is assigned a useful life span |
| 4. Residual | Once that life runs out, the asset holds at a floor value |
Percent good is the inverse of depreciation. An asset that has depreciated twenty percent is eighty percent good.
Reported cost, trended up for inflation, depreciated down by schedule, with a floor underneath it.
Why do assessments end up wrong?
This is a mass appraisal. County property appraisers process thousands of returns on the same timeline using the same tables, and those tables are built for consistency across an entire county rather than precision on any one business. Errors come out of that volume. Scale is the reason, not carelessness.
Four situations where the schedule and your equipment stop matching:
Assets you no longer have. Equipment gets sold, scrapped, or replaced, and it stays on the return year after year because nobody took it off. It keeps carrying value.
Equipment that lost value faster than the table says. A depreciation schedule is an average. Specialized equipment, heavily used equipment, and equipment made obsolete by a newer version can all sit well below where a standard table puts them.
Assets sitting at residual. Older equipment that has run out its economic life holds at a floor value, and that floor may be higher than what the equipment would bring today.
Reporting that was never quite right. Leasehold improvements, assets entered under the wrong acquisition year, items reported twice across accounts.
The schedule does not catch any of this. Routine physical inspection is part of the process for real estate, where section 193.023 requires it at least once every five years. Tangible personal property works differently. The assessment is built from what the return says.
What happens if you never filed?
Not filing does not remove the assessment. Section 193.073 authorizes the property appraiser to estimate the value from the best information available, generally drawn from what similar businesses in the county report. That estimate is treated as presumptively correct once it is on the tax roll.
There are also penalties for failing to file, and the exemption goes away. Filing on time is what makes a business eligible for the exemption of up to $25,000 in assessed value.
Can you appeal a tangible personal property assessment?
Yes. Your tangible personal property value appears on the notice of proposed property taxes, the TRIM notice, mailed in August.
From the date the county mailed that notice, you have 25 days to file a petition with the Value Adjustment Board. In 2026, that date is September 18 for both Miami-Dade County and Broward County.
Before that point you can take evidence directly to the property appraiser’s office. Many tangible personal property issues get resolved there, without a hearing.
What does a review look at?
A tangible personal property review starts with your DR-405 and your fixed asset records. The questions are ordinary ones. Is everything on this return still in the building? Are the acquisition years right? Does the depreciation the county applied match how these assets have actually held value? Is anything on here that should have come off years ago?
If the assessment holds up, you have your answer for the year. If it does not, the evidence for a reduction is usually in your own records.
Frequently asked questions
Anyone who owns tangible personal property used in a business as of January 1, including proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, self-employed agents, and contractors. The return goes to the county property appraiser by April 1.
Businesses that file a timely return are eligible for an exemption of up to $25,000 in assessed value. Filing on time is what qualifies you for it.
Not as a routine step in the assessment. The valuation is built from the asset list on your return and the depreciation tables applied to it.
Twenty-five days from the date the county mailed your TRIM notice. In 2026 that date is September 18 in Miami-Dade and Broward.
Yes. The two are assessed separately, carry separate values, and can be appealed separately.
Florida Property Tax Service has been reviewing assessments for South Florida owners since 1984, real estate and tangible personal property both. Send us your notice and we will tell you what we see.
No savings, no fee.