Money guide // verified against HB 7031

Florida's $500 impact window refund, explained

Start with the correction most window ads still need: Florida's sales tax exemption on impact windows expired June 30, 2024. The current program is a refund of up to $500 per homestead on qualifying impact-resistant window, exterior door, and garage door purchases made from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029. This guide covers who qualifies, what counts, and how the filing works.

The exemption is dead. The refund is what replaced it.

These are two different programs, and conflating them costs homeowners real money in expectations. The old exemption removed sales tax at the register during its window and ended June 30, 2024. Any pitch still promising impact windows with no sales tax is describing a program that no longer exists. Under the current program, created by HB 7031 (2026), you pay sales tax at purchase like anyone else, then apply to the Florida Department of Revenue to get up to $500 of it back. The money is real, but it arrives after the project, on your paperwork, not off the top of the quote.

Who qualifies for the refund?

Two conditions, both about the property. The home must carry a homestead exemption, meaning it is your permanent Florida residence as recorded by the county, and its just value must be $700,000 or less. Rental houses, second homes, and investment properties do not qualify, which is the design: the program targets owner-occupants hardening the home they live in.

"Just value" trips people up because it is a property appraiser term, not a real estate term. It is the market-value figure the county property appraiser assigns to your property each year, before exemptions and assessment caps are applied. It is not your purchase price, not your insurance replacement value, and not an online estimate. In Brevard County, your just value is on your property record at the Brevard County Property Appraiser (BCPAO) site, which takes about a minute to look up by address. Check it before you count on the refund, especially on canal-front and beachside properties where values run higher than the house itself suggests.

What purchases count?

Qualifying impact-resistant windows, exterior doors, and garage doors, purchased between July 1, 2026 and June 30, 2029. The practical test of "impact-resistant" is the same one that runs through every page of this site: the unit carries a Florida product approval or Miami-Dade NOA number stating the impact standards it was tested and approved to resist. That number belongs on every line of your invoice anyway, both for the Melbourne permit counter and for this refund file. A whole-home hurricane window replacement clears the $500 cap many times over, but smaller projects count too: a first phase of impact windows, an entry door, or a garage door on its own can each generate qualifying receipts.

How the filing works, start to check

The refund application is filed with the Florida Department of Revenue, and the filing window runs from July 1, 2026 through September 30, 2029. Note the extra three months at the end: purchases stop qualifying June 30, 2029, but you have until that September 30 to file for them. Once the application is in, the DOR has 30 days to assess your eligibility and, after approval, 30 days to pay. So a clean application turns into money in roughly one to two months, not next tax season.

The application stands on documentation: keep your receipts, your itemized invoices, and proof of the sales tax you paid. That last one is the piece homeowners lose. A lump-sum contract that never breaks out sales tax makes your refund math harder, so ask the installer for an invoice that shows the tax line. It is a reasonable request, and installers working in Brevard will be hearing it for the next three years.

Where $500 fits in the project math

Keep the number in proportion. Industry cost guides put a whole home of 15 to 20 impact windows at $12,000 to $25,000 or more, so the refund covers a low single-digit share of a full project. It is a rebate for doing the paperwork, not a reason to buy. The durable money lives elsewhere: the opening-protection insurance credit under Florida Statute 627.0629, documented by a wind mitigation inspection, recurs every policy year, and the full map-to-permit-to-credit sequence is in the Brevard wind mitigation guide. For what the project itself costs and what moves the number, see the Melbourne cost guide.

One more Brevard-specific note: the refund is a homestead program, and homestead neighborhoods are exactly where this county's window work concentrates. Owner-occupied subdivisions across Palm Bay and Melbourne are full of pre-2000 homes with original openings, a homestead exemption on file, and a just value comfortably under the $700,000 ceiling. If that describes your house, the refund is close to free money for a project you were pricing anyway. As always, what your openings must be replaced with is set by the county wind map, which governs by address, so verify the requirement before you buy the product.