Florida property appraiser data gives you the owner of record, the mailing address, the parcel's use code, building and land characteristics, the county's just value, and a history of recorded sales with qualification codes. It does not carry rents, income, leases, tenants, parking or clear height. For commercial property it supports ownership research and sales comparison, not an income valuation.
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What do just value, assessed value and taxable value mean on the tax roll?
Just value is the appraiser's estimate of market value as of January 1. Assessed value is just value after any cap on annual increases. Taxable value is assessed value minus exemptions. For a commercial property, just value is the figure that says the most about the market.
| Figure | What it is | What moves it | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just value | The appraiser's market value estimate as of January 1 | Mass appraisal of the market, the building and the land | A starting point for value, and comparing sale prices to the roll |
| Assessed value | Just value limited by assessment caps | Homestead caps for residences; a 10 percent annual cap on most non-homestead property for non-school levies, reset on a change of ownership | Understanding the tax bill, not the market |
| Taxable value | Assessed value minus exemptions | Homestead, institutional and other exemptions | Estimating taxes a buyer will inherit or reset |
Two cautions. Just value is a mass appraisal, so it is usually closer to right on a typical building than on an unusual one. And in a rising market the roll lags sale prices, so the ratio of recent prices to just value tends to sit above one. That ratio, measured across recent comparable sales, is one of the more useful numbers the roll gives you.
What do DOR use codes tell you?
The use code is the appraiser's classification of a parcel's predominant use, on a statewide list set by the Florida Department of Revenue. The two-digit ranges are the ones to learn: 00 to 09 residential, 10 to 39 commercial, 40 to 49 industrial, 50 to 69 agricultural, 70 to 79 institutional, 80 to 89 governmental, and 90 to 99 miscellaneous.
Within those ranges the codes get specific: office buildings, stores, shopping centers, hotels and motels at 39, warehousing and distribution at 48. Many counties add local digits after the state code, so a four-digit county code usually begins with the two-digit DOR category. Filter on the code as text, with leading zeros kept, or vacant land and residential codes get mixed together.
A use code is not zoning. It describes how the parcel is used, not what the zoning district allows. In Florida, county zoning layers generally cover unincorporated land only; inside a city, the city's own zoning map is the source.
How do you read the sales file and qualification codes?
Each recorded transfer shows a date, a price, the instrument or book and page, and a qualification code that says whether the appraiser treated it as an arm's-length sale. Codes 01 and 02 are qualified arm's-length transfers. The disqualified codes cover transfers such as those between related parties, corrective deeds, and transfers that are not sales at all. The Department of Revenue revises the code list from time to time, so read the version that applies to the sale's date.
Three habits prevent most errors:
- Treat a $100 deed as a signal, not a price. Florida deeds commonly recite nominal consideration such as $10 or $100 when no market sale happened: a transfer into an LLC, between family members, or to fix a title. Where the county publishes a qualification code, that code wins. Some counties record an unqualified transfer at a price of zero instead.
- Watch for portfolio sales. One deed can convey several parcels for one price, and that price may appear on every parcel's row. Count the parcels that share the instrument number. Never add the price up across them, and never divide a portfolio price by one building's square footage.
- Know which file you are reading. In Hillsborough, the last-sale fields on the parcel file hold the last qualified sale, which is not always the last transfer. The full transfer history is published as a separate sales file.
Why do the most recent months look slow?
Because the data has not arrived yet. A deed is recorded by the clerk, then processed by the property appraiser, then published in the next file. In the Tampa-metro county files the trailing 30 to 45 days routinely read low for that reason alone.
Before you tell an owner the market slowed, check two dates: the date the file was published, and the date of the newest sale in it. A bulk roll is only as fresh as its file date, which can be days or weeks behind the county's own website. Any document that relies on sales data should print that date.
Who owns it, and do they occupy it?
The roll gives you the owner of record and the mailing address the tax bill goes to. For a commercial parcel the owner is usually an LLC, and the mailing address is often the first real clue: a bill mailed to the property itself suggests the owner occupies it, while a bill mailed across the country suggests an investor.
Homestead exemptions apply to a person's permanent residence, so they matter on residential and mixed-use parcels and rarely on commercial ones. Owner occupancy on a commercial building is an inference, usually from an exemption or from the mailing address matching the site address.
To see who is behind an LLC, search the Florida Division of Corporations at Sunbiz. A Florida entity's filing lists its officers or managers, its registered agent and its principal address. The registered agent is often a service company rather than a person, so read the officers first. Some owners will not be there: a Delaware statutory trust or an out-of-state limited partnership may never register in Florida, and a Florida general partnership need not register at all. Owner names on the roll are also often abbreviated, so try the name more than one way.
What doesn't the property roll carry?
The roll describes a parcel for taxation. It does not describe a building for leasing or financing. No Florida county publishes:
- Rents, net operating income or operating expenses
- Leases, tenants, lease expirations or occupancy
- Parking counts, clear height, dock doors or power
- Property management
Debt is not on the appraiser's roll either. Recorded mortgages sit with the county clerk, and each clerk sets its own terms for access. Some Florida counties also publish useful layers beside the roll; Pinellas, for example, publishes hurricane evacuation zones, which on a peninsula affect insurance and therefore value.
What are the statewide NAL and SDF files?
The Florida Department of Revenue collects every county's roll in one format. The NAL file (name, address, legal) is the real property roll, the SDF file is sales data, and the NAP file covers tangible personal property. Counties submit a preliminary roll around July 1 and final rolls after certification, and the final rolls arrive county by county rather than all at once.
Only the most recent version of each file is posted on the Department's data portal. Earlier rolls are available by request: as of September 2026 the Department lists NAL and NAP files back to 2002 and sales files back to 2009. The statewide files are the easiest way to compare counties or fill a field one county's own export lacks, such as the number of residential units. They are less current and less detailed than a county's own files, so for a single parcel the county remains the better source.
Common questions
What does just value mean on a Florida tax roll?
On a Florida tax roll, just value is the property appraiser's estimate of a parcel's market value as of January 1 of the tax year. Assessed value is just value after any cap on annual increases, and taxable value is assessed value minus exemptions.
Is the price on a Florida deed always the sale price?
No. Deeds that recite nominal consideration, commonly $10 or $100, usually record transfers that were not market sales, such as a move into an LLC or a family transfer. Check the appraiser's qualification code, and check whether one deed conveyed several parcels for a single price.
What does a DOR use code of 10 to 39 mean?
It means the property appraiser classifies the parcel's predominant use as commercial. Codes 40 to 49 are industrial, 00 to 09 residential, and the rest cover agricultural, institutional, governmental and miscellaneous uses. A use code is not a zoning district.
Does the property appraiser publish rents or leases?
No. Florida property appraisers do not publish rents, income, expenses, leases, tenants, parking or clear height. Those come from the owner, a rent roll, or a broker's own files.
How do I find out who owns a commercial building in Tampa?
Search the address on the county property appraiser's site: Hillsborough for Tampa, Pinellas for St. Petersburg and Clearwater, and Pasco or Polk for parcels north and east of Tampa. The roll shows the owner of record and mailing address. If the owner is an LLC, search its name on Sunbiz, the Florida Division of Corporations site, to see its officers or managers and registered agent.
Why do recent sales look low in county data?
Deeds take time to be recorded, processed by the property appraiser and published. The most recent 30 to 45 days of a sales file usually read low for that reason, not because the market slowed. Always check the file date.