The two taxes on a Florida mortgage — and the $25 lender's policy that changes cash-to-close math

Why a cash estimate and a financed estimate never match

Run the same $500,000 purchase through our calculator twice — once as cash, once with a $400,000 mortgage — and the financed version carries three lines the cash version does not. None of them is a lender fee. Two are Florida taxes on the loan itself, fixed by statute; the third is the lender's title policy, priced by the same promulgated rule as the owner's policy. All three compute the same way at every title company in the state.

Educational information, not legal advice. Your lender's Loan Estimate and our settlement statement carry the figures for your file — bring questions to your closing team.

1. Documentary stamps on the note — $0.35 per $100

Under § 201.08, Fla. Stat., the promissory note is taxed at $0.35 on each $100 of the amount financed, or fraction of $100. The tax follows the loan, so it is customarily the borrower's line — a seller-financed deal moves it to whichever party the contract assigns.

• $400,000 mortgage: 4,000 × $0.35 = $1,400.
• $320,000 mortgage: 3,200 × $0.35 = $1,120.

2. The nonrecurring intangible tax — two mills

Chapter 199, Fla. Stat. imposes a one-time intangible tax of 2 mills on the amount secured by a mortgage on Florida real property — $0.002 per dollar, or $0.20 per $100. It is nonrecurring in the literal sense: paid once, when the mortgage is recorded, and never again on that mortgage.

• $400,000 mortgage: $400,000 × 0.002 = $800.
• Together, the two loan taxes on a $400,000 mortgage come to $2,200 — money that exists only because the purchase is financed.

3. The lender's policy at simultaneous issue — $25

The lender requires its own title policy. Issued at the same time as the owner's policy, Rule 69O-186.003 prices it at a flat $25 for coverage up to the owner's policy amount; only loan coverage above the owner's amount is charged at original rates on the excess. On a purchase that excess is rare, because the loan is almost always smaller than the price. The $100 minimum premium applies to policies priced on the rate tiers; the simultaneous-issue charge is its own flat line.

• $500,000 owner's policy, $400,000 loan: lender's policy $25.
• Without an owner's policy in the same closing there is no simultaneous issue — the lender's policy is then priced on the tiers like any other policy, which is one more reason a financed buyer who declines the owner's policy saves far less than expected.

The worked file: $500,000 purchase, $400,000 loan

The same purchase paid in cash carries the owner's policy and the deed-side items only. That $2,225 gap is why an estimate that never asks "financed or cash?" cannot be right for both.

• Owner's policy (the buyer's line by custom in Broward and Miami-Dade): (100 × $5.75) + (400 × $5.00) = $2,575.
• Lender's policy at simultaneous issue: $25.
• Documentary stamps on the note: $1,400.
• Nonrecurring intangible tax: $800.
• Financed-only lines: $2,225 on top of the cash figures — before lender charges, prepaids, and escrows, which come from the lender's Loan Estimate, not from us.

Refinances pay the loan taxes too

A refinance is a new mortgage, so the note stamps and the intangible tax attach to the new loan amount at the same rates, and the lender's policy is priced on the new loan. Florida treats certain renewals of an existing note with the same lender differently under § 201.09; whether a given refinance qualifies is a document-by-document question our closing team confirms rather than assumes. A qualifying prior policy can also earn a reduced rate on the new lender's policy — the refinance estimator asks for it.

Check any financed estimate against these three lines

Our closing-cost calculator and refinance estimator run exactly these formulas — note stamps under § 201.08, the 2-mill intangible tax under chapter 199, and the $25 simultaneous-issue charge under 69O-186.003 — on top of the promulgated owner's premium. Toggle financing on and off and the three lines appear and disappear; if an estimate from anywhere else does not move by the same amounts, ask why.