Lee County Property Appraiser Matt Caldwell has released estimated tax roll figures for Fort Myers Beach for the 2025 tax year. After seeing a 40% increase in taxable value in 2024, the estimated increase for 2025 on the beach is only 3%.
In 2023 Fort Myers Beach had $2.6 billion worth of property that could be taxed. In 2024 it shot up to $4.169 billion. For reference, before the storm, the total taxable value of properties on Fort Myers Beach in 2022 was $4.5 Billion. The estimated 2025 taxable value of $4.294 billion is a 3% increase and it’s what the Fort Myers Beach Town Council will be using to set the ad-valorum rates for its next fiscal year which begins October 1st. The current tax rate on the beach is .99 of $1,000 of assessed property value. The Town Council has not voted to raise that rate in several years.
By comparison, Caldwell is estimating Sanibel will increase by 1%, Bonita will increase 3.5% and countywide the increase is estimated to go up 4.8%.
Caldwell tells Beach Talk Radio there were two reasons for the big increase on Fort Myers Beach last year. The first is the numerous buildings that were damaged by Hurricane Ian (both commercial and residential) that came back online and are now back in the taxable bucket. The other has to do with property that has been sold and can now be taxed on the full just value of the property this year.
When a property is owned for decades by the same person or same family there’s a cap of 10% on the amount its taxable value can be increased annually. An example is the Red Coconut property. Being that it was owned by the Myers family for so long, the taxable value could only increase by 10% each year. At the end of their ownership they were only being taxed on about $10 million worth of the main property. Property values on Fort Myers Beach have gone up, even immediately after Hurricane Ian. Now, Seagate who purchased the 10-acre Red Coconut property started out being taxed on an assessment of the property of $35 million. Every property that changed hands, such as the Outrigger, Pete’s Time Out, The Dairy Queen, and others also fit into that higher taxable bucket. Another factor that led to the big increase was Margaritaville opening its doors.
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