Florida’s new sales tax refund on impact windows — what the law actually says.

What the 2026 law created — a refund, not a checkout exemption

House Bill 7031, passed in Florida’s 2026 legislative session and signed on June 29, 2026, wrote a home hardening refund into subsection (21) of Section 212.08, Florida Statutes, for impact-resistant windows, impact-resistant doors and impact-resistant garage doors. The mechanics matter:

• You pay the full sales tax at purchase. The store does not take anything off at the register.
• You then apply to the Florida Department of Revenue for a refund of that tax, using the process published at floridarevenue.com.
• The refund is capped per residence for the entire program — one allowance per homestead property, however many products you buy.

This is a different design from the 2022–2024 program, which really was a point-of-sale exemption. That one ended June 30, 2024. Any page telling you impact windows are “tax exempt in Florida” today is quoting a program that no longer exists.

Who qualifies

The statute puts three conditions on the property and one on you:

• A site-built dwelling — defined as one constructed at its permanent location. The exclusions the statute names are mobile homes, manufactured homes and trailers; for how this reads for condominium units, see the FAQ.
• A Florida homestead exemption on the property, the same one your county property appraiser already administers.
• A just value at or below the statutory cap. Your current just value is on your property appraiser’s site, on the same page as your homestead status.
• You are the owner making the claim — this is a homeowner program, not one for rental portfolios.

The two deadlines that matter

• Purchase window: qualifying products bought from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029.
• Application window: refund claims accepted through September 30, 2029 — three months after the last qualifying purchase date.

The gap is the trap: a project bought in June 2029 leaves one summer to assemble the paperwork. The records section below is what makes that painless.

Which products count

The program covers impact-resistant windows, impact-resistant doors and impact-resistant garage doors — and the statute defines each by test standards, not by marketing language: ASTM E1886 and E1996, AAMA 506, or Miami-Dade’s TAS 201, 202 and 203 (garage doors may also qualify under ANSI/DASMA 115). Those are the same standard families our guide to window ratings, NOAs and Florida Product Approval teaches you to verify on the public portals. A product whose paperwork you can look up is also a product whose refund claim is easy to support.

What the application actually contains

The statute spells out the claim itself. It is a Department of Revenue form with:

1. Your name and address, and the address of the eligible property.
2. A sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, giving the actual cost of the products, the sales tax paid on them in Florida, and stating that the property is eligible and that the products have been installed — so the claim comes after installation, not at purchase.
3. Copies of receipts showing the sales tax paid, attached to the form.

One application per owner, for one property. Once filed, the department has thirty business days to determine whether the application qualifies and, after approval, thirty business days to issue the refund.

Beyond that statutory list, two records are not required but make every line of the sworn statement easy to prove: an itemized invoice that separates the products and their tax from everything else (a lump-sum contract hides the number the refund is based on), and the product’s documentation tying what you bought to the test standards the statute names.

Questions we actually get