Florida's 2026 Sales Tax Holidays: New Dates, Item Caps, and a Retailer Compliance Checklist

If you sell a tent, a fishing rod, a back-to-school backpack, or a propane tank in Florida, the tax rules on your shelves changed this summer — and charging tax the way you did last year could mean overcharging your customers or underpaying the state. Florida's 2026 omnibus tax bill rewrote the sales tax holiday calendar, added a four-month outdoor-gear holiday, and created permanent and multi-year exemptions that your point-of-sale system probably does not know about yet.

Here is what changed, what it costs you if you ignore it, and exactly how to get your books and registers compliant.

What the New Law Did​

Governor Ron DeSantis signed Florida's omnibus tax bill (H7031E) on June 29, 2026, with most sales tax provisions taking effect July 1, 2026. While the bill also touches property tax, gaming tax, and insurance premium tax, the provisions that land on a retailer's counter every day are the sales and use tax changes: a reshaped back-to-school holiday, a brand-new hunting, fishing, and camping holiday, new exemptions for propane tanks and select event admissions, and two refund programs — one for university contractors and one for homeowners who harden their homes against storms.

The Florida Department of Revenue has published guidance for dealers, including Tax Information Publications for each holiday, and expects retailers to implement the changes on schedule. That makes this a systems project as much as a tax project: registers, e-commerce tax tables, staff training, and your chart of accounts all need attention.

The Back-to-School Holiday Moved: July 20 Through August 20​

The biggest calendar shock is the annual back-to-school sales tax holiday. It no longer runs for the full month of August. For 2026, it runs from July 20 through August 20.

The eligible categories and price caps stayed familiar:

• Clothing and footwear priced at $100 or less per item
• School supplies priced at $50 or less per item
• Learning aids and jigsaw puzzles priced at $30 or less
• Personal computers and related accessories priced at $1,500 or less

If your store ran a "tax-free all August" promotion last year, that playbook is now wrong on both ends: you would eat tax you should have collected in late August, and miss exempt sales you could have advertised in late July. Update every template — shelf signage, email campaigns, e-commerce banners, and register programming — to the July 20–August 20 window.

What retailers get wrong about the caps​

The caps apply per item, not per transaction. A customer buying three $90 shirts in one visit gets the exemption on all three. Bundled "kits" can trip you up, though: if items are packaged and priced as a single unit, the total package price generally determines eligibility. Train cashiers on the split-tender scenario too — a $120 jacket is taxable even if the customer pays partly with a gift card. Price, not payment method, controls.

The New Four-Month Outdoor Holiday: September 1 Through December 31​

The headline addition is a hunting, fishing, and camping sales tax holiday running September 1 through December 31, 2026 — four full months covering fall hunting season and the holiday shopping season.

This is the holiday with the most margin impact, because one category has no price ceiling at all.

Hunting supplies: no price cap​

Qualifying hunting items are exempt regardless of price. That includes firearms, ammunition, bows, crossbows, and most firearm accessories. A high-ticket purchase in this category saves the buyer the full state-plus-local rate, which is why industry groups have flagged this holiday as unusually valuable for both customers and dealers. If you sell in this category, advertise the savings in dollars, not just "tax-free" — on a four-figure purchase, the exemption is a meaningful discount you fund with paperwork rather than margin.

Fishing and camping supplies: capped by item type​

The fishing and camping side uses per-item thresholds, so register programming matters more here:

• Bait and fishing tackle: $10 or less per item, or $20 or less when sold as a set
• Tackle boxes and bags, flashlights, camping lanterns: $30 or less
• Camping stoves, collapsible chairs, portable hammocks, sleeping bags: $50 or less
• Fishing rods and reels: $75 or less each, or $150 or less as a matched set
• Tents: $200 or less

What is excluded​

Three exclusions apply across the board, and each one is a common audit trap:

1. Rentals and repairs of qualifying items remain taxable. Lending out a tent for the weekend is not a retail sale of a tent.
2. Commercial-use purchases and commercial fishing supplies do not qualify.
3. Sales in theme parks, entertainment complexes, public lodging establishments, and airports remain taxable even for otherwise eligible items. A tackle box sold at an airport gift shop is taxable; the same box at your Main Street store is not.

Two New Exemptions to Program Permanently​

Beyond the holidays, the bill created exemptions that belong in your permanent tax tables, not your seasonal overrides.

Propane tanks of 20 lbs. or less are now exempt. This is the familiar backyard-grill cylinder size, so hardware stores, grocers, gas stations, and outdoor retailers all need a permanent SKU-level exemption. Check that your system exempts the tank itself correctly and does not accidentally exempt propane refills or larger RV and forklift cylinders, which are different products with different treatment.

Admissions to ATP Masters and WTA tennis tournaments in Florida are exempt through July 1, 2029. If you are a venue, ticket platform, or reseller handling event admissions rather than merchandise, this temporary exemption needs a dated rule with a sunset — flag it for review before the 2029 summer season so it does not linger after expiration.

Two Refund Programs (and Why Retailers Should Know Them)​

The bill works through refunds rather than point-of-sale exemptions in two cases. Neither changes your register, but both can change your customers' behavior — and one may describe you.

State university and college contractors. Tangible personal property sold to contractors working directly for, or as agents of, a state university or Florida College System institution is exempt when it becomes part of public works owned by the institution — claimed as a refund of tax already paid, not as a register exemption. The Department of Revenue must issue the refund within 30 days of formally approving the application. If you supply or perform that kind of work, do not let your cashiers zero out the tax at the counter; pay it, document it, and file for the refund.

Home hardening products. Through June 30, 2029, homeowners can claim a sales tax refund of up to $500 per residence for qualifying impact-resistant doors, garage doors, and windows. The property must carry a homestead exemption with a just value of $700,000 or less, and applications run from July 1, 2026, through September 30, 2029. If you sell building materials, this is a marketing opportunity: a customer on the fence about impact windows may move forward knowing $500 of sales tax comes back — but only if you give them clean, itemized receipts that support the refund claim.

A Retailer's Compliance Checklist​

Work through this list before September 1, when the outdoor holiday begins:

1. Reprogram holiday date windows. Replace the old August back-to-school rule with July 20–August 20, and add the September 1–December 31 outdoor holiday as a separate rule set. Dated rules should expire automatically.
2. Load item-level caps, not category toggles. Fishing and camping eligibility turns on price thresholds that differ by item type. A single "camping = exempt" flag will over-exempt lanterns over $30 and under-exempt nothing — both directions create liability.
3. Split the hunting logic. Hunting supplies need an uncapped exemption path; fishing and camping need capped paths. One blended rule cannot serve both.
4. Code the location exclusion. If you operate kiosks or shops inside airports, theme parks, lodging, or entertainment venues, those locations must stay taxable on items that are exempt everywhere else.
5. Separate rentals and repairs. Confirm your rental and service departments never inherit the retail exemption.
6. Make propane permanent and tennis temporary. The propane-tank exemption has no sunset in the bill; the tennis-admissions exemption expires July 1, 2029. File them differently so the temporary one gets revisited.
7. Brief the floor staff. The three questions cashiers will hear are "is this included?", "what if I buy two?", and "can I return and rebuy it during the holiday?" (generally, genuine returns and repurchases during the window follow holiday treatment, while sham transactions do not — when in doubt, document the facts). A one-page cheat sheet at each register prevents most errors.
8. Tell your e-commerce platform. Tax tables in Shopify, Avalara, TaxJar, and similar tools do not update themselves for state holidays. Verify the holiday rules are active for Florida ship-to addresses and test-checkout a capped item above and below each threshold.

Bookkeeping: How to Record Holiday Sales Cleanly​

Tax holidays create a reconciliation problem that shows up months later: your revenue looks normal, but your sales tax payable does not match the revenue pattern. Set yourself up now.

• Track exempt holiday sales in separate accounts or classes. Create distinct revenue lines such as "Sales — Back-to-School Holiday (exempt)" and "Sales — Outdoor Holiday (exempt)" rather than burying everything in general sales. When the Department of Revenue asks how you computed taxable sales, the answer should be a report, not a reconstruction.
• Reconcile exempt totals to register reports weekly during each holiday. If cumulative exempt sales spike or collapse relative to foot traffic, a programming error is the likely cause — and finding it in week one beats finding it in an audit.
• Keep the documentation trail. Save the Department's Tax Information Publications, your register-programming change log, and staff training records with the year's tax file. Reasonable-cause relief for errors starts with evidence that you tried.
• Watch local option taxes too. Florida's holidays suspend state and local sales taxes on qualifying items alike. If your accounting separates state and county tax payable, both should reflect the exemption — a partial exemption is a red flag.
• Accrue for the contractor refund separately. University-project materials where you paid tax and will claim a refund are a receivable, not a cost of goods sold adjustment. Book the refund claim when filed and clear it when the state pays.

Accurate bookkeeping from day one of each holiday prevents the worst outcome: a post-season scramble where exempt and taxable sales must be untangled from a single revenue line under audit pressure.

Common Mistakes That Draw Audits​

• Leaving last year's August rule in place. The shifted back-to-school window is the single most likely error this year, because every returning system defaults to the old dates.
• Exempting over-cap items. A $90 rod or a $60 sleeping bag is taxable. Caps are per item and unforgiving.
• Exempting excluded locations and transactions. Airport shops, rentals, repairs, and commercial fishing supplies stay taxable.
• Confusing refunds with register exemptions. University-contractor materials and home-hardening products are refund claims — zeroing them at the register understates tax collected and breaks the paper trail.
• Letting temporary rules go permanent. The outdoor holiday ends December 31, 2026; the tennis exemption ends July 1, 2029; the home-hardening refund window closes September 30, 2029. Every dated rule needs an expiration and an owner.

Keep Your Sales Tax Records Organized From Day One​

Handling overlapping holidays, price caps, location exclusions, and refund claims is exactly the kind of detail that punishes messy books. Beancount.io provides plain-text accounting that gives you complete transparency and control over your financial data — no black boxes, no vendor lock-in. Get started for free and keep every holiday season audit-ready.