Florida’s 2026 Tax Rate Resets: What SALT Practitioners Need to Track Across Fuel, Utility, and Severance Taxes

The Florida Department of Revenue has issued a series of Tax Information Publications in 2026 that, taken together, reset rates and reaffirm procedural deadlines across several distinct areas of Florida tax law. For practitioners advising counties, energy producers, and mineral extraction companies, these updates are not bundled into a single notice, but they share a common thread: each depends on statutory adjustment mechanisms that recalculate automatically, often based on external indices, and each carries deadlines that businesses and local governments cannot afford to miss.

This article reviews four separate TIPs issued by the Department in 2026, TIP 26B05-01 on local option fuel tax ordinances, TIP 26B06-01R on gross receipts tax index prices, TIP 26B07-01 on solid mineral severance tax rates, and TIP 26B07-02 on gas and sulfur production tax rates, and explains what each means in practice.

Local Option Fuel Tax Ordinances and County Deadlines

Under Sections 125.66, 336.021, and 336.025, Florida Statutes, counties may levy a ninth-cent fuel tax or a local option fuel tax ranging from one to eleven cents per gallon on motor fuel. TIP 26B05-01, issued March 16, 2026, restates the procedural framework counties must follow to impose, change, or rescind these levies.

The core deadline is October 1. A county’s governing body must levy the tax, by extraordinary vote or referendum, before October 1 for the rate to take effect on January 1 of the following year. The Department uses this lead time to notify the public of rate changes and to give industry sufficient time to update billing and accounting systems. The same October 1 deadline applies in reverse: if a county wants to rescind a tax or change its rate, it must notify the Department by October 1 of the year preceding the change, and any rescission must take effect on December 31, regardless of when the original levy began.

There is a narrower exception for rates in effect on July 1, 2002, that expire on August 31 of any year. Those may be reimposed at the current authorized rate if the county levies the tax before July 1, with the reimposed rate effective September 1 of that same year.

Counties adopting these taxes through an interlocal agreement face their own sequence of deadlines. An interlocal agreement must be executed before June 1 with municipalities representing a majority of the incorporated population. If no agreement is reached, the county may adopt a resolution of intent to levy before June 10. If neither mechanism is used, municipalities representing more than fifty percent of the county’s population may adopt uniform resolutions before June 20 to set the rate, duration, and a referendum date. Absent an interlocal agreement, distribution among the county and municipalities is based on each entity’s transportation expenditures over the preceding five fiscal years, a calculation the Department may revisit every ten years.

TIP 26B05-01 also flags an often-overlooked filing requirement: the clerk of the board of county commissioners must send certified copies of new or amended ordinances to the Florida Department of State within ten days of enactment, separate from the deadline for notifying the Department of Revenue.

Gross Receipts Tax Index Prices for Gas and Electricity

TIP 26B06-01R, originally issued May 20, 2026 and revised May 26, 2026 to correct a mislabeled table, sets the index prices distribution companies must use under Section 203.01, Florida Statutes, when calculating gross receipts tax on natural and manufactured gas and on electricity sold to retail consumers in Florida.

For the period of July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, the natural and manufactured gas index prices per 1,000 cubic feet are $25.48 for residential, $12.19 for commercial, and $6.94 for industrial customers. These figures are drawn from the April 2026 Natural Gas Monthly published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, consistent with the statutory directive in Section 203.01(1)(e)2.

Electricity index prices for the same period are $0.1586 per kilowatt hour for residential, $0.1258 for commercial, and $0.0944 for industrial customers, based on the April 2026 Electric Power Monthly from the EIA. Importantly, these electricity index prices apply only when transportation of electricity is billed separately from the electricity itself. Where a single charge covers both electricity and its transportation, gross receipts tax is instead calculated on the distribution company’s actual gross receipts multiplied by the 2.5 percent rate, rather than by reference to an index price.

Gross receipts tax due on either gas or electricity is calculated by multiplying the quantity sold or transported by the applicable index price and applying the 2.5 percent rate, with full mechanics detailed in the instructions to the Gross Receipts Tax Return, Form DR-133.

Solid Mineral Severance Tax Rates for 2026

TIP 26B07-01, issued March 17, 2026, sets severance tax rates for phosphate rock and heavy minerals production under Sections 211.30, 211.31, 211.3103, and 211.3106, Florida Statutes. The phosphate rock severance tax rate for January 1 through December 31, 2026 is $1.61 per ton, used when completing Form DR-142ES, the Declaration and Installment Payment of Estimated Solid Mineral Severance Tax.

The heavy minerals rate is ordinarily adjusted annually using the Producer Price Index for titanium dioxide published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The TIP notes that the titanium dioxide PPI has not been updated since February 2019. Because Florida law requires the Department to carry forward the prior year’s rate when the PPI cannot be calculated or a comparable index is unavailable, the 2026 heavy minerals rate remains $3.80 per ton, the same figure carried forward from 2025, derived from a $1.34 base rate multiplied by a 2.83490 base rate adjustment factor.

The tax rate for other solid minerals is unchanged at 8 percent of taxable value.

Gas and Sulfur Production Tax Rates for 2026-2027

TIP 26B07-02, issued May 20, 2026, addresses the annual July 1 adjustment to gas and sulfur production tax rates under Sections 211.025 and 211.026, Florida Statutes. Effective July 1, 2026, the gas production tax rate is $0.203 per MCF, calculated from a $0.171 base rate multiplied by a 1.18627 adjustment factor derived from the prior calendar year’s relevant producer price index. The sulfur production tax rate, effective the same date, is $6.31 per ton, calculated from a $2.43 base rate multiplied by a 2.59475 adjustment factor.

Producers should expect Form DR-144ES, the Declaration of Estimated Gas and Sulfur Production Tax, to be mailed to active accounts during the last week of July, with the new rates applicable beginning with the July 2026 estimated payment.

Why These Updates Matter Together

Individually, each TIP addresses a narrow technical question. Collectively, they illustrate a pattern that recurs throughout Florida’s excise and severance tax framework: rates and procedural deadlines are frequently tied to external indices, fiscal-year cycles, and statutory carryforward rules that operate automatically unless an exception applies. Missing an October 1 notification, misapplying an index price, or assuming a rate has changed when statute requires carryforward can each produce compliance exposure. Practitioners advising counties, utilities, or extraction companies should confirm which TIP applies to their client’s specific tax type and verify the effective dates against the relevant Form, whether DR-133, DR-142ES, or DR-144ES, before filing.