Disabled Veteran Benefits in Florida

This is the benefit that moves real money. A veteran with a service-related total and permanent disability can get a total exemption from property tax on the home they own and live in. That is the whole bill, every year, and in some circumstances it carries over to a surviving spouse.

You do not need 100% to get something. At 10% or more, Florida takes $5,000 off the assessed value of your property, and this one is not limited to your homestead. If you are 65 or older with a permanent service-connected disability, a separate discount cuts your homestead's assessed value by a percentage equal to your disability rating, provided the disability was combat-related.

Two details save people money. You file with your county property appraiser on Form DR-501, not with the state. And you can apply before your VA paperwork arrives: once the appraiser gets the documentation, the exemption is effective from the date you first applied.

Florida's vehicle benefits are built around the 100% rating. A veteran with a 100% service-connected disability gets a "DV" license plate at no charge, and a no-fee driver license or ID card, including the Veteran designation printed on it. The plate is one per veteran, and state law asks that you have lived in Florida for the past five years or have formally made it your domicile.

Below 100% the savings are smaller but real. Any honorably discharged veteran can add the Veteran designation to a license, and the replacement license issued just to add it is free. Bring your DD-214 to a driver license service center. Homeless veterans, and their spouses and children, get a free Florida ID card.

For the 100% benefits, the state wants a VA identification card showing the 100 percent, total and permanent rating.

This is one of the most searched questions about Florida, and the honest answer is no, not automatically. A DV plate or a 100% rating does not waive tolls.

What Florida law does provide is narrower. A person with a disability who drives a vehicle specially equipped for it, and who is certified as severely physically disabled with permanent upper limb mobility or dexterity impairments, passes free through every toll gate, bridge and ferry in the state. The VA can be the one that certifies you. If that describes your situation, you apply to the Florida Department of Transportation for a window sticker.

If it does not, you pay tolls like everyone else, whatever your rating.

Florida is generous here and the bar is lower than most veterans assume. If you are a resident rated 50% or greater, the Resident Persons with Disabilities Hunting and Fishing License is no-cost and lasts five years. It bundles saltwater fishing, freshwater fishing and hunting. You apply online at GoOutdoorsFlorida or at a county tax collector's office, and the wildlife commission reviews your documents within about ten business days.

State parks ask even less. Any honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected disability gets a lifetime family annual entrance pass at no charge. There is no minimum percentage in the law. Every other honorably discharged veteran gets 25% off annual passes, and the surviving spouses and parents of servicemembers who fell in combat get the free lifetime family pass too.

The headline benefit is for your family. It is Florida's stated policy to provide educational opportunity at state expense for the dependent children of a servicemember who died of service-connected causes or who holds a service-connected 100% total and permanent rating. In practice this is the state scholarship for children and spouses of deceased or disabled veterans.

For veterans themselves there are two waivers. If you received a Purple Heart or a higher combat decoration and were a Florida resident, state universities, colleges and career centers waive your undergraduate tuition. And any honorably discharged veteran who physically lives in Florida while enrolled pays in-state rates: the school must waive out-of-state fees, which is worth a great deal if you moved here after service.

If you want to work for the state, a county or a city, your rating counts. Where a job uses an exam, Florida adds 20 points to the passing score of a veteran with a compensable service-connected disability. The same 20 points go to the spouse of a veteran who is totally and permanently disabled and cannot work.

Wartime veterans get 15 points, and other veterans and current Guard and Reserve members get 10. The preference applies to both appointment and retention, so it matters at layoff time as well as at hiring.