Moving from Toronto to Miami: Taxes, the Snowbird Pipeline, and South Florida

For most people reading this, the Toronto-to-Miami move isn’t a decision that starts on a blank page. It starts with a condo in Hallandale Beach or Hollywood that’s already been booked every January for the past five or six winters, and a question about what changes if the “winter” part stops and the “permanent” part starts. The tax answer has two halves: what disappears (the Ontario and federal Canadian layers), and what quietly turns on (a US filing obligation that, for a lot of snowbirds, may have already started without anyone noticing).

What happens to your tax bill when you leave for Miami?

Two separate things happen, on two different calendars. Going forward, Ontario and federal Canadian income tax stop applying to your income once you’ve genuinely ceased Canadian residence, and Florida has no state income tax to replace it with. On the way out, Canada treats you as having sold most of what you own at fair market value on your departure date, and that deemed disposition is taxed in your last Canadian year regardless of where you’re headed. The rate drop is real and permanent. The departure tax is a one-time bill, and it’s the one people underestimate because the going-forward savings are so visible. The mechanics of that departure tax, the forms, and the exclusions are covered in Form T1161 and T1243 and the leaving-Canada checklist.

How much of Toronto’s 53.53% top rate actually disappears?

All of it, on the state side. Ontario’s combined federal and provincial top rate, including the surtax, sits near 53.53% on income above the top threshold, and both the 20% and 36% surtax add-ons that stack on top of Ontario’s basic tax are Ontario-specific mechanics with no Florida analog whatsoever. Once you’re a Florida resident with no Ontario ties, that entire structure, brackets, surtax, Ontario Health Premium, is gone. What doesn’t go away is US federal tax on worldwide income once you’re a US tax resident, so the comparison that matters isn’t 53.53% versus zero, it’s Ontario-plus-federal-Canadian versus US-federal-only.

	Toronto / Ontario	Miami / Florida
State or provincial income tax	Yes, combined with federal to roughly 53.53% at the top	None
County or city income tax	None (Ontario has no municipal income tax)	None (Miami-Dade has no county income tax)
Sales tax	HST 13%	Roughly 7% in Miami-Dade (6% state plus 1% county surtax)
Land transfer tax	Provincial LTT plus Toronto’s municipal LTT, roughly doubling the cost, on a Toronto purchase	Documentary stamp tax on deeds at closing, no ongoing LTT
Property tax	Toronto property tax, no cap on annual increases	Ad valorem tax with homestead exemption and a 3% Save Our Homes cap
Estate tax on death	Ontario Estate Administration Tax, roughly 1.5% of estate value above the first tier	No Florida estate tax; US federal estate tax applies above the exemption

Have you already gone from snowbird to permanent?

Probably, in every sense but the legal one. The typical file in this corridor isn’t someone moving cold, it’s someone who’s owned or rented in Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, or Fort Lauderdale for years, flown down after Christmas, and flown home before the 183-day mark they think matters. The permanent move, when it happens, is usually a paperwork event layered onto a pattern of life that’s been mostly set for a while: the condo, the doctor, sometimes a Florida bank account. That history is exactly what both the CRA and the IRS look at, which is why the day count from your snowbird years doesn’t reset to zero the day you decide to make it official.

Have you already tripped the substantial presence test?

This is the trap specific to snowbirds, and it’s arithmetic rather than intent. The substantial presence test counts the current year’s days in full, one-third of the prior year’s days, and one-sixth of the days from two years before that, and if the total hits 183 you’re a US resident alien for tax purposes for that year, full worldwide filing obligation, whether or not you own anything in Florida or ever meant to move. A pattern of five months a year, every year, for three years running can clear that threshold on its own even though no single year looks like a full 183-day stay. The closer-connection exception on Form 8840 can save someone in that position, but it has to be filed on time and it has a hard cap on the days themselves.

What does Miami-Dade actually tax if not income?

Sales, transactions, and property, not earnings. Miami-Dade’s combined sales tax runs about 7%, the 6% state rate plus a 1% county discretionary surtax, close to but not identical to Broward’s own local add-on. There’s no county-level income tax layered on top of Florida’s zero, unlike Ontario where the provincial and federal layers stack. The bigger recurring number for most households is the ad valorem property tax, set locally and applied to assessed value, with homestead relief available only once a home is your genuine permanent residence.

How do the homestead exemption and Save Our Homes work?

Two separate mechanisms, and the year-one gap between them is the single most-missed detail in this corridor. If you own the home and have made it your permanent residence by January 1, you can file Form DR-501 with the county property appraiser by March 1 and get up to $50,000 off assessed value, the first $25,000 against all levies and a second $25,000 against value above $50,000 for non-school levies. Save Our Homes is a different animal: once you’ve had one exempt year on the roll, annual increases in assessed value are capped at the lower of 3% or the change in CPI. That cap does not apply in your first homestead year. Year one is assessed at full just value, and the protection only starts building from the second year on.

Where do most people actually land in South Florida?

All four, and the differences are more about lifestyle and price point than tax. Hallandale Beach sits right on the Broward-Miami-Dade line and is where Blue Cloud CPA is physically based, along with a large share of the Quebec and Ontario snowbird population before it. Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale sit north of it with more inventory and a wider range of price points, and Boca Raton skews toward the higher end with a different demographic mix again. None of that changes the tax analysis. A Toronto detached house that sold for $1.2 to $1.8 million typically buys an oceanfront or intracoastal condo in this corridor rather than a comparable detached home, and the property tax on that Florida purchase, once homestead applies, is usually a fraction of what the same value would carry in Toronto with no cap on annual increases at all.

What happens to OHIP, the house, and the land transfer tax?

OHIP coverage doesn’t end the day you land in Florida. Ontario runs a residency-based test with roughly a 212-day-per-year presence requirement, and a permanent departure typically carries a three-month tail of continued coverage after you notify the ministry, after which you need Florida or private coverage. The Toronto house itself is carved out of the deemed-disposition rules if it’s your principal residence, though the exemption fraction stops growing once Canadian residence ends, and selling before or after your departure date changes which rules apply. Ontario’s land transfer tax, doubled in effect by Toronto’s own municipal top-up, is a buyer’s tax. It doesn’t touch the sale of your Toronto home on the way out. It only reappears if you ever buy back into the Toronto market.

Is probate cheaper in Florida than in Ontario?

For the Ontario side, usually not in your favor to compare directly, but the mechanics differ enough that a straight rate comparison misleads. Ontario’s Estate Administration Tax runs roughly 1.5% of estate value above the first tier, applied to everything that passes through an Ontario probate. Florida has no separate state probate tax of that kind, though Florida real estate owned by a non-resident at death can require ancillary probate in Florida courts even where the primary estate is administered in Canada. The other number worth knowing before you buy is the US estate tax exemption for a non-resident alien, which sits far below the exemption available to US citizens and residents, covered in the $60,000 exemption guide. On the retirement-account side, an RRSP carries no state addback and needs no state return in Florida, since there’s no state income tax to file at all, a simpler picture than a corridor like New York.

What should you do before you sign anything?

Start with the day count, not the closing date. Pull the actual days spent in Florida for each of the last three winters and run the substantial presence test on real numbers before assuming the move itself is what starts your US tax story. Then pin the departure date, because it decides the Canadian tax year the deemed disposition lands in and whether Ontario still claims that year. Only after both of those are settled does the homestead timing, the March 1 filing deadline, and the choice of Hallandale Beach versus Hollywood versus Fort Lauderdale versus Boca become the easier decisions they look like from the outside.

• Moving from Ontario to Florida, the province-level version of this corridor
• Moving from Ontario to Texas, another no-state-income-tax destination
• Moving from Ontario to New York, the Bay Street to Wall Street comparison
• Moving from Canada to Florida, the generic corridor from any province
• Moving from Toronto to New York, the state-plus-city version of this analysis
• The Canadian departure tax, T1161 and T1243
• The leaving-Canada permanent checklist
• RRSPs and TFSAs when moving to the US
• The US-Canada tax treaty explained
• Your first US tax return as a new Canadian immigrant
• Provincial health insurance when leaving Canada
• Bought a Florida condo as a snowbird
• Buying US property as a Canadian
• Cross-border tax help in Florida
• The US estate tax and the $60,000 exemption
• Montreal to Miami, the Quebec-specific version of this corridor
• Toronto to Austin, the Texas tech corridor with zero state tax
• Toronto to San Francisco, the lateral-rate Bay Area corridor
• Toronto to Boston, the finance and biotech corridor
• Toronto to Atlanta, the Georgia flat-tax tech corridor
• Toronto to Denver, the outdoor-tech corridor
• Toronto to Washington DC, the consulting and policy corridor
• Toronto to Charlotte, the banking corridor with NC’s flat 4.5%
• Toronto to Nashville, the healthcare corridor with zero state tax

This guide is general information, not tax advice for your specific situation. Which points apply, and how, depends on your facts.