Florida Statute 222.25
“Other individual property of natural persons exempt from legal process”
What it means
§222.25 lists the personal exemptions every Florida natural person holds: an interest up to $5,000 in a single motor vehicle; professionally prescribed health aids; any refund or credit from the federal earned income credit; and — for a debtor who does not claim or receive the benefits of a homestead exemption — up to $4,000 in other personal property.
The $4,000 “wildcard” is a trade: homestead protection or the wildcard, not both. And neither the earned-income-credit exemption nor the wildcard applies against a debt owed for child support or spousal support.
- Up to $5,000 of the debtor's interest in a single motor vehicle is exempt.
- Professionally prescribed health aids are exempt, with no dollar cap.
- A federal earned income credit refund or credit is exempt — except against child or spousal support debts.
- A $4,000 personal-property wildcard applies only if the debtor does not claim or receive the benefits of homestead — and also yields to support debts.
How it plays out
These exemptions belong to living debtors, so in estate work they surface at the edges — a beneficiary with a judgment against them, a surviving spouse's own finances. The section families actually need is usually §732.402, the probate exemption that sends household furnishings and the family vehicles to the spouse or children ahead of most creditors — different statute, different mechanism. When both could matter, we start with 732.402, because it removes property from the claims process altogether.