RALEIGH – The U.S. Treasury Department has certified 204 North Carolina census tracts as Opportunity Zones, Gov. Josh Stein announced Thursday, completing a designation process for a federal tax-incentive program aimed at attracting private investment.
The new designations take effect Jan. 1, 2027. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service separately announced Thursday that all 6,576 eligible tracts nominated nationwide had been designated, including 2,594 in rural areas. The new designations last 10 years.
Opportunity Zones are designated low-income areas where qualifying investments can receive federal tax treatment intended to encourage long-term private capital. Certification identifies the eligible areas; it is not an announcement that a particular business has invested or that a specific development will be built.
North Carolina’s Department of Commerce published a tract-by-tract list and a map of the new zones. The list includes urban and rural counties, with individual census tract numbers identifying the areas covered rather than entire counties.
Commerce said the state received 340 nominations during a 53-day public comment period. County and municipal officials, economic development organizations and members of the public submitted recommendations.
The state said each of the 93 counties with eligible tracts received at least one recommended nomination. It allocated another 103 tracts according to county population shares and eight based on development potential and economic need in rural Tier 1 counties, the state’s most economically distressed tier.
The federal program’s latest framework permanently renewed the tax incentive and established a process for redesignating zones every 10 years, Treasury said. It also added enhanced incentives for eligible rural investments.
For North Carolina, Thursday’s action moves the process from nominations to certified designations. The public tract list provides the geographic reference for the zones that begin in January.
The announcements describe investment and job creation as goals of the program. They do not document a guaranteed amount of new spending, a required number of jobs or a completed project in any designated North Carolina tract.
Sources
- NC Commerce: Nov. 5 certification announcement
- U.S. Treasury: Nov. 5 national designation announcement
- NC Commerce: 2026 designated census tract list
Photo Credit: File photograph of the U.S. Treasury Department Building in Washington, D.C., between 1980 and 2006, by Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons; public domain, no known restrictions on publication. Cropped and resized. Federal-agency context, not a North Carolina Opportunity Zone or a current ceremony. NCPN logo is a separate brand mark.
Editor’s Note: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.