USA Opportunity Zones 2.0

Supporting Opportunity Zone Planning and Investment

The Opportunity Zone program has been permanently extended by Congress and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released guidance for eligible communities beginning January 1, 2027. This program renewal includes enhanced incentives for investment in eligible rural communities. For those unfamiliar with the program, Opportunity Zones are economically distressed communities designed to spur private investment and job creation and allow investors to defer and reduce capital gains taxes by reinvesting those profits into local businesses and real estate via Qualified Opportunity Funds (QOFs). 

The new IRS guidance provides procedures for State Governors, U.S. Territories, and the Mayor of the District of Columbia, to nominate eligible census tracts as qualified opportunity zones. The nomination period opens on July 1, 2026, and following a period of consideration Treasury, a new, 10-year-round of zones will be designated effective January 1, 2027.  In April 2026, the IRS released a list of 25,332 eligible census tracts for nomination, of which 8,334 are eligible for rural benefits enacted as part of the Working Families Tax Cuts.

We are replacing our 1.0 opportunity zone map tool with an OZ 2.0 map built by Novogradac using PolicyMap as its platform.

Data mapped by PolicyMap, an online GIS mapping tool.

The original USA Opportunity Zones tool

From 2018-2026, StatsAmerica maintained a USA Opportunity Zones Tool, which was a powerful way to link opportunity zones (OZs) with EDA investments that aimed to improve the business climate and help people out of poverty. It combined location information (where are the zones?) with economic and demographic reports that described the zone itself, as well as the intersection of EDA's Economic Development District, University Center programs, and Revolving Loan Funds. More than 8,700 opportunity zones were designated across the United States, established as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and were intended to foster long-term private sector investments in low-income communities.