Designed to spur investments in lower income areas of the country, a new version of the mostly popular Opportunity Zone program is expected to place a greater emphasis on rural economic growth.
Originally introduced as part of President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Opportunity Zone program ended up designating more than 8,700 geographically defined zones allowing for investors to back various construction and development initiatives in return for a tax break.
According to a recent study published by the Urban Land Institute, in an eight-year period, Opportunity Zones have “reversed the downward trajectories in many targeted communities by allowing private stakeholders to do the heavy financial lifting.”
Such zones, continues the report, accounted for “20% of all new multifamily units in 2023, up from just 8% when the program began, a growth trajectory in affordable housing that directly benefits both economically distressed areas and the greater community.”
The program’s role in rural development was evidenced last month when the Internal Revenue Service reported that of the 8,700 Opportunity Zones now in existence, just over 3,300 were in rural areas. Currently, there are around 150 such zones respectively in Arizona and Colorado, along with just over 60 in New Mexico.
That rural component is expected to remain in place as the program has been given new life in a slightly different form beyond 2026.
Opportunities in the revised program may be realized on a somewhat expedited basis once the program is officially reopened for investment on January 1, 2027.
Experts in the field have said that stakeholders in the new program, which include local governments, landowners, investors, and business owners, should learn as much as they can about the requirements of the updated program to secure available tax incentives.
Meanwhile, asserts the National League of Cities, new reporting requirements that are a part of the updated Opportunity Zone effort are expected to increase the program’s transparency.
Those requirements, says the NLC, will “enable the public, including local governments, to access more information on investments in their communities, including the location and amount of investment, and an analysis of the employment and housing impacts of Opportunity Zone projects.”
October 10, 2025
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
