What Are Opportunity Zones?

An Opportunity Zone is a powerful new tool intended to stimulate investment in distressed communities. Harnessing this tool to support short- and long-term community objectives requires careful and thoughtful planning. Opportunity Zones.org provides a roadmap to help communities, investors, businesses, developers, CDFI’s, and nonprofits plan for potential investments in Opportunity Zones by understanding local needs, aligning community assets, establishing regulatory tools and financing incentives to support investments and forming partnerships toward equitable and inclusive community development. This roadmap serves as an guide to all things Opportunity Zones.

Opportunity Zones were created as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. An Opportunity Zone is defined by the Internal Revenue Service as “an economically-distressed community where new investments, under certain conditions, may be eligible for preferential tax treatment. Localities qualify as Opportunity Zones if they have been nominated for that designation by the State and that nomination has been certified by the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury via his delegation authority to the Internal Revenue Service.” Opportunity Zones are defined by census tract boundaries, and per Federal law, State chief executives (Governors) nominated the census tracts to be certified and designated as Opportunity Zones by the Department of the Treasury. In addition to the tax benefits that align to these designated census tracts, the Federal, State, tribal, local and territorial governments are also aligning resources to Opportunity Zones. Together, public and private investment resources can be leveraged for economic development in these communities.

The White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council was established in December 2018 with Executive Order 13853. The Council is chaired by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson and led by Executive Director Scott Turner. It comprises a variety of Federal departments and agencies, all tasked with targeting, streamlining and coordinating Federal resources so that they can be used to their fullest potential in Opportunity Zones and other economically distressed communities.