September 21, 2026, Commercial Observer, New York State’s Opportunity Zones Deadline Is Fast Approaching

The Trump administration went on to designate 8,764 census tracts, roughly 12 percent of tracts across the country, as eligible for OZ investment. The program was partially successful, recording more than $108 billion in assets by the end of 2024 with an average of about $20 billion invested annually.

But the nation’s poorest areas often didn’t benefit, as investors largely put their gains into urbanized neighborhoods that were on the rebound or growing quickly. Close to 42 percent of all investment into the program poured into just 1 percent of all zones, and 75 percent of OZ funding supported market-rate residential rental projects, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. And the vast majority of investment, 93 percent, went toward metropolitan areas, an Urban Institute study found, indicating that the program’s incentives were not directing it toward areas that needed help the most.

After Congress permanently renewed the Opportunity Zone program, the Treasury Department revised its requirements to ensure more capital would be directed toward underinvested communities. To qualify, the poverty level of the census tract would be 70 percent of area or statewide median income instead of 80 percent, or one out of five people living in the proposed zone would need to have incomes below the poverty level. And investors who put more money in rural areas would get a 30 percent reduction in their capital gains tax.