Opportunity Zones

Even in a growing national economy, millions of Americans live in communities that are falling behind. Opportunity Zones (OZs) were designed with a simple premise: the tax code should encourage private investment in communities that are struggling to attract capital, create jobs, and lift residents out of poverty.

OZs provide federal incentives for certain types of long-term, productive investments in low-income urban and rural communities nationwide. Enacted by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, OZs were first proposed in the bipartisan Investing in Opportunity Act, which was originally introduced in Congress in 2016 and championed by Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representatives Pat Tiberi (R-OH) and Ron Kind (D-WI), alongside a regionally and politically diverse coalition of nearly 100 cosponsors in the House and Senate. Read more about the history of the Opportunity Zones policy, delve into community facts and figures, and explore the map of innovative local developments taking root in Opportunity Zones across the nation.