NMTC Coalition Welcomes Opening of the First Allocation Round Under a Permanent New Markets Tax Credit
CDFI Fund announces $5 billion in New Markets Tax Credit availability for 2026 with applications due November 10
WASHINGTON, DC — September 24, 2026 — The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Coalition today welcomed last week’s opening of the 2026 NMTC allocation round. The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) published the Notice of Allocation Availability (NOAA) in the Federal Register on September 15, 2026, and announced the opening of the round and released the full Allocation Application and application FAQ, making $5 billion in allocation authority available to Community Development Entities (CDEs) on September 17, 2026. Applications are due November 10, 2026.
This is the first allocation round to open since Congress made the New Markets Tax Credit permanent at $5 billion in annual allocation authority as part of the Working Families Tax Cut Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025.
“This round has been eagerly awaited since Congress passed the authorizing legislation last year,” said Merrill Hoopengardner, Executive Director of the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition. “In a community, this credit shows up as a new rural hospital in a county without critical healthcare services, a manufacturer hiring in a town that thought those jobs were gone for good, a grocery store in a neighborhood that has gone years without fresh food. With a permanent credit, the families and small businesses in those places are no longer waiting to find out whether the capital will be available next year. It will be.”
“We are grateful to Secretary Bessent and the Department of the Treasury, to the Office of Management and Budget, and to the Administration for moving this round forward, and to the CDFI Fund and Director Chris Miller for getting these materials into applicants’ hands,” Hoopengardner continued. “Opening the first round under a permanent credit is a milestone worth marking, and they delivered it. Permanence itself was won by a bipartisan coalition in Congress that stayed with this credit for a quarter century. Our members are ready to put it to work.”
A new emphasis on homeownership
The CDFI Fund identified two revisions to the 2026 Application Instructions.
Question 19 adds an opportunity for applicants to commit to providing QLICIs for the development or rehabilitation of homeownership units, as an Innovative Investment.
Question 25(b) adds Homeownership Cost Burden, targeting areas with high housing costs and other housing problems.
“Communities have been telling us for years that the missing piece is housing people can buy, not only housing they can rent,” Hoopengardner said. “Our members will be looking closely at how these changes work in practice.”
What the credit delivers
Since 2000, the New Markets Tax Credit has driven $143 billion in private investment into distressed urban and rural communities, financing more than 8,500 projects and creating or retaining more than 1.2 million jobs, with roughly $8 in private capital attracted for every federal dollar. Eighty-one percent of NMTC financing goes to severely distressed communities and 30 percent to non-metropolitan counties, including persistent-poverty areas and Native lands.
The Coalition will release its 2026 Progress Report, documenting the credit’s 2025 results, on September 29.
Demand continues to outpace supply
Applicants for the combined 2024–2025 allocation round requested nearly $19.2 billion against $10 billion available. The Coalition continues to work with Congressional champions on improvements to a now-permanent program, including indexing the $5 billion allocation for inflation and relief from the alternative minimum tax and basis adjustment to strengthen the credit’s impact.