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New Markets Tax Credit Financed 372 Projects and Supported 60,733 Jobs in the Year It Was Made Permanent
Coalition’s 2026 Progress Report documents $4.83 billion in NMTC investment across the United States, with a record share reaching Native communities
WASHINGTON, October 1, 2026 — The New Markets Tax Credit financed 372 projects in 2025, drawing $8 billion in total investment into low-income rural and urban communities and supporting 60,733 jobs, according to the 2026 Progress Report released today by the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition. A record 9.4 percent of that financing, $454 million, went to projects supporting Native communities, the highest share in the program’s history.
Congress made the credit permanent in July 2025 as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, setting annual allocation authority at $5 billion and ending 25 years of temporary extensions. The provision was added in the Senate by Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), with support from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID). Daines had introduced standalone bipartisan legislation to make the credit permanent with Senator Mark Warner (D-VA).
“After 25 years of temporary extensions, permanence gives communities, CDEs, and investors the certainty they need to plan ahead. This report shows a program firing on all cylinders — reaching the most distressed communities, restoring American manufacturing, and building homes families can actually afford.”
Julia Nelmark
President, NMTC Coalition, and CEO, Midwest Minnesota Community Development Corporation
Manufacturing was the single largest use of the credit, with 101 industrial expansions generating more than 14,000 full-time-equivalent jobs. Since 2020 the credit has created more than 41,000 rural manufacturing jobs. Rural communities captured a disproportionate share: 29.7 percent of financing, $2.3 billion, went to non-metropolitan counties, supporting 15,043 jobs.
Projects ranged from a mobile command center manufacturer in Libby, Montana, to a farmer-owned sugar cooperative in Renville, Minnesota, to a 40,956-square-foot critical access hospital replacing a 75-year-old facility in Troy, North Carolina.
“Making the New Markets Tax Credit permanent has resulted in economic growth and job creation, helping Main Street businesses flourish across the country.”
U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT)
Who led the effort to include permanence in the final bill
Housing Supply
This year’s special report examines the credit’s growing role in expanding housing supply. In 2025, 42 NMTC projects supported 1,105 housing units — 685 for-sale homes and 420 rental units, 887 of them affordable. Since 2004 the program has financed more than 38,000 housing units nationwide, with mission-driven developers increasingly using the credit to build affordable, for-sale homes for working families in markets the private sector is not serving.
“The New Markets Tax Credit is a vital tool to create jobs and encourage investment in communities that need it most. From the development of a residential treatment center in Marion to a full-service grocery store and tuition-free adult high school in Roanoke to a new medical office in Tazewell, the NMTC is helping Virginians across the Commonwealth.”
U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA)
Who co-authored bipartisan legislation to make the credit permanent
Demand Still Exceeds Supply
Applicants for the combined 2024–2025 allocation round requested nearly $20 billion against $10 billion available, roughly two dollars of qualified demand for every dollar of allocation. Permanence sets annual allocation authority at $5 billion.
“The NMTC is one of the few federal tools flexible enough to finance a rural hospital, a manufacturing expansion, and a family’s first home. As the program enters its permanent era, we’re seeing CDEs direct even more capital to the areas of deepest need to create jobs and provide critical services across the country.”
Merrill Fowlkes Hoopengardner
Executive Director, NMTC Coalition
The report also documents the credit’s role supporting veterans, expanding food access, and financing healthcare, education and workforce training. The full 2026 NMTC Progress Report, including detailed data on project types, community characteristics and investor trends, is available at nmtccoalition.org/reports/2026progressreport .
About the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition
The New Markets Tax Credit Coalition is a national membership organization of Community Development Entities, investors and community development practitioners that advocates for the New Markets Tax Credit. Authorized by Congress in 2000 and made permanent in 2025, the NMTC has delivered roughly $100 billion in private investment and financed nearly 10,000 projects in underinvested rural and urban communities nationwide. The Coalition has conducted an annual survey of CDEs since 2005; the 2026 Progress Report is its 22nd edition, prepared by Rapoza Associates and covering $4.83 billion of the roughly $4.9 billion in 2025 NMTC financing.