U.S. OPPORTUNITY ZONES: WHAT OPPORTUNITY ZONES PERMANENCE MEANS for Corporate Investors
November 24, 2025
Anyone planning to make a location decision in the coming years should be paying attention to Opportunity Zones, the federal capital gains tax incentive designed to drive productive investment into low-income areas across the country.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) made Opportunity Zones (OZs) a permanent feature of the U.S. tax code. First established in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, OZs have driven more than $100 billion in private capital into targeted communities — the over 8,000 census tracts nominated by governors across all 50 states and U.S. territories. The OBBBA calls on governors to designate a new round of OZ tracts by next summer. The bill also made a number of changes to the incentive structure to make it easier to use, and it included special inducements to put capital to work in distressed rural areas in particular.