Colorado has asked the U.S. Treasury to approve 91 new Opportunity Zones, the maximum number of census tracts the state was allowed to nominate under the next round of the federal tax incentive program.
The Sept. 28 submission would position selected communities for tax-advantaged investment in real estate, infrastructure, housing, manufacturing and business expansion. The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) expects Treasury to certify the nominations by the end of November.
Opportunity Zones give investors federal tax benefits for putting capital gains into qualified projects and businesses inside designated low-income census tracts. The first round, launched in 2018, drew more than $3.2 billion in investment to Colorado through 2024, according to OEDIT. State officials estimate the next round could exceed $4 billion.
Colorado says 94 percent of its first-round Opportunity Zones received investment, including 95 percent of rural zones. National reviews have been more mixed. A July 2025 analysis led by Kevin Corinth of the American Enterprise Institute found that Qualified Opportunity Funds reported $89 billion in Opportunity Zone property from 2019 through 2022. The Urban Institute has estimated that more than $100 billion has gone into Opportunity Zones, but said much of the money flowed toward market-rate real estate and places already positioned to attract private capital.
The program is relevant to vendors tied to housing, site work, infrastructure, construction, finance, legal structuring, engineering and redevelopment. It also matters to cities, counties and economic-development groups trying to package land, infrastructure and local incentives into financeable projects.
Opportunity Zones 2.0 changes several rules from the first round. Federal legislation passed in 2025 made the program permanent, narrowed the income standards for eligible census tracts, removed a prior pathway that allowed some adjacent tracts to qualify and added stronger incentives for rural investments. The new version also creates a rolling five-year capital gains deferral while keeping the 10-year hold for the largest tax benefit.
Treasury identified 362 eligible census tracts in Colorado, allowing the state to submit up to 91 for the next round. Colorado’s proposed map overlaps heavily with existing state and local economic-development programs. Nearly all submitted tracts overlap with Enterprise Zones, and 33 overlap with Rural Jump-Start Zones, a state incentive program for new businesses in distressed rural areas.
The list also includes transit-oriented communities, coal-transition communities, Creative Districts, Innovation Hubs and Main Street communities. Thirty-five of the proposed tracts are outside the Front Range.
Those overlaps show where Colorado is trying to layer tax incentives with existing planning priorities. For vendors, the tracts could point to future work tied to housing, infrastructure, downtown redevelopment, site readiness and business expansion.
OEDIT said the nominations followed more than 100 stakeholder meetings, six statewide webinars, four regional meetings and a statewide survey. The state said the review emphasized rural communities, areas outside the Front Range and places where the designation could support existing plans to diversify local economies.
Local examples cited in the state announcement include Denver’s Mile High Line neighborhoods, parts of Colorado Springs and El Paso County, three Mesa County priority zones and a Cañon City tract that includes Four Mile Ranch and the Holy Cross Abbey. Those examples point to the kinds of projects likely to follow: housing, redevelopment, infrastructure planning and private-sector recruitment.
Colorado is among the first wave of states to submit new Opportunity Zone maps. Texas remains the largest early mover, with 608 tracts submitted, while several large states, including California, Florida, New York and Ohio, still had major potential pools pending as of the latest OpportunityZones.com tracker update. Extended nominations are due Oct. 28, and the new designations are scheduled to take effect Jan. 1.
Photo by Sujay Krishna from Pexels
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