Opportunity Zones: Analyzing the tax incentive’s impacts, and how to enhance them

In 2017, Congress launched one of the nation’s largest-ever experiments in using the federal tax code to attract private investment into economically distressed communities: Opportunity Zones.

2017 年，国会启动了美国有史以来最大规模的实验之一，利用联邦税法吸引私人投资进入经济困难的社区：机会区。

The tax incentive offered tax benefits to investors who directed eligible capital gains into designated low-income census tracts.

税收优惠为将符合条件的资本利得投入指定低收入人口普查区域的投资者提供税收优惠。

The underlying proposition was straightforward but consequential: Patient private capital, encouraged by a federal incentive, could help generate economic activity in communities that conventional markets and public investment had failed to reach, or help accelerate community-led efforts to advance local development goals.

基本主张很简单，但意义重大：在联邦激励措施的鼓励下，耐心的私人资本可以帮助在传统市场和公共投资无法达到的社区中产生经济活动，或者帮助加速社区主导的努力，以推进当地的发展目标。

Opportunity Zones (OZs) emerged from a long, bipartisan history of place-based economic policy .

机会区 (OZ) 源于两党长期的地方经济政策历史。

Across several presidential administrations, federal policymakers have used place-based tools such as Enterprise Communities, Empowerment Zones, the New Markets Tax Credit, Promise Zones, and—more recently—the Justice40 initiative to concentrate resources, reduce barriers to investment, and improve economic conditions in communities facing persistent challenges.

在几届总统政府中，联邦政策制定者使用了基于地方的工具，例如企业社区、赋权区、新市场税收抵免、承诺区以及最近的“Justice40”倡议，以集中资源，减少投资障碍，并改善面临持续挑战的社区的经济状况。

These programs vary substantially in their design and implementation, yet each reflects a recurring recognition that equitable and sustainable economic growth is neither guaranteed nor evenly distributed, and that the long-term economic performance of the United States depends, in part, on whether more communities can connect their residents and business to investments, jobs, infrastructure, and a better quality of life.

这些计划在设计和实施方面存在很大差异，但每一项都反映出人们反复认识到，公平和可持续的经济增长既无法得到保证，也无法均匀分配，而且美国的长期经济表现在一定程度上取决于更多社区是否能够将其居民和企业与投资、就业、基础设施和更好的生活质量联系起来。

The scale and flexibility of OZs distinguished the tax incentive program from many of its predecessors.

OZ 的规模和灵活性使税收激励计划有别于许多之前的计划。

Governors designated thousands of eligible census tracts and investors were given considerable discretion over where and how to deploy capital within them.

州长们指定了数千个符合条件的人口普查区，投资者在其中的投资地点和方式上拥有相当大的自由裁量权。

Supporters argued that this flexibility could move resources more quickly and support projects that otherwise struggled to secure financing.

支持者认为，这种灵活性可以更快地转移资源，并支持那些难以获得融资的项目。

Critics warned that limited reporting requirements and target rules as well as the absence of explicit community-benefit standards could direct subsidies toward projects that would have proceeded without the incentive or toward neighborhoods already positioned for growth.

批评者警告说，有限的报告要求和目标规则以及缺乏明确的社区福利标准可能会导致补贴直接流向那些在没有激励措施的情况下会继续进行的项目或已经定位为增长的社区。

These competing claims have shaped the public debate over OZs since the first investments were made.

自第一笔投资以来，这些相互矛盾的主张引发了关于 OZ 的公开辩论。

This report brings new evidence to that debate.

这份报告为这场争论提供了新的证据。

It offers retrospective, tract-level analysis of 7,174 of the 7,826 designated OZ tracts across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., from 2018 through 2025.

它对 2018 年至 2025 年期间覆盖所有 50 个州和华盛顿特区的 7,826 个指定 OZ 区域中的 7,174 个区域进行了回顾性、区域级分析。

We use a novel dataset of building activity (albeit one that does not distinguish buildings by cost or size) to examine how the tax incentive has shaped construction activity and neighborhood change (namely, displacement).

我们使用一种新颖的建筑活动数据集（尽管该数据集不按成本或大小区分建筑物）来研究税收激励如何影响建筑活动和社区变化（即位移）。

We also assess how these outcomes vary across communities with different predominant land uses.

我们还评估了这些结果在具有不同主要土地用途的社区之间有何不同。

The central question is not whether OZs uniformly succeed or fail, but to understand where they have generated stronger economic and community outcomes, where they have not, and what local factors help determine success.

核心问题不在于 OZ 是否一致成功或失败，而是了解它们在哪些方面产生了更强劲的经济和社区成果，在哪些方面没有，以及哪些当地因素有助于决定成功。

We know investment alone is not synonymous with shared prosperity.

我们知道，单纯投资并不等同于共同繁荣。

In some places, OZ capital has expanded housing supply, supported business formation, created jobs, and leveraged underutilized community assets—while in others, it flowed toward projects with limited community benefits or into neighborhoods already on a growth path.

在一些地方，OZ 资本扩大了住房供应，支持企业组建，创造了就业机会，并利用了未充分利用的社区资产，而在另一些地方，它流向了社区效益有限的项目或已经走上增长道路的社区。

A rigorous assessment of OZs must therefore look beyond total investment to understand tract-level changes.

因此，对 OZ 的严格评估必须超越总投资，以了解地区层面的变化。

This report applies that framework to “OZ 1.0” (the 2017 iteration of the program from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is distinct from the permanent “OZ 2.0” version that will have new round of designations in 2026), identifying the conditions under which investment translated into inclusive growth in order to inform more effective place-based strategies going forward.

本报告将该框架应用于“OZ 1.0”（《减税和就业法案》中该计划的 2017 年迭代版本，与将于 2026 年进行新一轮指定的永久“OZ 2.0”版本不同），确定投资转化为包容性增长的条件，以便为未来更有效的基于地方的战略提供信息。

Our key findings include:

我们的主要发现包括：

Taken together, our findings reveal interdependent—and at times, seemingly contradictory—patterns of state-level variation in OZ outcomes.

总而言之，我们的研究结果揭示了 OZ 结果中各州层面差异的相互依存（有时甚至看似矛盾）的模式。

These differences suggest that the federal tax incentive’s effects were shaped not only by the flow of OZ capital, but also by local market conditions and complementary state and local policies.

这些差异表明，联邦税收激励的效果不仅取决于澳大利亚资本的流动，还取决于当地市场条件以及补充性的州和地方政策。

Overall, however, the results are consistent with much of the existing literature: OZs can be a powerful financing tool for accelerating capital deployment into less economically dynamic communities, particularly for real estate development.

然而，总体而言，结果与许多现有文献一致：OZ 可以成为一种强大的融资工具，可加速资本部署到经济活力较弱的社区，特别是房地产开发。

The experience of OZ 1.0 also makes clear that capital is a means, not an outcome.

OZ 1.0的经验也清楚地表明，资本是手段，而不是结果。

As states approach OZ 2.0, they should work closely with local governments, residents, and businesses to define success before selecting tracts.

随着各州接近 OZ 2.0，他们应该与当地政府、居民和企业密切合作，在选择土地之前确定成功的标准。

That definition should identify both the policy objectives the incentive is intended to advance—such as housing production, clean energy deployment, rural redevelopment, or entrepreneurship—and the place-based outcomes communities seek, including local ownership, community wealth creation, affordability, and stronger economic mobility.

该定义应明确激励措施旨在推进的政策目标（例如住房生产、清洁能源部署、农村再开发或创业精神）以及社区寻求的基于地方的成果，包括当地所有权、社区财富创造、负担能力和更强的经济流动性。

States should then develop an explicit theory of change that explains what the capital is intended to accomplish and identifies the complementary policies, public investments, incentives, capacity-building strategies, and regulatory reforms required to achieve those results.

然后，各国应制定明确的变革理论，解释资本旨在实现的目标，并确定实现这些结果所需的补充政策、公共投资、激励措施、能力建设战略和监管改革。

This planning will be especially important in tracts where single-family housing is the predominant land use and the tax incentive alone may be insufficient to support meaningful development or broader community benefits.

在单户住宅是主要土地用途且仅靠税收激励可能不足以支持有意义的发展或更广泛的社区福利的地区，这项规划尤其重要。

The Opportunity Zone tax incentive was part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 ; in 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made a modified version of it (“OZ 2.0”) permanent .

机会区税收激励措施是 2017 年减税和就业法案的一部分； 2025 年，《一大美丽法案》将其修改版本（“OZ 2.0”）永久化。

In both versions of the program, investors can defer or avoid taxation of realized capital gains by reinvesting those gains in an investment vehicle, known as a Qualified Opportunity Fund , that holds at least 90% of its assets as new or substantially improved property in census tracts the IRS has designated as Qualified Opportunity Zones.

在该计划的两个版本中，投资者都可以通过将已实现的资本收益再投资于投资工具（称为合格机会基金）来推迟或避免对已实现的资本收益征税，该投资工具将其至少 90% 的资产持有为美国国税局指定为合格机会区的人口普查区内的新财产或大幅改善的财产。

The original program allowed each state’s governor to nominate as OZs a number of census tracts equal to either: 25% of the state’s number of low-income communities as defined in 26 USC § 45D(e)(1) (based on 2011-2015 or 2012-2016 American Community Survey data, and rounding down); or 25 tracts, whichever was greater.

最初的计划允许每个州的州长提名一定数量的人口普查区作为 OZ，其数量等于： 26 USC § 45D(e)(1) 中定义的该州低收入社区数量的 25%（基于 2011-2015 或 2012-2016 年美国社区调查数据，并向下舍入）；或 25 个区域，以较大者为准。

A census tract can qualify as a low-income community in two ways: either it has a poverty rate of at least 20%, or its median family income (MFI) is below 80% of the area MFI (the statewide MFI or, if the tract is in a metropolitan area, the greater of the statewide and metropolitan area MFI).

人口普查区可以通过两种方式被认定为低收入社区：贫困率至少为 20%，或其家庭收入中位数 (MFI) 低于地区 MFI（全州 MFI，或者，如果该地区位于大都市区，则为全州和大都市区 MFI 中的较高者）。

As a result, states with larger numbers of qualifying low-income communities generally received more OZs, while states with fewer than 100 such communities could designate up to 25 tracts, giving them a proportionally larger allocation.

因此，拥有较多合格低收入社区的州通常会获得更多的 OZ，而此类社区少于 100 个的州可以指定最多 25 个区域，从而按比例分配更多的 OZ。

Along with low-income communities, up to 5% of a state’s designated OZs were permitted to be non-low-income-community tracts.

与低收入社区一样，州指定的 OZ 中最多 5% 被允许成为非低收入社区区域。

However, for such a tract to be eligible, it had to be contiguous with a low-income-community OZ and have a median family income not exceeding 125% of the median family income of that OZ.

然而，要使这样的地区符合资格，它必须与低收入社区 OZ 相邻，并且家庭收入中位数不超过该 OZ 家庭收入中位数的 125%。

In addition, while the program initially only included the 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 amended this, designating all Puerto Rico census tracts identified as low-income communities based on 2011-2015 American Community Survey (ACS) data as OZs.

此外，虽然该计划最初只包括美国 50 个州和华盛顿特区，但 2018 年的两党预算法案对此进行了修改，将所有根据 2011-2015 年美国社区调查 (ACS) 数据确定为低收入社区的波多黎各人口普查区域指定为 OZ。

Overall, 8,764 census tracts have been designated as OZs, with 7,826 of them in the 50 states and Washington, D.C. (Figure 1).

总体而言，8,764 个人口普查区已被指定为 OZ，其中 7,826 个位于 50 个州和华盛顿特区（图 1）。

OZs had roughly twice the median poverty rate and two-thirds the median family income of tracts overall, as well as elevated unemployment rates, housing and transportation costs, and populations of racial and ethnic minorities.

开放区的贫困率中位数大约是整个地区中位数的两倍，家庭收入中位数大约是该地区的三分之二，失业率、住房和交通成本以及少数种族和族裔人口也较高。

A set of descriptive statistics for OZs in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., can be found in Table 1.

表 1 是 50 个州和华盛顿特区 OZ 的一组描述性统计数据。

Additional statistics are included in Table 3 in the Appendix.

其他统计数据包含在附录的表 3 中。