

The Opportunity Zone program is a federal incentive that encourages long-term private investments in designated low-income communities by giving investors tax benefits for investing in real estate projects and operating businesses.
Investors receive tax incentives in the form of deferral and elimination of state and federal capital gains taxes.
As we near the December 2026 program sunset, OEDIT has reduced its active programming to support the incentive. However, we are still happy to help answer questions and provide information to support communities, project sponsors, and investors to help them make the most of the incentive.
OEDIT has historically supported Opportunity Zone program by:
We continue to provide ongoing support by:
We are proud to have played a role in the Opportunity Zone program’s substantial impact across the state. To learn more, check out the following articles and reports that gauge the impact and lessons learned from the past several years:
Type: Program
For: Communities, businesses, and investors
Current zone designations: Through 2028
OEDIT division: Business Funding and Incentives
Investors receive tax benefits when they reinvest capital gains, or profits from the sale of an asset, into opportunity zones. Investors may benefit in three ways.
For example, assume an investor sells their company stock for $1 million and has $100,000 in capital gains from that sale. The investor puts the $100,000 into an opportunity zone fund that invests in a new business in an opportunity zone.
The investor can defer paying capital gains tax until they have disposed of the opportunity zone investment or December 31, 2026, whichever comes first.
If they continue to hold the opportunity zone investment for at least 10 years, they will not have to pay any capital gains tax on that investment. If their $100,000 opportunity zone investment appreciates 100% over 10 years, they owe $0 in capital gains tax instead of $20,000. Investors can dispose of their OZ investment as late as 2046 and still get the benefit of eliminating taxes owed on the appreciation of the OZ investment.
Businesses will need to meet these qualifications to take advantage of this program.
70% of the business’ tangible property needs to be:
A business needs to:
You will also need to consider whether you are:
Not all projects are a good fit for opportunity zones. We encourage communities to think about how this program fits into your existing economic development tools.
We recommend that communities:
Communities will need to follow this process to attract investment.
If you are looking for projects to invest in, visit Colorado’s Investment Database. You don’t have to live, work, or have a business in an opportunity zone to invest there.
A qualified opportunity fund specializes in attracting investors with similar risk and reward profiles to collect and place capital in rural and low-income urban communities.
Qualified opportunity funds:
If you have realized capital gains, you need to invest your gains within 180 days into a qualified opportunity fund. Then the fund needs to place 90% of the funds into qualified opportunity zone property or business within six months.
When the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 passed, the federal government asked each state and territory to nominate up to 25% of its low-income community census tracts to be opportunity zones. We consulted with mayors, county commissioners, and local economic development organizations to ensure that our state’s nominations matched local priorities.
A commission reviewed local submissions, and the governor submitted final 126 opportunity zone nominations to the federal government. The federal government certified Colorado’s opportunity zones in April 2018. Current opportunity zone designations are active for 10 years through 2028.
The following criteria defined how those zones were defined. Definitions used 2011-2015 American Community Survey data. Low-income community census tracts are defined as tracts which meets one of these criteria: