The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program drives critical investment throughout North Carolina’s economically diverse communities. From Charlotte’s urban neighborhoods to the Research Triangle’s innovation corridor, from Asheville’s revitalizing downtown to eastern North Carolina’s rural communities, NMTC financing enables transformative projects in areas where conventional lending remains insufficient. CBO Financial partners with North Carolina developers, life sciences companies, advanced manufacturers, healthcare providers, and community organizations to structure comprehensive financing solutions that strengthen the Tar Heel State’s economy while addressing persistent disparities between thriving metropolitan regions and struggling rural counties.
North Carolina’s dynamic economy—characterized by banking and financial services, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, technology, agriculture, healthcare, and tourism—creates substantial opportunities for strategic NMTC deployment. The program provides a 39% federal tax credit to investors who deploy capital in qualified low-income communities, significantly reducing borrowing costs and enabling projects that serve critical community needs. Whether you’re developing biopharmaceutical research facilities in the Triangle, expanding textile manufacturing operations in the Piedmont, creating mixed-use developments in Winston-Salem, or building healthcare infrastructure in Appalachian counties, NMTC financing delivers the capital advantage necessary for project success in North Carolina’s competitive markets.
How the NMTC Program Works in North Carolina
The NMTC Program operates through certified Community Development Entities (CDEs) authorized by the U.S. Treasury’s CDFI Fund to make Qualified Low-Income Community Investments (QLICIs) throughout North Carolina. Projects must be located in census tracts where the poverty rate exceeds 20% or the median family income falls below 80% of the area median. Investors providing equity to CDEs receive tax credits totaling 39% over seven years—5% annually for the first three years and 6% annually for the subsequent four years.
North Carolina contains extensive eligible geography across its urban centers, smaller cities, and rural communities. Charlotte, the state’s largest city, features numerous qualifying census tracts throughout its metro area. The Research Triangle region—including Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill—contains eligible tracts despite the region’s overall prosperity. Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Wilmington, and Asheville include substantial eligible areas experiencing various economic pressures. Eastern North Carolina’s rural counties—including Robeson, Halifax, Bertie, Edgecombe, and Northampton—present widespread NMTC opportunities due to agricultural transition, manufacturing job losses, and persistent poverty. Western North Carolina’s Appalachian counties also contain extensive eligible geography.
The program supports sectors central to North Carolina’s economic priorities: life sciences and pharmaceutical research facilities, advanced manufacturing operations including automotive suppliers and aerospace components, healthcare infrastructure, technology and innovation spaces, food processing and agricultural value-chain facilities, renewable energy projects, tourism and cultural heritage facilities, and mixed-use urban developments. CBO Financial connects North Carolina projects with regional CDEs deeply familiar with the state’s development landscape and national CDEs with available allocation, navigating compliance requirements while ensuring projects advance NMTC loan objectives aligned with state economic development strategies.
Eligible Projects and Borrowers
North Carolina projects eligible for NMTC financing address urgent infrastructure and economic development needs across the state’s diverse regions. Life sciences and biotechnology projects leverage North Carolina’s concentration of pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, and the Research Triangle Park ecosystem. Laboratory facilities, biomanufacturing plants, clinical research organizations, contract development and manufacturing operations, and medical device production facilities qualify when located in eligible census tracts and create accessible employment opportunities.
Healthcare infrastructure projects remain critically important given significant disparities in healthcare access between urban centers and rural communities. Rural hospital stabilization and expansion projects, federally qualified health centers, specialty clinics, behavioral health facilities, dental clinics, and urgent care centers all qualify when serving underserved populations. North Carolina’s challenges with maternal mortality in rural areas and the closure of rural hospitals make healthcare facilities particularly compelling NMTC candidates.
Advanced manufacturing facilities represent a strong NMTC opportunity given North Carolina’s manufacturing heritage and ongoing industrial evolution. Automotive parts suppliers, aerospace component manufacturers, furniture production facilities, textile operations utilizing advanced technologies, and clean energy equipment manufacturers qualify when demonstrating job creation in low-income communities. The state’s automotive manufacturing cluster—anchored by facilities in the Charlotte region—creates supply chain opportunities for NMTC-financed supplier operations.
Food processing and agricultural infrastructure projects address both economic development and food security needs. Value-added agriculture facilities, meat processing operations, seafood processing plants leveraging North Carolina’s coastal resources, craft beverage production, and food distribution centers qualify for NMTC support. Technology and innovation spaces—including incubators, accelerators, makerspaces, and research parks—qualify when spurring economic development in transitioning communities or serving underserved entrepreneurs.
Renewable energy projects align with North Carolina’s growing clean energy sector. Solar panel manufacturing, battery component production, and renewable energy installations providing community benefits qualify for financing. Tourism and cultural heritage facilities—including museums, performing arts venues, cultural centers, and hospitality infrastructure—support North Carolina’s significant tourism economy, particularly in regions like Asheville and the Outer Banks.
Educational facilities such as charter schools, early childhood education centers, STEM learning facilities, and workforce training centers address academic needs and qualify for NMTC support. Downtown revitalization projects in cities like Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Asheville, Wilmington, and smaller communities leverage NMTC to transform underutilized properties into vibrant mixed-use developments. Historic building rehabilitation, combining state and federal historic tax credits with NMTC, creates powerful structures for adaptive reuse projects.
Eligible borrowers include for-profit businesses, nonprofit organizations, and local government entities developing qualified projects. The borrower must demonstrate substantial service to low-income communities and prove that NMTC financing is essential to project feasibility. CBO Financial creates comprehensive capital stacks leveraging CDFI financing requirements that combine NMTC with conventional debt, equity, North Carolina Department of Commerce incentives, Job Development Investment Grants, historic tax credits, and other complementary funding sources tailored to North Carolina’s development environment.
Benefits of the NMTC Program for North Carolina
The NMTC Program delivers substantial economic benefits to North Carolina communities while providing borrowers with competitive financing terms. The 39% tax credit significantly reduces effective capital costs, often enabling projects to achieve debt service coverage ratios that satisfy lenders while maintaining operational sustainability. For capital-intensive projects common in North Carolina—biopharmaceutical facilities, advanced manufacturing plants, healthcare campuses, large-scale mixed-use developments—this cost reduction frequently determines project viability.
Beyond financial mechanics, NMTC investments generate measurable community impact aligned with North Carolina’s development priorities. Job creation remains a central metric, with projects committing to create or retain positions accessible to low-income individuals. In North Carolina’s rural counties and distressed urban neighborhoods, where unemployment rates often exceed state averages and economic opportunity concentrates in metropolitan areas, quality job creation carries substantial importance for reducing inequality and maintaining community viability.
NMTC projects catalyze significant private investment—each allocation dollar typically attracts multiple additional capital dollars, multiplying the program’s economic multiplier effect. This leverage proves especially important in North Carolina’s rural counties and smaller cities, where individual projects can substantially impact local economies. A manufacturing facility creating 100 jobs in Robeson County or a mixed-use development anchoring downtown revitalization in Rocky Mount represents a ransformative investment at the community scale.
North Carolina’s economically distressed counties—particularly in the eastern and western regions—benefit substantially from NMTC’s ability to finance projects serving essential community needs despite challenging market conditions. Healthcare facilities in Tier 1 counties (North Carolina’s most distressed designation), food retailers in rural food deserts, manufacturing operations in former textile communities, and downtown revitalization in declining small cities become feasible through NMTC’s cost reduction.
The program provides patient capital with flexible repayment structures. Unlike conventional loans requiring immediate full debt service, NMTC transactions often feature interest-only periods during initial years, allowing projects to stabilize operations before principal payments commence. This flexibility proves valuable for projects with extended lease-up periods or serving markets with limited immediate revenue potential. To evaluate your North Carolina project’s NMTC potential, schedule your free project analysis with CBO Financial’s specialized team.
Regulatory & State Development Framework
North Carolina’s robust economic development infrastructure strongly supports NMTC deployment through comprehensive state and local programs. The North Carolina Department of Commerce administers numerous incentive programs that complement NMTC financing, including the Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG), One North Carolina Fund, Rural Economic Development Division programs, and various industry-specific initiatives. Understanding how to layer these state incentives with federal NMTC benefits can dramatically enhance project economics.
The state’s county tier system—designating counties as Tier 1 (most distressed), Tier 2, or Tier 3 based on economic indicators—provides enhanced incentives for projects in more economically challenged areas. Many Tier 1 and Tier 2 counties contain substantial NMTC-eligible geography, creating opportunities to maximize combined state and federal benefits.
The Golden LEAF Foundation, funded by North Carolina’s tobacco settlement, provides grants and financing for economic development projects, particularly in rural and tobacco-dependent communities. These funds can complement NMTC transactions in qualifying areas. For projects involving historic preservation, North Carolina’s state historic rehabilitation tax credit provides substantial financial benefits when combined with federal historic credits and NMTC.
Regional partnerships, including the Research Triangle Foundation, the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, the Piedmont Triad Partnership, and various regional development organizations, provide project support and help navigate local incentive programs. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center supports life sciences projects through grants and financing that can complement NMTC structures.
For rural projects, North Carolina’s participation in various USDA programs, including Business & Industry Loan Guarantees and Community Facilities programs, provides additional financing options that can be layered with NMTC. The North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center coordinates many rural development initiatives and can facilitate connections to appropriate resources.
CBO Financial ensures projects meet both federal NMTC compliance requirements and North Carolina’s state regulatory framework. We coordinate timing between NMTC closing schedules, state incentive applications through the Department of Commerce, local approval processes, environmental reviews, and historic preservation reviews where applicable. Our experience with North Carolina’s business-friendly regulatory environment and understanding of regional economic development priorities streamlines project execution across the state’s diverse markets.
Get Started with NMTC Financing in North Carolina
Suppose you’re developing a project in a North Carolina low-income community. In that case, whether in Charlotte’s urban neighborhoods, the Research Triangle’s innovation districts, eastern North Carolina’s rural communities, or Appalachian counties in the west, NMTC financing merits thorough evaluation. The program’s capacity to reduce capital costs while attracting impact-focused investment to underserved areas makes it uniquely powerful for addressing North Carolina’s development challenges, particularly economic disparities between thriving metropolitan regions and struggling rural counties.
CBO Financial’s approach begins with a comprehensive project assessment: verifying census tract eligibility, analyzing community impact potential, evaluating NMTC suitability relative to North Carolina’s numerous other incentive programs, including JDIG and county tier benefits, and identifying optimal CDE partners. We then develop customized capital stacks that may combine NMTC with conventional debt, equity investments, state incentives, Golden LEAF funding, historic tax credits, and other complementary sources.
North Carolina clients benefit from our established relationships with CDEs, tax credit investors, and lenders highly active in the state’s dynamic markets. We understand North Carolina’s unique development context—the state’s life sciences and pharmaceutical strengths, the automotive manufacturing cluster’s supply chain opportunities, the challenges facing rural communities, the opportunities in growing metropolitan areas, and the regulatory considerations across diverse county contexts. This North Carolina-specific expertise increases NMTC allocation success rates and streamlines transaction execution.
Project size shouldn’t discourage NMTC exploration. North Carolina transactions range from $3 million projects in rural communities to $100 million developments in major metro areas, all successfully closing using sophisticated structuring approaches. Early engagement with experienced advisors who understand both NMTC mechanics and North Carolina’s specific development environment maximizes success potential. Connect with NMTCA advisory support professionals at CBO Financial today to discover how NMTC can transform your North Carolina community development vision into reality.