The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program drives essential investment throughout South Carolina’s economically diverse communities. From Charleston’s urban neighborhoods to Greenville’s revitalizing corridors, from Columbia’s opportunity zones to the textile-transition communities of the Upstate and rural counties across the Lowcountry and Pee Dee regions, NMTC financing unlocks capital for transformative projects in areas where conventional lending remains insufficient. CBO Financial collaborates with South Carolina developers, automotive manufacturers, healthcare systems, technology companies, and community organizations to structure comprehensive financing solutions that strengthen the Palmetto State’s economy while addressing persistent challenges in former textile mill communities and rural areas experiencing economic transition.
South Carolina’s dynamic economy—characterized by automotive manufacturing, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, distribution and logistics, tourism and hospitality, agriculture, and emerging technology sectors—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 expanding automotive supply chain operations serving BMW, Volvo, or Mercedes-Benz facilities, developing healthcare infrastructure in rural counties, creating mixed-use developments in Spartanburg or Anderson, or building advanced manufacturing facilities in the I-85 corridor, NMTC financing delivers the capital advantage necessary for project success.
How the NMTC Program Works in South 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 South 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.
South Carolina contains extensive eligible geography across its metropolitan areas, smaller cities, and rural communities. Charleston, the state’s largest metro area, features numerous qualifying census tracts in North Charleston and throughout the region. Columbia, Greenville, and Spartanburg contain substantial eligible areas. Former textile mill communities throughout the Upstate—including Anderson, Gaffney, Union, Laurens, and numerous smaller towns—present widespread NMTC opportunities due to textile industry decline and manufacturing job losses. Rural South Carolina—particularly counties in the Pee Dee region, Lowcountry, and along the I-95 corridor—contains extensive eligible geography due to agricultural transition, limited economic diversification, and persistent poverty.
The program supports sectors central to South Carolina’s economic priorities: automotive supply chain manufacturing, aerospace component production, advanced manufacturing operations, distribution and logistics facilities, healthcare infrastructure, technology and innovation spaces, food processing and agricultural value-chain facilities, tourism and cultural heritage infrastructure, and mixed-use urban developments. CBO Financial connects South Carolina projects with regional and national CDEs, navigating compliance requirements while ensuring projects advance NMTC for real estate projects objectives aligned with state economic development strategies.
Eligible Projects and Borrowers
South Carolina projects eligible for NMTC financing address critical infrastructure and economic development needs across the state’s diverse regions. Automotive supply chain projects represent a firm fit given South Carolina’s concentration of automotive assembly and tier-one suppliers. Parts manufacturing facilities, tooling and die operations, automotive plastics and components production, and logistics operations supporting the automotive cluster all qualify when located in eligible census tracts and create accessible employment opportunities. South Carolina’s automotive ecosystem—anchored by BMW in Spartanburg County, Volvo in Berkeley County, and Mercedes-Benz Vans in Charleston County—creates substantial supply chain opportunities for NMTC-financed operations.
Aerospace manufacturing facilities producing commercial and defense aircraft components, precision machining operations, composite materials production, and aviation maintenance facilities qualify for NMTC support. South Carolina’s aerospace cluster, supported by Boeing’s presence in Charleston and numerous suppliers statewide, offers significant opportunities. Advanced manufacturing facilities, including plastics production, chemical manufacturing, machinery production, and metal fabrication operations, qualify when demonstrating job creation in low-income communities.
Healthcare infrastructure projects remain critically important given 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. SoutCarolina’s’s challenges with maternal mortality, rural healthcare provider shortages, and hospital closures in rural counties make healthcare facilities particularly compelling NMTC candidates.
Distribution and logistics facilities leverage South Carolina’s strategic location and extensive port infrastructure. Warehousing operations, fulfillment centers, cold storage facilities supporting the food industry, and intermodal logistics operations qualify when creating jobs in low-income communities. Food processing and agricultural infrastructure projects—including poultry processing, produce packing and distribution, specialty crop processing, and value-added agrarian facilities—support South Carolina’s agricultural sector.
Technology and innovation spaces—including business incubators, accelerators, coworking facilities, and research centers—qualify when spurring economic development in transitioning textile communities or serving underserved entrepreneurs. Educational facilities such as charter schools, early childhood education centers, STEM learning facilities, and workforce training centers address academic needs and qualify for financing.
Tourism and cultural heritage facilities—including museums preserving African American and Gullah Geechee heritage, performing arts venues, cultural centers, and hospitality infrastructure—support South Carolina’s significant tourism economy. Downtown revitalization projects in cities like Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg, Rock Hill, Sumter, and Florence leverage NMTC to transform underutilized properties into vibrant mixed-use developments.
Historic mill building rehabilitation represents a particular opportunity in South Carolina’s Upstate. Former textile mills throughout the region require adaptive reuse, and combining state and federal historic tax credits with NMTC creates powerful financial structures for transforming these structures into modern commercial, residential, and mixed-use facilities.
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 through CDFI loans that combine NMTC with conventional debt, equity, South Carolina Department of Commerce incentives, county-level fee-in-lieu-of-tax agreements, historic tax credits, and other complementary funding sources optimized for South Carolina’s development environment.
Benefits of the NMTC Program for South Carolina
The NMTC Program delivers substantial economic benefits to South 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 South Carolina—automotive manufacturing facilities, aerospace production plants, distribution centers, healthcare campuses—this cost reduction frequently determines project viability.
Beyond financial mechanics, NMTC investments generate measurable community impact aligned with South Carolina’s development priorities. Job creation remains a central metric, with projects committing to create or retain positions accessible to low-income individuals. In South Carolina’s distressed communities—whether in former textile mill towns, rural agricultural counties, or urban neighborhoods—quality job creation carries substantial importance for reducing the state’s poverty rates and providing economic opportunity.
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 South Carolina’s rural counties and former mill towns, where individual projects can substantially impact local economies. A manufacturing facility creating 200 jobs in the Upstate or a mixed-use development anchoring downtown revitalization in a Pee Dee community represents a transformative investment at the community scale.
South Carolina’s textile-transition communities particularly benefit from NMTC’s capacity to finance economic diversification projects. Communities that relied on textile manufacturing for generations now need new economic engines, and NMTC-financed advanced manufacturing facilities, technology centers, healthcare infrastructure, and downtown revitalization projects help these communities build sustainable, diversified economies.
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 those ramping up production operations. To evaluate your South Carolina project’s NMTC potential, schedule your project analysis with CBO Financial’s experienced team.
Regulatory & State Development Framework
South Carolina’s robust economic development infrastructure strongly supports NMTC deployment through comprehensive state and local programs. The South Carolina Department of Commerce administers numerous incentive programs that complement NMTC financing, including the Job Development Credits, Corporate Headquarters Credit, Workforce Training Grants, and various infrastructure support programs. Understanding how to layer these state incentives with federal NMTC benefits can dramatically enhance project economics.
South Carolina’s county-level economic development structure means that fee-in-lieu-of-tax (FILOT) agreements negotiated with counties provide substantial property tax benefits that can complement NMTC. These county-level incentives vary significantly across South Carolina’s 46 counties, and understanding local dynamics is essential for optimizing total project incentives.
The South Carolina Jobs-Economic Development Authority (JEDA) provides tax-exempt bond financing and other tools that may complement NMTC transactions. For projects involving historic preservation—significant in former textile mill communities—the state historic tax credit program provides financial benefits when combined with federal historic credits and NMTC.
Regional economic development organizations—including the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, Upstate SC Alliance, Central SC Alliance, and various county economic development offices—provide project support and help navigate local incentive programs. readySC, the state’s nationally recognized workforce training program, provides customized training for new and expanding companies at no cost, adding significant value to projects.
For manufacturing projects, partnerships with the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership and technical colleges throughout the state strengthen project feasibility. South Carolina’s 16 technical colleges provide workforce training closely aligned with industry needs.
The South Carolina Ports Authority facilitates logistics and distribution projects requiring port access or international trade connectivity. For agricultural projects, Clemson University’s cooperative extension and research programs can provide technical assistance and validation.
CBO Financial ensures projects meet both federal NMTC compliance requirements and South Carolina’s state and county regulatory frameworks. We coordinate timing between NMTC closing schedules, Department of Commerce incentive applications, county FILOT negotiations, local approval processes, environmental reviews, and historic preservation reviews where applicable. Our understanding of South Carolina’s county-based incentive system and relationships with regional economic development organizations streamlines project execution across the state’s diverse markets.
Get Started with NMTC Financing in South Carolina
If you’re developing a project in a South Carolina low-income community—whether in Charleston or Columbia’s urban neighborhoods, Upstate textile-transition communities, rural Pee Dee or Lowcountry counties, or along the I-85 or I-95 corridors—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 South Carolina’s development challenges, particularly supporting automotive supply chain growth, textile community economic transitions, and rural economic diversification.
CBO Financial’s approach begins with a comprehensive project assessment: verifying census tract eligibility, analyzing community impact potential, evaluating NMTC suitability relative to South Carolina’s numerous state and county-level incentive programs, and identifying optimal CDE partners. We then develop customized capital stacks that may combine NMTC with conventional debt, equity investments, Department of Commerce incentives, county FILOT agreements, historic tax credits, and other complementary sources.
South Carolina clients benefit from our established relationships with CDEs, tax credit investors, and lenders highly active in the state’s competitive markets. We understand South Carolina’s unique development context—the automotive cluster’s supply chain opportunities, the aerospace sector’s growth trajectory, the challenges facing former textile communities, the importance of port access for logistics projects, and the nuances of county-level economic development dynamics. This South Carolina-specific expertise increases NMTC allocation success rates and streamlines transaction execution.
Project size shouldn’t discourage NMTC exploration. South Carolina transactions range from $3 million projects in rural communities to $100 million developments in major metros, all successfully closing using sophisticated structuring approaches. Early engagement with experienced advisors who understand both NMTC mechanics and South Carolina’s specific development environment maximizes success potential. Connect with new market tax credit consultants and requirements professionals at CBO Financial today to discover how NMTC can transform your South Carolina community development vision into reality.