The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program provides vital financing for economic development projects across Wyoming’s distinctive communities. From Cheyenne’s urban corridors to Casper’s energy transition zones, from Jackson’s tourism districts to tribal lands throughout the state, NMTC financing enables transformative investments in areas where traditional capital markets fall short. CBO Financial partners with Wyoming developers, energy sector companies, tourism enterprises, healthcare providers, and tribal organizations to structure financing solutions that strengthen the Equality State’s economy while addressing unique challenges, including energy sector volatility, geographic isolation, extreme weather impacts, and the urgent need for economic diversification beyond extractive industries. Wyoming’s resource-based economy—characterized by energy production, tourism and outdoor recreation, agriculture, manufacturing, and emerging technology sectors—creates significant opportunities for strategic NMTC deployment. The program offers a 39% federal tax credit to investors who provide capital to qualified projects in low-income communities, substantially reducing borrowing costs and making economically vital projects financially feasible. Whether you’re developing energy transition projects, expanding tourism infrastructure in gateway communities, creating healthcare facilities in frontier counties, or building economic development projects on tribal lands, NMTC financing can provide the capital advantage necessary to move your project forward in Wyoming’s challenging markets.
How the NMTC Program Works in Wyoming
The NMTC Program functions through certified Community Development Entities (CDEs) authorized by the U.S. Treasury’s CDFI Fund to make Qualified Low-Income Community Investments (QLICIs) throughout Wyoming. Projects must be situated 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 remaining four years.
Wyoming contains eligible geography across its cities, towns, and rural areas despite being the least populous state. Cheyenne, the state capital and largest city, features qualifying census tracts. Casper, Laramie, Gillette, Rock Springs, and other communities contain eligible geography. Rural Wyoming—particularly counties dependent on declining coal production, agricultural areas facing consolidation, and communities throughout the state experiencing boom-and-bust energy cycles—presents widespread NMTC opportunities due to economic volatility, limited diversification, and population challenges.
Tribal lands represent significant NMTC opportunities in Wyoming. The Eastern Shoshone Tribe and Northern Arapaho Tribe share the Wind River Indian Reservation, the state’s only reservation, where conventional capital access remains severely constrained and poverty rates significantly exceed state averages.
The program supports sectors fundamental to Wyoming’s economic priorities: energy transition projects, including renewable energy and carbon management;; tourism and outdoor recreation infrastructure;; healthcare and behavioral health facilities;; advanced manufacturing operations;; technology and innovation spaces;; agricultural processing facilities;; and community facilities serving rural and tribal populations. CBO Financial connects Wyoming projects with regional and national CDEs, navigating compliance requirements while ensuring projects advance CBO’s objectives aligned with state economic development goals.
Eligible Projects and Borrowers
Wyoming projects eligible for NMTC financing address critical infrastructure and economic development needs across the state’s unique landscape. Energy transition projects represent significant NMTC opportunities as Wyoming diversifies its energy economy. Renewable energy equipment manufacturing, wind turbine component production, solar panel assembly, carbon capture and sequestration technology, hydrogen production facilities, battery storage systems, and natural gas processing operations qualify for NMTC support when serving community development objectives and creating accessible employment.
Tourism and outdoor recreation infrastructure leverage Wyoming’s natural attractions, including Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Hotels and lodging facilities in gateway communities, guest ranches, outdoor recreation facilities, cultural centers, museums, adventure tourism operations, and tourism support infrastructure qualify when located in eligible census tracts and create jobs in low-income communities. Wyoming’s tourism economy provides substantial opportunities for projects that extend economic benefits beyond peak seasons and traditional tourist corridors.
Healthcare infrastructure projects remain critically important given Wyoming’s challenge of maintaining healthcare access across its vast, sparsely populated geography. Critical access hospital improvements and expansions, rural health clinics, Indian Health Service facility enhancements, behavioral health treatment centers, substance abuse treatment facilities, dental clinics, and telehealth infrastructure qualify when serving underserved populations. Wyoming’s challenges with mental health access, substance abuse, suicide rates, and rural provider recruitment make healthcare facilities particularly compelling NMTC candidates.
Advanced manufacturing facities,, including equipment production, precision machining operations, and specialized compmanufacturingur qualify fororng job creation in low-income communities. Food processing and agricultural infrastructure projects—including meat processing operations, specialty food production, value-added livestock products, and farm-to-market distribution—support Wyoming’s ranching and farming economy.
Technology and innovation spaces—including business incubators, coworking facilities, data centers leveraging Wyoming’s tax advantages, and research facilities—qualify when supporting economic diversification in communities dependent on cyclical energy industries. Educational facilities such as charter schools, early childhood education centers, tribal schools, STEM learning facilities, and workforce training centers address academic needs and qualify for financing.
Downtown revitalization projects in communities like Rawlins, Sheridan, Evanston, Riverton, and Lander leverage NMTC to restore aging commercial districts and create modern business infrastructure. Community facilities, including recreation centers, libraries, cultural centers that preserve ranching heritage and Native American culture, and mixed-use developments that provide essential services in small towns, qualify for NMTC support.
Eligible borrowers include for-profit businesses, nonprofit organizations, tribal entities and enterprises, and local government authorities. Tribal projects on the Wind River Reservation require specialized structuring given unique jurisdictional considerations. CBO Financial creates comprehensive capital packages that leverage the benefits of cCDFIcertification, combining NMTC with conventional debt, equity, tribal lending programs, state incentives, USDA financing for agricultural and rural projects, and other complementary sources tailored to Wyoming’s development landscape.
Benefits of the NMTC Program for Wyoming
The NMTC Program delivers tangible economic benefits to Wyoming communities while providing borrowers with advantageous financing structures essential in the state’s small, capital-constrained markets. The 39% tax credit substantially reduces effective capital costs, often enabling projects to achieve debt service coverage acceptable to lenders while maintaining operational viability. For capital-intensive projects common in Wyoming—tourism facilities, healthcare campuses, manufacturing plants, energy infrastructure—this cost reduction frequently determines whether projects proceed or remain unrealized.
Beyond financial mechanics, NMTC investments generate significant community impact. Job creation and retention constitute primary program objectives, with projects committing to creating positions accessible to low-income individuals. In Wyoming’s small communities, where even modest job creation carries substantial impact and where energy sector downturns can devastate local economies, quality jobs providing economic stability are particularly important for community sustainability.
Wyoming’s energy-dependent communities benefit substantially from NMTC’s ability to finance economic diversification projects. Towns that experienced boom times during energy expansions but face severe downturns during busts need more stable, diversified economic foundations. NMTC-financed tourism facilities, healthcare centers, manufacturing operations, and technology projects help these communities build resilience against energy sector volatility.
The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes benefit from NMTC’s improved capital access for projects on the Wind River Reservation. Healthcare facilities, cultural tourism enterprises, natural resource management operations, and commercial developments financed through NMTC support tribal sovereignty and economic self-determination in a community facing some of Wyoming’s highest poverty rates.
NMTC projects catalyze significant private investment—each allocation dollar typically attracts multiple additional capital dollars, multiplying the program’s economic effect. This leverage proves especially important in Wyoming’s capital-scarce environment, where conventional lenders often perceive elevated risk in thestate’ss small markets and cyclical economy.
The program provides patient capital with flexible repayment terms. Unlike conventional loans requiring immediate full debt service, NMTC structures often feature interest-only periods during initial years, allowing projects to stabilize operations before principal payments commence. This flexibility proves especially valuable for tourism projects with seasonal revenue patterns or energy-related projects navigating market volatility. To evaluate your Wyoming project’s NMTC potential, submit a free project analysis with CBO Financial’s specialized team.
Regulatory & State Development Framework
Wyoming’s economic development ecosystem supports NMTC deployment through various state-level programs and agencies. The Wyoming Business Council, the state’s economic development agency, administers incentive programs that complement NMTC financing, including the Business Ready Community Grant and Loan Program, Community Facilities Program, Workforce Development Training Fund, and various industry-specific initiatives. Understanding how to layer these state resources with federal NMTC benefits can significantly enhance project economics.
Wyoming’s favorable tax environment—including no corporate income tax, no personal income tax, and low property taxes—provides inherent advantages for businesses. However, direct financial incentive programs are more limited than in many other states. The Wyoming Community Development Authority provides financing tools that may complement NMTC transactions.
For tribal projects, coordination with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes and tribal economic development offices facilitates project development. CBO Financial brings specialized experience structuring NMTC transactions for tribal enterprises, navigating Bureau of Indian Affairs requirements, tribal employment rights ordinances, and trust land lending considerations unique to reservation projects.
Regional and local economic development organizations—including Forward Cheyenne, Casper Area Economic Development Alliance, Albany County Economic Development, and various county and municipal development entities—provide project support and help identify available resources. Wyoming’s small population means personal relationships and community support often prove crucial for project success.
For agricultural projects, the University of Wyoming Extension and the Wyoming Department of Agriculture provide technical assistance. USDA programs administered through Wyoming’s state office, including Business & Industry Loan Guarantees, Rural Energy for America Program, and Value-Added Producer Grants, often complement NMTC structures for agricultural and rural projects.
For tourism projects, coordination with the Wyoming Office of Tourism and regional travel and tourism organizations can provide validation and marketing support. For energy projects, relationships with the Wyoming Energy Authority and the School of Energy Resources at the University of Wyoming can provide technical expertise.
CBO Financial ensures projects meet both federal NMTC compliance requirements and Wyoming’s regulatory framework. We coordinate timing between NMTC closing schedules, Wyoming Business Council program applications, tribal government approvals for reservation projects, local approval processes, and environmental reviews. Our understanding of Wyoming’s business-friendly regulatory environment, small-market dynamics, and the importance of community relationships in the state’s close-knit business community streamlines project execution.
Get Started with NMTC Financing in Wyoming
If you’re developing a project in a Wyoming low-income community—whether in Cheyenne or Casper, energy-transition towns, the Wind River Reservation, or small rural communities across the state—NMTC financing deserves serious consideration. The program’s capacity to reduce capital costs while directing investment to underserved areas makes it uniquely powerful for addressing Wyoming’s development challenges, particularly supporting economic diversification beyond energy, maintaining viability in small communities facing population challenges, and supporting tribal economic development.
CBO Financial’s process begins with a comprehensive project evaluation: verifying census tract eligibility, analyzing community impact potential, assessing NMTC suitability relative to other financing options, including Wyoming Business Council programs and tribal resources, and identifying optimal CDE partners with experience in frontier markets. We then construct customized capital stacks that may combine NMTC with conventional debt, equity investments, state programs, tribal lending programs for reservation projects, and USDA programs for agricultural and rural initiatives.
Wyoming clients benefit from our established relationships with CDEs, tax credit investors, and lenders experienced with small-market, rural transactions. We understand Wyoming’s unique development context—the energy sector’s cyclicality and importance, the opportunities in tourism and outdoor recreation, the challenges of extreme weather and geographic isolation, the potential on tribal lands, and the specialized considerations for projects in America’s least populous state. This Wyoming-specific expertise streamlines the NMTC process and increases allocation success rates.
Project size shouldn’t deter NMTC exploration. While Wyoming’s small population means projects are often more modest than in larger states, transactions ranging from $2 million to $40 million regularly close using creative structuring approaches tailored to the state’s markets. The key is early engagement with experienced advisors who understand both NMTC mechanics and Wyoming’s specific development landscape. Connect with NMTCP projects in Maryland professionals at CBO Financial today to discover how NMTC can make your Wyoming community development project a reality.