Dallas County has nominated 60 census tracts for the next round of federal Opportunity Zones, more than any other county in Texas, while neighboring Tarrant County's list jumped from seven tracts to 20. The new designations are scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2027, under a permanent version of the decade-old tax incentive program, and local developers are already eyeing which blocks of Dallas-Fort Worth could see fresh capital.
Gov. Greg Abbott finalized the state's nominations on Sept. 4, 2026, submitting what Texas officials describe as 605 census tracts statewide, according to CRE Daily. Other reporting on the rollout, including from Bisnow, has put the statewide total at 608 nominated tracts, a discrepancy that has not been resolved in public records reviewed so far. Either way, the nominations are not final: per Jackson Walker, they still require formal acceptance by the U.S. Treasury before the designations lock in.
Dallas and Tarrant Counties Reshape Their Maps
The City of Dallas itself has 44 nominated zones among the county's 60, Bisnow's reporting shows, with city economic development officials noting separately that Dallas has 175 census tracts eligible for consideration under the updated federal criteria. The city's Office of Economic Development has published a working map of those tracts and is asking for public feedback, according to the City of Dallas Office of Economic Development.
Tarrant County's new list looks almost nothing like its old one. The county submitted 20 nominations this time, including Uptown Fort Worth and neighborhoods in and around Southside, Meadowbrook, Haltom City, Watauga and Hurst, the same CRE Daily report notes — and none of Tarrant County's original Opportunity Zones were resubmitted for the new program. Denton County's nominated zones grew from three to seven, and Collin County's grew from one to three, per Bisnow's account.
A Permanent Tax Break With a Rolling Clock
The original Opportunity Zone program traces back to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, enacted in 2017 to incentivize economic development in underinvested parts of the country, designating roughly 8,000 census tracts nationwide. Texas attracted nearly $8 billion in investment under that first program, according to Bisnow's reporting, while Colorado and Utah together pulled in nearly $8.5 billion. The new version, created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, makes the Opportunity Zone incentive permanent, with the first post-enactment round of designations taking effect Jan. 1, 2027, and new rounds following every 10 years, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
Unlike the original program's fixed timeline, the new structure offers a rolling, project-based 10-year tax break, meaning investors can use the program's benefits regardless of when they started work on a project, Bisnow reports. State and county officials have said they selected zones where projects can create jobs and grow the tax base over the next two to four years, and Texas has generally shifted its nominated zones from largely rural areas toward more urban tracts, the same outlet notes.
Developers Already Circling Specific Dallas Tracts
Multifamily-focused developer Savoy Cos. says it seriously considered three DFW Opportunity Zones under the original program but is excited about 25 of Dallas's 44 newly nominated tracts this time around, with most of its existing Dallas projects concentrated in North Oak Cliff and The Cedars — tracts that will be redesignated as zones under OZ 2.0. The firm has raised nearly $100 million of equity for 25 Opportunity Zone projects across Texas, according to Bisnow's reporting.
Kelly Ann Winget, who co-founded an Opportunity Zone fund in 2023, told Bisnow that her firm, Alternative Wealth Partners, plans to move microindustrial manufacturing companies from outside Texas into newly nominated zones, with interest in placing jobs in areas such as Sherman and the stretch between Greenville and Texarkana. The newly nominated tracts north of McKinney span Grayson, Fannin, Hunt, Lamar and Bowie counties, and Winget's firm views DFW broadly as a strong option for microindustrial manufacturing given its central location and logistics infrastructure, per the same report.
What National Data Says About Opportunity Zones' Track Record
Nationally, cumulative qualified Opportunity Zone investment had grown to $112 billion by 2024, according to a working paper from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis. Real estate has drawn more than 90% of that Opportunity Zone investment, and roughly 77% of the nearly 8,000 designated tracts nationwide had received some investment by the end of 2024, according to Bisnow's figures.
A broader analysis from the Brookings Institution, covering 7,174 of the 7,826 designated Opportunity Zone tracts from 2018 through 2025, found that building activity in the zones rose 9% per year compared with the two years before the program began, and that 46% of designated zones saw building activity jump by at least 15%. But the same analysis found only 26% of Opportunity Zone tracts experienced growth without displacement — a reminder that designation alone does not guarantee a neighborhood avoids the downsides of new investment.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has cautioned that an Opportunity Zone designation does not guarantee a tract will see even a dollar of capital. That matters for Texas's more rural nominated zones in particular: the Dallas Fed found that 60% of the state's Opportunity Zones sit in at least partially rural census tracts, compared with 38% of all Texas tracts, and that private investors based in urban areas may be more inclined to look at metro markets than rural ones. For now, which of Dallas-Fort Worth's newly nominated tracts actually attract builders will depend on where investors decide they can get the best returns — a decision private capital, not the nomination list itself, will ultimately make.
