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Sixteen Lucas County tracts named federal Opportunity Zones as Treasury approves Ohio's new map

Toledo, Ohio • November 8, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

Downtown Toledo, Ohio, skyline across the Maumee River at dusk

Photo: ToledoBuzz

Sixteen census tracts in Lucas County will become federal Opportunity Zones on January 1, 2027, after the U.S. Treasury signed off on Ohio's new map — putting Lucas County among the counties with the most designated tracts in the state.

The governor's office released the approved list on Thursday, November 5. Statewide, the map holds 260 zones, each one a census tract — a neighborhood-sized area drawn by the Census Bureau. Only three Ohio counties received more zones than Lucas County, according to a count of the state's list.

Nine of Lucas County's 16 tracts were also zones under the first version of the program, which began in 2018. The rest of northwest Ohio got a smaller share: Erie County has two zones, and Wood, Ottawa, Sandusky, Huron, Defiance, Williams, Seneca and Hancock counties have one each. Allen County has five, and Lorain County has five as well.

The new zones will remain in effect through December 31, 2036 — a 10-year run.

The designation is part of a national reset. On November 5, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service designated 6,576 census tracts across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories as Qualified Opportunity Zones. Ohio's 260 tracts rank fifth nationally, behind California with 620, Texas with 608, New York with 430 and Florida with 342.

Opportunity Zones are low-income census tracts where investors who put capital gains into Qualified Opportunity Funds can defer — and in some cases exclude — federal taxes on what they earn there. The program was made permanent by the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which also set a new map every 10 years and added enhanced incentives for rural tracts. Ohio's new map has 96 wholly rural tracts out of 260, down from 320 tracts in the first round, which covered 73 of the state's 88 counties; the new zones span 75 counties. Ohio also offers a separate 10% state tax credit for qualifying investments made through an Ohio Qualified Opportunity Fund.

The designations themselves do not announce any particular local construction project, investment amount or new jobs. They set the map: for the next decade, investment in those 16 Lucas County tracts carries a federal tax break that investment elsewhere in the county does not.

Sources: Lake Erie Inquiry, "Sixteen parts of Lucas County become federal tax-break zones in January" (Nov. 8, 2026); Firelands Current, "Erie County gets 2 new Opportunity Zones; Huron, Ottawa and Sandusky get 1 each" (Nov. 6, 2026); Greenberg Traurig, "Treasury and IRS Publish Opportunity Zone 2.0 Designations: 6,576 Census Tracts Effective Jan. 1, 2027" (Nov. 6, 2026).