Empire Zones

Please click here for the latest news regarding New York State’s Empire Zone program.

Summary

New York State’s Empire Zone program was created to stimulate economic growth through a variety of State tax incentives designed to attract new businesses to New York State and to enable existing businesses to expand and create more jobs.

Today, there are over 9,800 certified businesses employing more than 380,000 people in 82 Empire Zones statewide. A map of the 82 zone locations may be found by reviewing the Empire Zones “NYS Zone Map” section of Empire State Development’s website. Legislation authorizing designation of an empire zone in every county will result in 85 zones statewide before the end of 2007.


Eligibility & Certification

To participate in the Empire Zones Program, a business must first be located in an empire zone, or qualify as a regionally significant project, and become zone certified. To qualify for certification, a business must be able to demonstrate that it will create new jobs and/or make investments in the empire zone and be consistent with the local zone’s development plan, including a cost-benefit analysis.

Applications approved by local zone officials are then forwarded to the State for review and approval by the Departments of Economic Development (Empire State Development) and Labor. Contact your local zone coordinator to discuss whether your business qualifies for zone certification. Once a business is certified it is eligible to claim tax credits, subject to requirements and performance based formulas set in Tax Law. You may download an application for submittal to your local zone coordinator from our website by clicking here.