Release of the Census 2020 Island Areas Datasets and Updated 2016-2020 American Community Survey Census Transition FAQs

CDFI Program, NACA Program, BEA Program, and NMTC Program updated Census transition documents and datasets.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) recently released updated guidance and geographic eligibility data files for CDFI Certification, the Community Development Financial Institutions Program (CDFI Program), Native American CDFI Assistance Program (NACA Program), Bank Enterprise Award Program (BEA Program), New Markets Tax Credit Program (NMTC Program), and CDFI Rapid Response Program (CDFI RRP Program). The update of this information—based on more recent, Census Bureau 2016-2020 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates data and 2020 Decennial Census data—is part of a larger effort to ensure that the data used to determine the eligibility for CDFI Certification and CDFI Fund programs is current and reflective of current socioeconomic and demographic information. This announcement provides additional updates regarding the documents and specific CDFI Fund programs described below.

  • Release of Island Areas Eligibility Files: The eligibility files for the Island Areas cover American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands. The Island Areas eligibility files are based on the 2020 Island Areas Decennial Census data. The files for the following programs are available:
  • Updated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Documents: With this announcement, the CDFI Fund is providing updated FAQs documents with additional questions and answers to address implementation and transition issues that have been raised since the documents were first released in 2023. The updated FAQs document can be found on the CDFI Fund’s website at www.cdfifund.gov/research, under Geographic-Based Reports.
  • CDFI Program, NACA Program, and CDFI RRP Program Transaction Level Report (TLR) Submissions: All CDFI Program, NACA Program, and CDFI RRP Program Financial Assistance Award Recipients may continue using the ACS 2011-2015 5-year data series for their TLR submissions until June 30, 2024. Any TLR submission whose deadline falls after June 30, 2024, must use the ACS 2016-2020 5-year data series for determining eligibility of their transactions. The 2016-2020 data has been deployed in AMIS. Additional information on the CDFI Program, NACA Program, and CDFI RRP Program data transition is available in the FAQs document referenced above.
  • Corrected High Migration Rural Census Tracts Listing:The “New Markets Tax Credit Low-Income Community Census Tracts & High Migration Rural Tracts - American Community Survey 2016-2020 eligibility file” originally released in September 2023, has been updated to address a technical correction to the list of high migration rural census tracts. The number of high migration rural census tracts that qualify as eligible for NMTC investment based on the 2016-2020 ACS data now stands at 168 census tracts. The updated eligibility file is available here. 

For questions related to the ACS transition, contact the CDFI Fund’s Office of Financial Strategies and Research via email at CDFI-FinancialStrategiesandResearch@cdfi.treas.gov, with the subject line "ACS Question."

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