In an important update for HUBZone companies, SBA has announced that its HUBZone map will remain frozen until June 30, 2023.
Curious what this might mean for your business? Let’s unpack it together.
In the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress required SBA to allow small businesses located in an expiring redesignated area to retain their HUBZone eligibility until SBA updated its HUBZone map. This update was to occur based on data included in the 2020 Census.
SBA believed that this data would be available and updates to its HUBZone map would be completed by December 31, 2020. So, based on the NDAA, SBA updated its definition of a HUBZone small business concern to include state:
A concern that was a certified HUBZone small business concern as of December 12, 2017, and that had its principal office located in a redesignated area set to expire prior to January 1, 2020, shall remain a certified HUBZone small business concern until December 31, 2021, so long as all other HUBZone eligibility requirements are met.
Until Census data was available to update its maps, SBA “froze” the HUBZone map—meaning, essentially, that businesses located in these redesignated areas would retain their HUBZone status until the maps were updated.
As you might expect, though, data from the 2020 Census has been delayed. SBA now believes that it won’t have the needed information until December 2022.
To account for these delays—and to give impacted HUBZone concerns time to digest and plan for any changes—SBA has extended its freeze of the HUBZone map until June 30, 2023.
If your HUBZone business is located in an expired redesignated area, this change means that you might still qualify for HUBZone eligibility.
Maintaining HUBZone eligibility can be tricky. If you have any questions, please give us a call.