Agencies Release List of Distressed or Underserved Nonmetropolitan Middle-Income Geographies

US banking agencies released the 2026 list of distressed or underserved nonmetropolitan middle-income geographies on June 30, the Federal Reserve announced, with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issuing a matching release the same day, per its news-release page.

Per the Federal Reserve's release, the issuing agencies are the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the OCC. The list identifies geographies where revitalization or stabilization activities are eligible to receive consideration under the Community Reinvestment Act, and the designations reflect local economic conditions including unemployment, poverty and population changes, per the agencies.

Eligible activities in designated areas receive CRA consideration for 12 months following publication, per the release, and a one-year lag period applies to geographies that appeared on the 2025 list but were removed from the current one — a transition rule that prevents in-flight projects from abruptly losing eligibility. The specific geographies designated this cycle sit in the list itself and were not carried in the announcement text.

Background

The Community Reinvestment Act, enacted in 1977, directs federal banking regulators to assess how well banks meet the credit needs of the communities they serve, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. CRA performance ratings carry practical weight: regulators take them into account when banks apply for mergers, acquisitions and branch openings, which gives institutions a durable incentive to seek qualifying activities.

The distressed-or-underserved list extends CRA credit beyond income-based criteria to rural America. Middle-income census tracts outside metropolitan areas can qualify as distressed on measures such as unemployment, poverty and population loss, or as underserved based on remoteness from population centers. Banks financing community facilities, infrastructure or economic development in the designated tracts can have that activity counted in their evaluations. The three agencies have published the list annually for years, making the release a routine but consequential fixture of the compliance calendar for banks with rural footprints.

What comes next

The new designations govern CRA consideration for the 12 months following publication, so banks and community development lenders would ordinarily map the current list against their markets and pipeline projects, with particular attention to tracts dropped from the 2025 list, where the one-year lag period sets the deadline for qualifying activity. The list itself, published alongside the agency releases, carries the tract-level detail.