What Missouri’s Expanded Tax Credit Program Means for Rural Affordable Housing Development
Date Posted: September 22, 2026
Posted In: Discussion,
by Chris Fields, Foss & Co.
Historic tax credits have funded multifamily and affordable housing development in older buildings for decades. Missouri’s recent legislative changes have now expanded this funding source. Gov. Mike Kehoe signed House Bill 3080 on July 13, 2026, restoring and expanding the state’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit program under a new name: the Missouri Historic, Rural Revitalization and Development Act.
For developers working on adaptive reuse and historic rehabilitation projects, the changes are significant. The credit rate for qualifying rural projects, those located outside St. Louis and Kansas City, rises from 25 to 35 percent of qualified rehabilitation expenditures (QRE).
Combined with the federal historic tax credit, which provides a 20 percent credit on QRE costs, projects in rural areas can now access a combined credit rate of up to 55 percent. For investors, the higher rural rate means more deals can be financed in smaller markets. Projects that weren’t viable at 25 percent now work at 35 percent, expanding sourcing opportunities outside St. Louis and Kansas City.
Combining federal and state historic tax credits is a well-established strategy in Missouri. However, it is not always well understood by developers working with the program for the first time.
City Foundry STL, a $217 million redevelopment of a 1929 foundry in Midtown St. Louis, illustrates how federal and state historic tax credits can be combined. Foss & Co. invested in $30.8 million of federal historic tax credits and $22.4 million of Missouri historic tax credits generated by the rehabilitation. Those credits provided a source of equity that would not have been available for a comparable ground-up development.
Why Rural Markets Matter
Missouri’s historic tax credit program dates to 1998, one of the earliest state-level programs in the United States.
For most of its history, credit-funded projects concentrated heavily in St. Louis and Kansas City, leaving smaller markets like Joplin, St. Joseph and Hannibal without the same access to capital for historic rehabilitation. Since fiscal year 2001, the state has completed 2,169 federal historic tax credit projects, according to the 2026 National Park Service data compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
St. Louis and Kansas City account for roughly 1,750 of these projects, about 80 percent of the statewide total. Outside of the two major cities, St. Joseph has completed 53 projects, Joplin has done 16 and Hannibal has finished 10. This documented pattern has fed a perception in smaller communities that the program mainly benefits the state’s biggest cities. For investors, it also reflects a concentrated deal history that has left rural markets underserved.