SECTION 3. ENERGY COMMUNITY

APPENDICES

This notice provides new Appendices 1, 2, and 3 to list counties that satisfy both the Fossil Fuel Employment and the unemployment rate criteria for eligibility as an energy community, and list additional census tracts that satisfy the Coal Closure criteria for eligibility as an energy community.

(1) Appendix 1: Appendix 1 to this notice utilizes the two “vintages” of delineations of MSAs and non-MSAs used in determining Statistical Area Category eligibility. These vintages are described in Notice 2025-31. The first, termed “Vintage 1,” reflects groupings of county and county-equivalents into MSAs and non-MSAs generally based on the 2010 Decennial Census. Appendix A to Notice 2023-29 contains these Vintage 1 initial delineations of MSAs and non-MSAs used in determining Statistical Area Category eligibility in Notice 2023-29, Notice 2023-45, Notice 2023-47, Notice 202430, and Notice 2024-48. The second, termed “Vintage 2,” reflects groupings of county and county-equivalents into MSAs and non-MSAs generally based on the 2020 Decennial Census. Appendix 1 to Notice 2025-31 lists these Vintage 2 delineations of MSAs and non-MSAs. Both vintages are used in determining eligibility for Statistical Area Category eligibility in Notice 2025-31 and this notice. Appendix 1 to Notice 2025-31 lists each county

or county-equivalent as well as its MSA or non-MSA, as applicable, for both Vintage 1 and Vintage 2. Counties may have changed MSA or non-MSA, as applicable, between the two vintages.

Appendix 1 is a list of counties and county-equivalents that qualify as energy communities as part of Vintage 1, Vintage 2, or both, because they meet the Fossil Fuel Employment threshold as of the Census Bureau’s publication of the 2023 County Files of the County Business Patterns (CBP) ⁶ and have an unemployment rate at or above the national average unemployment rate for calendar year 2025 as described in § 45(b)(11)(B)(ii)(II) and section 3.03(3) of Notice 2023-29. ⁷ A county or county-equivalent qualifies as an energy community only if it meets the criteria for both the Fossil Fuel Employment threshold and the unemployment rate under the same “vintage.” Appendix 1 uses the 2025 calendar year county unemployment rates released on May 19, 2026, by the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) ⁸ to include MSAs and non-MSAs that meet the Fossil Fuel Employment threshold ⁹ and that also have an unemployment rate at or above the national average unemployment rate for calendar year 2025. ¹⁰ The energy community status for the MSAs and non-MSAs listed in Appendix 1 is applicable as of June 9, 2026, and that status will continue until the Treasury Department and the IRS issue an updated list based on unemployment rates for 2026.

(2) Appendix 2: Appendix 2 lists the newly identified census tracts with either a coal mine closure or a coal-fired electric generating unit retirement (collectively referred to as “coal closures”), and census tracts that directly adjoin the census tracts

with coal closures, using the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA) Mine Data Retrieval System data and the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s EIA Form 860 and EIA Form 860M data as of May 4, 2026, and historical extracts from the MSHA’s Mine Data Retrieval System that enumerates each status change for a mine. Appendix 2 should be combined with Appendix C to Notice 2023-29, Appendix 3 to Notice 202347, Appendix 2 to Notice 2024-48, and Appendix 4 to Notice 2025-31 to provide the full list of coal closure census tracts that are eligible as energy communities for projects placed in service or located in these tracts, as applicable, after the release of Notice 2025-31 on June 22, 2025.

(3) Appendix 3: Appendix 3 lists those census tracts contained in Appendix 2 that newly qualify as coal closure census tracts because of location data corrections issued since the publication of Notice 2025-31 on June 22, 2025. Projects placed in service or located in these tracts, as applicable, after December 31, 2022, that would have been EC Projects but for their location outside an energy community that are located in a census tract listed in Appendix 3 are eligible to claim the energy community bonus for taxable years starting after December 31, 2022.