Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives

The National Park Service and the Internal Revenue Service, in partnership with the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), administer the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives. Information regarding federal tax credits is available on the NPS website.

Who Qualifies?

The National Park Service provides a program summary that outlines eligibility.
Qualified rehabilitation expenditures must meet the IRS definition of a substantial rehabilitation in order to qualify for credit.
The property must be a certified historic structure as defined by the National Park Service.
The rehabilitation must meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. Applications are subject to a joint review by the SHPO and the NPS. (Note that local historic preservation review boards do not have any review or approval authority for historic preservation tax credit purposes.)
The property must be income producing and depreciable.
After rehabilitation, the building must be owned by the same owner and operated as an income-producing property for five years.

Participants are strongly advised to consult a qualified tax advisor and/or the Internal Revenue Service for help in determining tax and financial implications of participation in this program.

Submitting Federal HTC Projects to the SHPO for Review

Download and complete the federal historic preservation certification applications, available from the National Park Service.

Applications must be completed as outlined in the NPS-issued instructions.
Failure to provide the information identified on the form may result in the SHPO requesting more information and, therefore, a delay in your project’s review.

Download and complete the submission checklist.
Each digital application and all other project material should be provided as separate PDFs with the files named accordingly (e.g., "Maps," "Photos," "Existing Plans" and "Proposed Plans"). Please follow NPS directives for file naming. Mislabeled files will be returned to applicants for correction. Reference the Electronic File Format Standards and File Naming Conventions and Photo Naming Conventions, JPEG Requirements and Photo Sheet Examples.
Create a new email with the “To” address as [email protected] and the following subject line format: “Review Request – SHPO project number (if previously assigned), any federally associated project numbers, application part, project title and/or address.” Example: Review Request – 2023-001, 12345 (federally issued number only), Part 2, Historic Property Name, Property Address with City.
Attach the completed application forms, the submission checklist and your other project material attachments to the email. Note: Our system cannot receive emails exceeding 10 MB in size. If your submission contains large files, you may provide this information to our office via a large-file transfer service such as your organization’s FTP system, Dropbox, One Drive or Google Drive. If your organization does not have access to a large-file transfer service, you may request the SHPO to send you an FTP upload request from the State of Missouri system. Requests should be submitted to [email protected]. Include the subject line "Request for HTC FTP Upload."
Press “Send” to email your project submission to the SHPO. Projects received during business hours will be marked as received that day. Projects received outside of business hours will be logged the next business day. SHPO staff will send you an email confirming receipt of your application.

Any questions you may have about the submission process may be sent to [email protected], or you may call 573-751-7860.

All applicants to the Federal Historic Tax Credit program are advised to wait for signed approval from the NPS on their proposed scope of work before undertaking any demolition or construction work on the project. Any work performed without signed approval is done at your own risk. If you perform work that does not meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, it can have financial consequences at the end of the project.