LA — State Policy Updated 2026-07-17

Louisiana

1) Incentive programs

  • Data Center Sales and Use Tax Exemption (La. R.S. 47:305.73(C); Act 730 / HB 827, 2024): Louisiana’s current statute exempts state and local sales and use taxes on eligible data center equipment and qualified development, construction, lease, repair, refurbishment, expansion, and renovation expenditures for approved data center facilities. Eligible purchases must be made on or after July 1, 2024; projects must attest to at least 50 new direct permanent jobs and at least $200 million of new Louisiana capital investment made on or after July 1, 2024 and before July 1, 2029. The agreement term is 20 years, with one 10-year renewal possible, and LED may terminate agreements and allow recovery of taxes if commitments are not met. Louisiana Legislature, accessed 2026-06-10

  • Conversion from rebate to exemption: The current law now states that eligible data center purchases and expenditures “shall not apply” to state and local sales and use taxes, and the statute records the 2024 Third Extraordinary Session amendments effective December 4, 2024 that repealed prior rebate language. Louisiana Legislature, accessed 2026-06-10

  • Statutory environmental conditions: The statute itself does not impose a renewable-energy, clean-energy, or emissions condition on eligibility; it instead authorizes LED to include additional conditions in project agreements. Louisiana Legislature, accessed 2026-07-17

  • New incentive conditions ordered in 2026: Executive Order 26-058, signed June 25, directs LED to develop a Ratepayer and Community Protection Framework and incorporate it as conditions in every agreement under R.S. 47:305.73(B) for eligibility and continued participation in the Data Center Sales and Use Tax Exemption and related incentives. Before a new or continuing beneficiary proceeds, LED must evaluate the project’s demands on water, electric generation and transmission, land, and other natural resources against its benefits. The eventual framework must require full funding of incremental power infrastructure, grid-resiliency investment, workforce and community commitments, meaningful local-tax-base contributions, resource stewardship, and transparency. The order required proposed criteria within 90 days; as of July 17, the framework was still under development rather than a finalized rule. Office of the Governor of Louisiana, 2026-06-25 Louisiana Economic Development, 2026-06-25

  • Quality Jobs and Enterprise Zone: LED’s Quality Jobs and Enterprise Zone pages state that the programs sunset on June 30, 2025 and that no new advance notifications are accepted after that date. Louisiana Economic Development, accessed 2026-06-10 Louisiana Economic Development, accessed 2026-06-10

  • High Impact Jobs Program (HIP): HIP is now open as a general jobs incentive. LED lists reimbursable grants equal to 18% of wages for jobs paying at least 125% of the parish average and 22% for jobs paying at least 150%, generally under a three-year contract with a possible two-year renewal. The earliest claim date is July 1, 2026 or after 12 months of payroll, whichever is later; active HIP and Quality Jobs contracts cannot cover the same period. Louisiana Economic Development, accessed 2026-07-17

  • Amazon incentive package: LED’s February 2026 Amazon announcement says the state offered workforce development through LED FastStart and expects Amazon to participate in both HIP and the Data Center Sales Tax Exemption program. Louisiana Economic Development, 2026-02-23

  • Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP): ITEP remains a property-tax abatement program for qualifying manufacturing projects, with Board of Commerce and Industry consideration and governor approval; whether a data center qualifies depends on the project’s classification and facts. Louisiana Economic Development, accessed 2026-06-10

  • Restoration Tax Abatement (RTA): RTA remains a local property-tax abatement for qualifying renovations and improvements to existing structures in specified districts, generally with a five-year term and possible five-year renewal subject to local, Board of Commerce and Industry, and governor approval. Louisiana Economic Development, accessed 2026-06-10

  • State business tax reform: Louisiana’s 2024 Act 6 / HB 3 repealed the corporate franchise tax for corporate franchise tax periods beginning on or after January 1, 2026, a broad tax change relevant to capital-intensive operators but not a data-center-specific incentive. Louisiana Legislature, 2026-01-01

2) Restrictions and moratoriums

  • No statewide moratorium or resource-reporting statute enacted in 2026: The regular session adjourned June 1. HB 922 (ratepayer protection), HB 1206 (water permitting and reporting), and SB 490 (private-use electrical networks) all failed to become law. The June 25 executive order adds conditions to state incentives but does not prohibit unincentivized projects or itself create a statewide siting moratorium. Louisiana Legislature, accessed 2026-07-17 Louisiana Legislature, accessed 2026-07-17 Louisiana Legislature, accessed 2026-07-17 Office of the Governor of Louisiana, 2026-06-25

  • New Orleans moratorium and permanent-rule study (local): On January 28, the City Council imposed a one-year interim zoning pause and directed the City Planning Commission to develop definitions and permanent standards. The proposed New Orleans East developer then withdrew its zoning request. In March the Commission heard substantial resident opposition centered on electricity, water, pollution, noise, and neighborhood compatibility and deferred its recommendations while staff continued its research; the interim regime remained the operative policy at the July 17 cutoff. New Orleans City Council, 2026-01-28 KRVS/WWNO, 2026-01-29 Verite News, 2026-03-25 City of New Orleans City Planning Commission, accessed 2026-07-17

  • St. Charles Parish moratorium rejected, then regulations adopted: St. Charles Parish rejected an eight-month data center moratorium on April 7, 2026, voting 5-3 against a pause while no large-scale data center proposal was pending; on June 3, 2026, local reporting said the parish unanimously approved its first data center zoning regulations, allowing data centers in M-1 and M-2 industrial districts if they meet standards for definitions, setbacks, landscaping, buffering, equipment screening, and noise. St. Charles Herald Guide, 2026-04-07 St. Charles Herald Guide, 2026-06-03

  • State water-permitting proposal did not pass: HB 1206 would have required data centers with proposed consumptive water use above 100 million gallons per year to obtain a permit from the Department of Conservation and Energy, submit water-usage reports, and trigger public notice and hearings for certain permits; it remained pending in House Natural Resources after April 28 consideration. Louisiana Legislature, 2026-04-28 Louisiana Legislature, 2026-04-28

3) Local governance

  • Local zoning remains the primary siting control: The New Orleans moratorium and St. Charles Parish regulations show that, absent statewide siting preemption, land-use controls for data centers continue to be set mainly through city and parish zoning processes. New Orleans City Council, 2026-01-28 St. Charles Herald Guide, 2026-06-03

  • Community opposition patterns: 2026 local debates focused on power demand, water use, noise, buffering, neighborhood impacts, and whether local rules existed before projects appeared. New Orleans cited electricity and water concerns, while St. Charles residents and council members debated water, energy, noise, definitions, and whether a moratorium was needed before zoning standards were complete. New Orleans City Council, 2026-01-28 St. Charles Herald Guide, 2026-04-07 St. Charles Herald Guide, 2026-06-03

  • Shreveport permit litigation resolved at trial-court level: On April 20, a Caddo Parish judge dismissed a challenge to the Shreveport City Council’s special-use permit for Amazon’s Resilient Technology Park campus, holding that the Council’s reversal of the Metropolitan Planning Commission was not arbitrary or capricious. The decision removed a roughly 90-day legal hold and allowed the third northwest Louisiana campus to proceed, although the plaintiffs were considering an appeal. New Orleans CityBusiness/The Center Square, 2026-04-21

  • Caddo temporary-workforce-housing proposal stalled: On July 6, the Caddo Parish Commission did not advance a proposed ordinance that would have required temporary worker camps in unincorporated areas to register and meet health, fire, sanitation, lighting, fencing, and occupancy standards. The proposal was prompted by anticipated data-center construction labor, but parish counsel advised that the Commission lacked authority to enact it; a separate rainwater-capture initiative was also being discussed. The Center Square via yourNEWS, 2026-07-07 KSLA, 2026-07-07

  • West Feliciana property-tax rebate authority: HB 466 became Act 434 on May 29, effective January 1, 2027. It authorizes the parish government, school board, and law-enforcement district to grant taxpayers a percentage credit against the following year’s ad valorem taxes, but only by unanimous annual agreement of the parish president, school-board president, and sheriff. This is a local fiscal-distribution tool rather than a data-center exemption, but it was enacted as West Feliciana’s Hut 8 PILOT revenues were coming into view. Louisiana Legislature, 2026-05-29 West Feliciana Parish Government, accessed 2026-07-17

4) Legislative activity (2024-2026)

  • 2024 - Act 730 (HB 827): Enacted in 2024, Act 730 created the data center incentive framework that now appears in La. R.S. 47:305.73(C), including the 50-job, $200 million investment, 20-year term, and one 10-year renewal structure. Louisiana Legislature, 2024-07-01

  • 2024 - Fiscal note for Act 730: The Legislative Fiscal Office warned that the program could reduce state and local sales-tax bases by tens of millions of dollars or more per year for 20 to 30 years and did not provide a net-benefit or cost-per-job analysis. Louisiana Legislative Fiscal Office, 2024-05-28

  • 2025 - HIP replacement for legacy jobs incentives: Act 372 created HIP effective July 1, 2025, while Quality Jobs and Enterprise Zone stopped accepting new advances after June 30, 2025. Louisiana Legislature, 2025-07-01 Louisiana Economic Development, accessed 2026-06-10 Louisiana Economic Development, accessed 2026-06-10

  • 2026 - HB 922 (ratepayer cost protection): HB 922 would have barred electric utilities from increasing household customer rates as a direct or indirect result of new data center electric demand and would have required all costs associated with new data center demand to be allocated solely to the data center customers causing that demand through special contracts, tariffs, or rate classes. It remained pending in House Commerce after April 21, 2026 consideration and did not pass before final adjournment. Louisiana Legislature, 2026-04-21 Louisiana Legislature, 2026-04-21

  • 2026 - HB 1206 (water permitting and reporting): HB 1206 would have added data-center-specific water permits, annual reports, public notice, hearings, penalties, and project identifiers; it remained pending in House Natural Resources after April 28, 2026 consideration and did not pass before final adjournment. Louisiana Legislature, 2026-04-28 Louisiana Legislature, 2026-04-28

  • 2026 - SB 490 (private-use electrical networks): SB 490 would have created a statutory pathway for privately owned generation, storage, and electrical networks serving large commercial, industrial, and digital-infrastructure loads, while excluding qualifying networks from treatment as public utilities and directing LPSC implementation. It reached the Senate floor but remained subject to call and died at adjournment. LPSC opened its own rulemaking on the same subject in Docket R-37905. Louisiana Legislature, 2026-04-13 Louisiana Legislature, accessed 2026-07-17 Louisiana Public Service Commission, accessed 2026-07-17

  • 2026 - HB 466 / Act 434 (West Feliciana ad valorem rebates): The only enacted 2026 measure in this review with a direct local fiscal connection to a major data-center host parish was Act 434, described above; it becomes effective for tax years beginning January 1, 2027. Louisiana Legislature, 2026-05-29

  • 2026 - HR 197 and SR 174 (adopted studies): HR 197 asks LPSC to study distributed generation, storage, and virtual power plants in response to rapid demand growth including data centers and report 45 days before the 2027 session. SR 174 reestablishes the Task Force on Energy Infrastructure and Modernization through March 2028 to examine self-generation, industrial microgrids, merchant generation for co-located large loads, expedited permitting, reliability, and residential-rate protections. These resolutions direct studies but do not create project approvals or binding tariffs. Louisiana Legislature, 2026-05-13 Louisiana Legislature, 2026-05-29

  • 2026 - Executive Order 26-058: After the session, the governor used LED’s existing agreement authority to order the incentive-linked Ratepayer and Community Protection Framework; proposed criteria are due within 90 days of June 25 and require gubernatorial approval before implementation. Office of the Governor of Louisiana, 2026-06-25

5) Notable projects

  • Meta / Hyperion - Richland Parish: On July 13, Meta and LED confirmed an expansion from the original $10 billion plan to more than $50 billion, nearly 10 million square feet, and 5 GW of IT capacity. The expanded project is expected to support 7,500 peak construction jobs and about 1,000 operating jobs; LED estimates another 1,900 indirect jobs. Meta also committed more than $1 billion to local roads, water, and wastewater infrastructure and said it would return 100% of facility water consumption to local watersheds through replenishment and restoration projects. The associated generation and transmission expansion remains pending in LPSC Docket U-37882. Louisiana Economic Development, 2026-07-13 Louisiana Public Service Commission, 2026-04-02

  • Meta / Entergy expanded power agreement pending: Entergy’s March 27 agreement calls for seven additional gas-fired plants totaling more than 5,200 MW, three grid-scale batteries, potential nuclear uprates and purchased power, up to 2,500 MW of renewable generation, and about 240 miles of high-voltage transmission under a 20-year service agreement. Entergy projects more than $2 billion of customer savings and says Meta will pay its full cost of service, but those are company projections and the resource package still requires LPSC approvals. Entergy Louisiana, 2026-03-27 Louisiana Economic Development, 2026-07-13

  • Amazon / STACK - Caddo and Bossier parishes: On February 23, 2026, LED announced Amazon’s planned $12 billion multi-campus data center investment in Caddo and Bossier parishes, developed with STACK Infrastructure, with expected operations in phases over several years. LED said the project is expected to create 540 direct jobs, 1,700 indirect jobs, and up to 1,500 construction jobs; Amazon worked with SWEPCO so that Amazon pays 100% of costs for new energy infrastructure and upgrades required to serve the campuses. Louisiana Economic Development, 2026-02-23

  • Amazon / Resilient Technology Park status: The April 20 trial-court decision upheld the Shreveport special-use permit and cleared the Resilient Technology Park campus to move forward alongside the Caddo and Bossier sites already under development. New Orleans CityBusiness/The Center Square, 2026-04-21

  • Applied Digital / Delta Forge 1 - Rapides Parish: The former Project Lightning is now formally announced as Delta Forge 1, a $3.6 billion AI-factory campus near Boyce. Its initial two facilities will total 300 MW of critical IT load on roughly 300 acres, use closed-loop cooling, and receive power from Cleco. LED projects 200 direct jobs, 218 indirect jobs, and more than 1,000 peak construction jobs; site work began in January and initial operation is expected in mid-2027. Applied Digital qualified for the Data Center Sales and Use Tax Exemption. Louisiana Economic Development, 2026-05-26

  • Hut 8 - River Bend, West Feliciana Parish: River Bend is under construction with 245 MW of commercialized IT capacity supported by 330 MW of utility service, a 15-year, $7 billion Fluidstack lease, and potential expansion to 1 GW. Hut 8 lists Phase 1 investment of up to $10 billion, about 1,000 construction jobs, and 75-plus operating jobs. In March it entered a cooperative agreement to fund more than $16 million of parish water infrastructure; in June it agreed to prepay $10 million of its first PILOT payment on July 1, 2026, one year before the regular payment schedule begins. Hut 8, accessed 2026-07-17 West Feliciana Parish Government, accessed 2026-07-17

  • New Orleans East proposals: New Orleans’ January 2026 action was tied to concern over a proposed New Orleans East data center and citywide zoning gaps, but the Council’s official release frames the action as a temporary citywide pause while definitions and standards are studied rather than a final project approval or denial. New Orleans City Council, 2026-01-28

Notes and gaps