Arkansas's performance-based incentives are nationally competitive and user-friendly. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission will focus on your business's specific needs, and design an incentive package to accommodate your needs.
The Consolidated Incentive Act of 2003 updated many of Arkansas's incentive programs to locate them under one code of law, §15-4-2701 et seq., and make the combination of incentives more flexible. Arkansas's job-creation incentives are based on payroll instead of number of jobs and use a tier system to determine the qualification criteria and benefits, depending on where the business locates or expands their operations in Arkansas.
Arkansas's tier system ranks each county, based on poverty rate, unemployment, per capita income and population growth. Tiers are assigned annually on July 1, based on the previous year's statistics.
In addition to an array of competitive incentives, when a business locates in Arkansas, it can take advantage of the following additional benefits:
- Favorable unemployment insurance and workers' compensation rates
- A reduced sales tax rate on manufacturing utilities
- A sales/use tax exemption on manufacturing machinery and equipment
- A right-to-work state, as guaranteed by the Arkansas Constitution; and
- Favorable individual and corporate income tax rates.