Picking a credit program and competition bucket — Nevada

What you are actually choosing

The Nevada Housing Division (NHD), inside the Department of Business & Industry, runs both credit types out of one office — there's no CTCAC/CDLAC-style split into two agencies. But the two processes still behave differently. 9% credits are rationed against a small, fixed annual pool filled through a single scored competition. 4% credits are federally as-of-right once a project's tax-exempt bonds clear the Nevada State Board of Finance — and for 2026, NHD returned that process to first-come-first-served after running it as a scored competition in 2025.

A third program sits on top of both, and it's the real Nevada-only wrinkle: the Nevada Transferable Tax Credit (TSTC). It isn't a parallel state low-income housing credit the way California and other states run one — Nevada has no corporate income tax to attach a credit to. Instead it's a credit good against the Modified Business Tax, gaming license fees, and the insurance premium tax, transferable to anyone who can use it (NRS 360.860–360.870).

The 2026 bond-test change NHD built its process around

NHD says so directly in its own QAP: "U.S. Congress passed H.R. 1, or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which lowered the bond threshold test from 50% to 25%," and that change is what let the Division "return to a first-come, first-serve basis" for 2026 (QAP § 3.1) — the same federal amendment to 26 U.S.C. § 42(h)(4)(B), enacted as section 70422(b) of Public Law 119-21, that reset the 4% math nationally.

Volume cap itself doesn't belong to NHD alone. Under NRS 348A.020, the Director's office receives 50% of Nevada's private activity bond state ceiling automatically every year; the other 50% is split among local governments in proportion to population. A seven-member Private Activity Bond Council — chaired by the Director, meeting at least twice a year — advises the Governor, the Board of Finance, and the Director on how the ceiling is allocated (NRS 348A.050, 348A.060). Because of that split, a Nevada bond application has to show either a transfer of at least 50% of the needed cap from the project's own city or county, or an Endorsement from that jurisdiction in lieu of a smaller transfer (NAC 319.711, 319.7115; QAP § 8.1(1)) — a relationship that runs through local government, not NHD.

Two different competitions, not two flavors of one

9% scoring tops out at 97 points, with a floor of 60% of that total to be eligible for an award at all. Applications are ranked inside whichever set-aside or geographic sub-account they selected, and a tie is broken first by the lowest ratio of gross ten-year credit request to total project cost (QAP § 7.5): an $8,000,000 ten-year request against a $10,000,000 total project cost is an 80.00% ratio, and the lower ratio wins. If that still ties, the QAP sends the tie to "a lottery pursuant to NAC 319.990" — a citation worth verifying directly with NHD before relying on it (see the closing section below).

Inside that ranking sits a scoring mechanic worth knowing before you pick a project type: Section 7.2 groups applications by category — senior, family, individuals, special needs, mixed income, mixed use, veterans preference, alternative materials, tribal — within each geographic sub-account, and only the two highest-scoring applications of each type actually earn points on that dimension. Being the strongest example of an under-represented category in your county can be worth more than raw excellence against every applicant statewide.

The 4%/bond side works differently in kind, not just in numbers. Every application starts at 60 points once it clears the pre-application threshold, up to 40 more are available, and 70 of the resulting 100 is the floor — but that floor only decides who reaches NHD's own scarce dollars (GAHP loans and the Transferable Tax Credit), because the federal 4% credit itself isn't rationed by score once the bonds are approved (QAP § 8.2).

Bucket election: set-asides, geography, and a waterfall that doesn't slam doors

Losing a set-aside bid in Nevada isn't the one-way door it is in some larger states. Section 2.4.1 sends an eligible application that doesn't win its requested set-aside straight into the geographic account it already selected — no re-filing required. The real one-way door sits upstream, at filing: Section 1.1 requires applicants to check every category and geographic box they want scored, and "an application will only be scored for the category and geographic boxes selected." A box left unchecked at submission isn't available later.

One mercy valve runs through every account except Nonprofit: the 5% Rule (QAP § 2.3.2). If the credits remaining in a set-aside, geographic account, or general pool are 95% or more of what the next-highest-scoring unfunded applicant requested, that applicant can accept the smaller amount — without reopening scoring — as long as they can still prove the project is viable and agree in writing.

The instrument neither California nor Texas has: Nevada's Transferable Tax Credit

A project sponsor applies for a TSTC Certificate of Eligibility on the same application used for tax-exempt bonds (QAP § 3.1; NRS 360.867). Threshold points come from depth of targeting — 1 point per unit restricted between 30% and 50% AMI, 2 points per unit at or below 30% AMI — with a floor of 8 threshold points below 200 units and 12 points at 200 units or more (QAP Appendix C, § D3).

The 270-day closing clock applies to TSTC reservations too, with the same structure as the LIHTC version: proof of site control, a licensed contractor agreement, adequate construction financing, and an executed permanent-financing commitment, with one 45-day extension available on a showing the delay was unforeseeable and outside the sponsor's control (NRS 360.867(6)(a)).

The same bond application also doubles as the application for NHD's Growing Affordable Housing Program (GAHP) loan funds. The 2026 QAP folds GAHP into the same Section 8.2 scoring but doesn't publish separate GAHP guidelines in this document — get current GAHP terms directly from NHD rather than relying on the QAP alone.

Calendar, cost of entry, and what follows you

The 270-day rule (NAC 319.981) requires proof of site ownership, a licensed contractor agreement, all preconstruction approvals, adequate construction financing, and an executed permanent-financing commitment — one 45-day extension is available on request before the deadline, with further extensions at NHD's discretion.

Debarment and score-reduction grounds (QAP § 16) include a felony conviction or an active fraud/misrepresentation investigation, a prior project lost to foreclosure or deed in lieu, material misrepresentation to the Division, and failure to pay any mandated fee. Separately from all of that: requesting a waiver of any QAP requirement costs 3 points automatically, win or lose the underlying request.

What's genuinely unsettled going into 2026

Section 7.5's tie-break lottery cites "NAC 319.990," but the currently codified NAC Chapter 319 runs from Section 319.985 straight to Section 319.995 — there is no Section 319.990 in the chapter as published. Confirm the actual lottery mechanism with NHD directly before relying on the QAP's own cross-reference, the same kind of stale-numbering trap that shows up in other states' QAPs after a renumbering.

2026 is the first year Nevada has run 4% bonds first-come-first-served since briefly returning to a scored competitive process for 2025. The QAP frames the switch back as a direct, one-year-old response to OBBBA's bond-test change — there's no multi-year track record yet on how fast a round actually fills, or whether NHD reverts to scoring again if demand outruns the volume cap it actually controls.

The QAP doesn't publish how much of the Director's 50% share of Nevada's private activity bond ceiling has historically gone to LIHTC bonds specifically, versus other private-activity uses — single-family mortgage revenue bonds, industrial development bonds, student loans — that draw on the same pool under NRS 348A.020. That competition for the state's half of the volume cap sits outside the QAP and needs to be checked directly with NHD or the Private Activity Bond Council.