Montana Feasibility Studies

The property tax law in the first screen reaches every commercial project in Montana. HB 231 and SB 542 put commercial and industrial property on two statutory rates split by market value from tax year 2025, and from 2026 they tax a home that is neither a principal residence nor in long-term rental, which takes in short-term rentals, at a residential rate of its own ¹. A pro forma drafted before May 13, 2025, when the bills became law, carries a tax line written for the old schedule.

On the demand side the population rose because people moved in: net migration of +7,247 in the year to July 2025 against a gain of +7,137, with natural change at -90 ⁴⁵. The payroll count for August 2026, set beside August 2025 in the payroll section, is the other demand record, and the sectors behind it point different asset classes in different directions.

The third thread is local. In 2025 and 2026 data center proposals reached Yellowstone, Cascade, Silver Bow and Missoula counties, and county commissioners, a ballot initiative and the Montana Supreme Court shaped what became of them ¹⁵¹⁶¹³. They bear on any project that needs land in an industrial park, a large water allocation or a new electric load.

The seven markets on this page stand on population, payroll and local rules. A reading on hotels, self-storage, industrial or retail space or senior housing for any of them was not found in a public primary source, and each section says what its own record holds. The sections follow the data center thread first, Missoula and Butte, then Billings and the federal construction at Great Falls, then Bozeman and Kalispell, and Helena last.

The Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 release estimates 1,144,694 Montana residents for July 1, 2025; its estimates base for April 1, 2020 is 1,084,221 ³. In the year to July 2025 the state added +7,137 people, as Montana Free Press reported the release on January 30, 2026 ⁵. The Daily Inter Lake's report of February 3 gives the components: net migration of +7,247, of which +6,348 was domestic, and natural change of -90, births less deaths ⁴. Montana Free Press put international arrivals at just under 900 ⁵.

For a demand model that means two things. Arrivals from other states carry the count, so a project whose customers are households, a clinic or a grocery, a school or an apartment building, leans on migration continuing, and the county where arrivals settle matters more than the state total. And the state total sums very different counties: the market sections give 2025 figures for Gallatin, Missoula and Silver Bow counties and 2020 counts for Yellowstone, Cascade and Lewis and Clark, and a study takes its own county's Vintage 2025 figure from the Census table.

Household measures from the register, five-year ACS estimates and BEA's income per person, describe the state as a whole:

Missoula County's commissioners voted unanimously on July 9, 2026 for a one-year interim zoning moratorium on new or expanded data centers outside Missoula's city limits; it expires on July 8, 2027 ¹⁵. In the same county a proposal at Bonner by Krambu, an Idaho-based developer, stalled after the Bonner Mill Industrial Park's general manager removed his signature from the application ¹⁵.

In Butte-Silver Bow a local group filed an initiative that would require two-thirds of registered voters to approve any new or expanded data center in a special election. The Montana Supreme Court ordered the measure onto the November ballot on September 22, 2026 and vacated the order on September 24, because ballots had already been mailed ¹⁶¹⁵.

In Yellowstone County, Quantica Infrastructure, the developer of the Big Sky Campus near Broadview, signed an agreement with a union federation in June 2026 that Montana Free Press described as thin on details ²⁵. In Cascade County, TAC Data Centers' Project Cardinal was proposed in June 2025 at 600 MW; DatacenterDynamics reported the project in NorthWestern Energy's transmission study queue, with the developer saying progress had been slow and timelines were still unclear ²⁶.

The utility side is in NorthWestern Energy's own release of December 17, 2024, which names the Yellowstone County Generating Station and additional Colstrip capacity from January 2026 and reports a letter of intent with a data center developer ²⁷. Montana Free Press reported in February 2026 that water-use disclosures for data center proposals were in short supply ²⁸.

A published queue total for Montana was not found, and neither was a statewide sewer moratorium. For a project that is not a data center the record still matters: a site in Missoula County outside the city, a parcel in a Butte industrial park or a large new load in NorthWestern territory is read against these dates, and the utility's written terms for the site are the evidence on power.

The Census Bureau's Missoula metro is Mineral and Missoula counties ²⁹. The population figures here read Missoula County alone; the payroll and permit series cover the metro, and no Mineral County figure of its own is printed. In Census figures compiled by citypopulation.de, a secondary source, the county's population was 123,513 on July 1, 2025 and 117,927 at the 2020 Census ³⁰. BLS counts 69.6 thousand nonfarm jobs in the Missoula metro in August 2026, a preliminary figure; a twelve-month change for it was not found ³¹.

Missoula's housing record holds a city rent, a broker's pipeline and a monthly permit series. The City of Missoula's 2025 update to its housing strategy gives a median market-rate rent of about $1,370 for 2024 ⁹. Sterling CRE's second-quarter 2025 figures, as Missoula Current reported them on September 15, 2025, count 443 units of multifamily housing under construction and 138 units delivered, with vacancy up 0.61 points ¹⁰. The Census Bureau's monthly permit series for the metro, as FRED carries it, shows 295 units authorized in August 2025 ³²; a full-year 2025 permit count was not found, and a single month says nothing about the rest of the year. The city's figure and the broker's are different measures, a citywide median for 2024 and a broker's quarterly reading for 2025, so an apartment study names the one it sets the subject's rent against.

The city replaced its zoning code in 2026: Ordinance 3778 adopted a new Title 22 development code on February 2, effective March 4, in place of Title 20 ³³. Non-owner-occupied short-term rentals are permitted in the city with registration and a technology fee ³³. An apartment, rental or mixed-use plan in Missoula is therefore read under the Title 22 text, and an older entitlement memo written under Title 20 is checked against it.

Outside the city limits, the county's moratorium of July 9, 2026 on new or expanded data centers runs to July 8, 2027 ¹⁵. The University of Montana is the county's university anchor ³⁴; a medical anchor and the five largest employers with headcounts were not found. SBA's fiscal 2018 release lists Montana Community Development Corp. (MoFi) as an SBA lender ³⁵.

The Census Bureau's Billings metro is Carbon, Stillwater and Yellowstone counties ²⁹. BLS's Billings Area Economic Summary, updated October 5, 2026, puts the metro's nonfarm employment for August 2026 at 95.2 thousand, professional and business services accounting for 10.1 thousand of it ³⁷. The county-level record reads Yellowstone County alone, with nothing printed for Carbon or Stillwater County: BLS's third-quarter 2025 county release gives it 87,900 jobs in September 2025 ³⁸, and the 2020 Census counted 164,726 people in the county, a figure taken from citypopulation.de's secondary compilation ³⁰.

Housing completions fell: city records reported by Montana Free Press show certificates of occupancy for 566 units in Billings in 2025, against 1,122 units in 2023, when 694 units were multifamily ¹⁴. They count homes finished inside the city; a 2025 permit count for Billings was not found, and neither were multifamily vacancy and rent. An apartment study in Billings sets its lease-up against the city's certificate list for the subject's part of town and a broker's vacancy reading bought for the purpose. Certificates are issued when building ends, so the 2025 count reflects projects permitted in earlier years and says little about what has started since.

Big Sky Economic Development's 2021 list, built on 2020 data, ranks Billings's largest private employers as Billings Clinic, St. Vincent Health Care, Walmart, Wells Fargo and First Interstate Bank, without headcounts ³⁹. Health systems hold the first two places on that list and banks two of the last three, so a medical office, senior housing or hotel project in Billings reads part of its demand from those employers' own plans. Its 2025 annual report names MSU Billings as the university anchor ⁴⁰. Visit Billings combines the convention and visitors bureau's share of the lodging tax with a tourism business improvement district assessment per room-night ⁴¹. Big Sky Finance, of Big Sky Economic Development, is a 504 certified development company; its fiscal 2025 volume was not found ⁴².

Two of the state's data center and power records sit in Yellowstone County: Quantica's Big Sky Campus near Broadview ²⁵ and NorthWestern Energy's Yellowstone County Generating Station ²⁷.

The Bozeman metro is Gallatin County alone ²⁹. QuickFacts gives Gallatin 128,740 people for July 1, 2025 and 118,957 as its April 1, 2020 estimates base ⁴⁸. Montana Free Press's analysis of permits for 2021 to 2025, run in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on August 12, 2026, gives Gallatin County 15.7 housing units permitted per thousand residents a year ¹⁴. The metro's nonfarm count was 77.4 thousand in July 2026 on BLS's preliminary reading, and the agency's county release gives Gallatin 75,162 jobs in September 2025 ⁴⁹³⁸.

Bozeman's rules changed in 2025 and 2026 on three fronts. New water and wastewater impact fee service area reports were adopted on March 25, 2025 and the fees took effect on April 5 ¹²; the city adjusted them for inflation on January 1, 2026 and has assessed accessory dwelling units since February 1, 2026 under state legislation ¹¹. A fully updated development code took effect on February 1, 2026 ⁵⁰. And Ordinance 2149, passed on October 17, 2023, prohibits new non-owner-occupied short-term rentals, the city's Type 3, while Ordinance 2131 requires platforms to share data ⁵⁰.

Sewer capacity is the constraint the city itself names. Its water and wastewater impact fee capital plan for fiscal 2026 to 2030 describes the Fowler alignment main as approaching capacity due to growth and lists the Cottonwood Road Sewer Capacity project ⁵¹. A site served by that main needs the city's service letter before its density is assumed.

Multifamily vacancy, rent and units under construction for Bozeman were not found, and neither was a calendar-2025 permit count, so the county's 2025 estimate and its permitting rate are the housing evidence the record holds. An apartment or for-sale study there surveys the competing buildings and their asking rents itself, and a lodging study does the same for hotels, whose occupancy for 2025 and 2026 was not found either.

North 7th Avenue near the I-90 interchange, the city's large commercial district, and Huffine Lane were the commercial strips named when the city weighed its rental ban in October 2023 ⁵². SBA's Release 19-01 of November 1, 2018 put SBA lending in Gallatin County at $13,793,600 for fiscal 2018 ³⁵; a study draws newer county loan files from SBA's loan-level data.

The Census Bureau's Helena metro is Broadwater, Jefferson and Lewis and Clark counties ²⁹; the population record reads Lewis and Clark County alone, and a site in Broadwater or Jefferson County takes its own county's Census and wage tables, since neither county has a figure on this page. Lewis and Clark County had 70,971 residents at the 2020 Census in citypopulation.de's listing, a secondary source ³⁰. The Helena metro held 45.7 thousand nonfarm jobs in June 2026 by BLS's preliminary count, with government shown as a sector of its own; a twelve-month change was not found ⁵⁸.

Fort Harrison, the Montana National Guard's post, is the military anchor a secondary list names ⁵⁹. Opportunity Bank of Montana, Bank of the Rockies and Ascent Bank are named as Helena-based SBA lenders, without volumes ⁶⁰.

Every asset-class reading and every local rule looked for in Helena was not found: permits, apartment vacancy and rent, hotel performance, storage, industrial and senior housing, impact fees and zoning changes. A study here therefore starts from the county's own permit and assessor records and a survey of the subject's competitors.

Montana is one SBA district, served by the Montana District Office ⁶¹. A district total is therefore a state total, but no fiscal 2025 or 2024 total for Montana was extracted from SBA's year-end reports ⁴², and third-party re-totals are not printed here. The register's loan files for Montana projects give the decade:

Dakota Business Lending is a certified development company operating statewide in Montana since its 504 Rural Pilot ⁶⁹, and Big Sky Finance and Montana Community Development Corp. are named in the Billings and Missoula sections. Lender and CDC rankings for fiscal 2025 were not found.

The state put its second SSBCI round into one loan participation program run by the Department of Commerce. Its policy, revised on May 13, 2026, allows a participation of up to 50% of a loan and $1 million, more by exception ⁷⁰, and the department reports the original federal allocation fully committed, so it now accepts only recycled funds ⁷¹. The Board of Investments runs a separate Business Loan Participation Program for loans by approved lenders and an Infrastructure Loan Program for local-government infrastructure that serves job-creating businesses ⁷². Its INTERCAP program lends to government units only ⁷³, and the Montana Facility Finance Authority issues conduit financing for eligible facilities; issuance volumes were not found ⁷².

USDA Rural Development's fiscal 2025 Business and Industry obligations, Community Facilities activity and REAP activity for Montana were not found, and a HUD multifamily office with Montana jurisdiction was not identified. How the federal programs work is set out on the USDA Rural Development page and the page on conventional and institutional lending.

SBA's own rule on studies is 13 CFR 120.160(b): SBA may require professional appraisals, a survey, or a feasibility study ⁷⁴; how the 7(a) and 504 programs test a Montana project is set out on the SBA 7(a) and 504 lending page.

The Petroleum Tank Release Compensation Board's packet of February 9, 2026 counts 4,887 confirmed petroleum releases in Montana and 3,991 resolved, with 897 open and 583 of those eligible for the fund, as of its November 2025 meeting, and gives the fund a fiscal 2026 beginning balance of $7,290,919 ⁶. For a gas station or convenience store purchase the count shows how common a release history is, and the balance is the fund a cleanup claim draws on; a buyer's environmental review still reads the site's own release file.

The Department of Revenue's quota sheet gives the all-beverage quota and the licences issued for each quota area, a statewide inventory of retail alcohol licences by area ⁸; the Butte section prints one area's pair. The small-business base in the payroll section is the third statewide count ²⁴.

Below the state, the nearest supply series are city and metro counts: Billings's certificates of occupancy, Missoula's monthly permits and Bozeman's permitting rate, each in its market section ¹⁴³². No statewide count was found for the asset classes this site covers, from apartments and hotel rooms to senior housing and licensed child care capacity.

The case studies index holds worked examples set in other states, several of them in the asset classes listed below.