HUBZONE PROGRAM UPDATES AND FLEXIBILITIES DURING COVID-19

Source: NCMBC

How can firms maintain the 35% HUBZone residency requirement if some employees are college students whose residence hall has closed? SBA recognizes that some HUBZone employees are students who have been called home to locations no longer in a HUBZone, even though they continue to work remotely, impacting firms’ ability to maintain the 35% HUBZone residency requirement. SBA will determine affected firms’ compliance with the 35% HUBZone residency requirement by reviewing documentation showing where the impacted employee lived prior to the COVID-19 response measures being put in place. Accordingly, a firm that has a HUBZone employee that was required to move from student housing to a non-HUBZone location AND continues to work for the HUBZone firm, the firm may continue to count that employee as a HUBZone resident by providing documentation showing: 1) the university/college closed the student’s residence and 2) the employee has been maintained on the payroll. This applies only to students who, at the time of the firm’s application for certification or recertification, were already on payroll and had residency established prior to the university closing student housing.

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