All 118 Georgia Counties That Qualify

Program and regulatory figures verified October 7, 2026. Details change; confirm your scenario with us.

By Mike Certo, Cornerstone First Mortgage · NMLS #260555 · Updated October 7, 2026

If you checked this before 2024 and concluded your county did not qualify, check again. The list grew by forty-two counties and nothing came off it.

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What House Bill 82 did

Georgia's rural credits have always turned on whether a county counts as rural, and the test has now changed three times.

The shift from a density test to a population test is what expanded the list. A county can be fairly compact and still have few people in it, and those counties were previously excluded.

★ Taxable years beginning on or after 1 January 2022 moved to the 2020 census; taxable years from 1 January 2024 moved to the population test. Regulation 560-7-8-.20 carries the transition rules.

★★ The 42 counties House Bill 82 brought in

Comparing the current list against the old 2020-census list: nothing was dropped, and these were added.

Baldwin, Banks, Ben Hill, Bryan, Butts, Chattooga, Coffee, Colquitt, Cook, Crisp, Dade, Dawson, Fannin, Franklin, Gilmer, Habersham, Haralson, Harris, Hart, Jones, Lamar, Lee, Lumpkin, Madison, McDuffie, Monroe, Murray, Oconee, Peach, Pickens, Pike, Polk, Stephens, Thomas, Tift, Toombs, Towns, Union, Upson, White, Wilkinson, Worth.

If any of those is where you practise or want to live, the credit became available to you on 1 January 2024 and may not have been before.

★ The military-base exclusion

The statute's wording, as DOR summarises it: a rural county is one with a population of less than 50,000 on the 2020 census, "provided, however, that for counties which contain a military base or installation, the military personnel and their dependents living in such county shall be excluded from total population of such county for purposes of this definition."

So a county whose census population exceeds 50,000 can still qualify once base personnel and their families are taken out. Georgia has a number of large installations, and this provision is why several counties near them are on the list.

★ We publish no base list and we do not recompute anyone's county population. DOR publishes the resulting county list, and that list is the authority. Use it rather than doing the arithmetic yourself.

The full 2024 list

All 118 counties, with the ones House Bill 82 added marked.

What if my county is not on the list?

Then the rural credits do not reach you, and that is the honest answer. The counties absent from this list are the metropolitan ones: the Atlanta core, and the larger urban counties.

★ Which is worth putting next to the market data, because those are also the Georgia markets that lost value over the past year. Atlanta fell 1.6% and Savannah 2.6%, while the credit counties in south Georgia rose 4% to 7%. The numbers.

The physician loan itself is statewide and has no county restriction at all. What it does.

★ Confirm before you rely on it

This list carries its verification date because it is not permanent. It is driven by census data and by statute, both of which change, and DOR publishes the current version.

Two things to do before you buy a house on the strength of it: check DOR's page for your county, and confirm with your tax preparer that you meet the practise-and-reside test and the returning-practitioner rule. Those conditions.

Then call us about the mortgage, which does not depend on any of it. (480) 296-6513.

Frequently asked questions

How many Georgia counties qualify as rural for the tax credit?

118 of Georgia's 159 counties, under the definition effective 1 January 2024. House Bill 82 changed the test from fewer than 65 people per square mile to a population of less than 50,000 on the 2020 census, excluding military personnel and their dependents in counties containing a base or installation. That expanded the list from 76 counties. Verified against the Georgia Department of Revenue 2026-10-06.

Which Georgia counties did House Bill 82 add?

Forty-two were added and none were removed. The additions include Baldwin, Banks, Ben Hill, Bryan, Butts, Chattooga, Coffee, Colquitt, Cook, Crisp, Dade, Dawson, Fannin, Franklin, Gilmer, Habersham, Haralson, Harris, Hart and Jones, among others. The full list of 118 is published on this page and by the Department of Revenue. Verified 2026-10-06.

How does the military base exclusion work for Georgia's rural credit?

Where a county contains a military base or installation, the military personnel and their dependents living in that county are excluded from its total population for the purpose of the under-50,000 rural county test. That allows some counties whose census population exceeds 50,000 to qualify. The Department of Revenue publishes the resulting county list, which is the authority; we do not recompute county populations.

What if my Georgia county is not on the rural list?

The rural tax credits do not reach you. The counties absent from the list are the metropolitan ones, including the Atlanta core. The physician loan itself has no county restriction and is available statewide. Notably, the metro markets outside the credit geography were also the Georgia markets that lost value over the year to 31 August 2026.

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Mike Certo · NMLS #260555 · Cornerstone First Mortgage NMLS #173855 · Equal Housing Lender. Educational content, not a loan commitment and not legal, tax, visa, or licensure advice. Physician-loan program terms, eligible degrees, and overlays are set by the lender and change. Georgia's rural tax credits are set by statute and administered by the Georgia Department of Revenue; the Rural Health Care Professional Credit is subject to a $2 million annual aggregate cap allowed on a first come, first served basis, neither credit carries over, and neither can exceed the taxpayer's income tax liability. Nothing here is tax advice; confirm your position with a tax professional and with the Department of Revenue. Rural county designations are set by statute and census data and change. All loans are subject to borrower and property qualification, including credit and income review.