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CFPB 2022 Lists of Rural, Underserved Counties Release

January 29, 2022 / Source: CFPB

The CFPB released the lists of rural counties and rural or underserved counties entities can use in 2022 to determine status as exempt from certain regulatory requirements of the Truth in Lending Act. Some entities that do business in rural or underserved counties are exempt from certain regulatory requirements of the Truth in Lending Act.

In addition to these lists, lenders should also use the CFPB's Rural or Underserved Areas Tool to provide a safe harbor determination that a property is located in a rural or underserved area as defined in 12 CFR 1026.35(b)(2)(iv)(A) and (B). The tool is more comprehensive than the lists because the lists reflect rural status only at the county level; the tool includes both locations that are rural because they lie in rural (non-urban) census blocks and locations that are rural because they lie in rural counties.

These lists include the following U.S. territories as rural areas in their entireties: Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These territories comprise areas that the U.S. Census Bureau treats as counties and that are neither metropolitan statistical areas or micropolitan statistical areas adjacent to metropolitan statistical areas.

The rural or underserved counties lists use a methodology for identifying underserved counties described in the Bureau’s interpretive rule: Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z); Determining “Underserved” Areas Using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data.