- Housing affordability was the primary concern for Utah voters during the legislative session.
- Two significant tax credit bills aim to support families with children in Utah.
- Legislation will reorganize housing policy management in Utah's government for better accountability.
Ahead of this year’s legislative session a poll from the Deseret News and Hinckley Institute of Politics, conducted by Morning consult, showed that housing affordability was the No. 1 issue Utah voters wanted state lawmakers to address this year.
While not every housing bill that lawmakers introduced during the 2026 session made it through, there were a number of bills passed that lawmakers hope will help improve costs for Utahns.
As well as focusing on housing affordability, the legislature also looked at other issues straining families’ resources, including child care.
When asked how much these measures from the Legislature could save the average Utah family, Speaker of the House Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said they haven’t calculated that but he would guess a couple hundred dollars.
“There’s not a lot we can do, but we are focused on it. And the policies we place and the regulations we put into place or take out of place or don’t put into place are the key drivers on those affordability issues,” Schultz said.
He also said that there isn’t much state government can do on the affordability front, it is more about what they don’t do. Schultz said lawmakers are trying to not do anything to make things more expensive for Utahns.
Here’s a look at what Utah lawmakers were able to pass relating to affordability.
Tax credits to help families with kids
There were two bills this session dealing with tax credits to help families with children.
HB190, sponsored by Thompson, will set up a child care tax credit that mirrors the current federal model. This would provide a tax credit to employers who provide or help pay for child care for their employees.
“I think child care continues to be one of the top issues for families, and, you know, it’s an ongoing process,” said Senate minority leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City.
On a federal level small businesses qualify for a 50% tax credit and large businesses would get 40%. HB190 would build on that adding 30% on the state level for small businesses and 10% for large business.
Child Tax Credit Amendments, or HB290, would expand the income eligibility for the state’s child tax credit. This would allow the credit to help a larger number of Utahns.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Tracy Miller, R-South Jordan, would raise the threshold for who qualifies for the child tax credit, making it available to more families.
For those married, but filing separately, there is a maximum of $30,500 a year, for single, or head of household the maximum is $49,000 and for joint filing status the maximum would be $61,000.
What lawmakers did and didn’t get done for child care
Escamilla ran two bills this session to expand child care offerings in Utah, but both ended up failing to pass. One bill would have provided grants for home-based child care centers and another would have set up a child care facility for state employees.
“We still keep on working on them,” Escamilla said. “It’s a complex issue, but we know that we want a strong workforce, and that workforce needs adequate access to affordable child care.”
She continued saying they want to keep the state family friendly, “We also want our families to feel that child care is not the reason why they’re not growing their family, that should not be what is stopping them, Escamilla said.
A bill to expand paid maternity leave for state employees from three weeks to 12 weeks did pass the legislature. HB329 from Rep. Ariel Defay, R-Kaysville, will also strengthen protections for pumping breast milk in public and would launch a pilot program allowing local education agencies to provide up to 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for teachers.
This session, Sen. Stephanie Pitcher, D-Millcreek, has introduced a bill that would allow more state employees to bring their infants to work with them. SB258 would expand a pilot program that Pitcher started in 2020 when she was in the House.
The original pilot program applied just to employees of the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. This new bill would expand the infant at work program to all state offices under the executive branch.
Organizing how housing policy is handled in Utah
Last year a group of stakeholders, including members of the legislative and executive branches, put together the Utah Housing Strategic Plan to help solve the housing crisis in the state.
The aim of the strategic plan is to “ensure that every resident in Utah has access to safe, affordable and stable housing options.”
The plan has three main goals:
- Improve housing availability, affordability and stability.
- Foster community well-being and quality of life.
- Seek consensus and evidence-based policy and housing support solutions.
The plan outlines over 50 tactics that could help improve the housing situation in the state.
Rep. Stephen Whyte, R-Mapleton, introduced a resolution HCR6, to officially recognize the strategic housing plan. That resolution passed.
Steve Waldrip, the governor’s senior adviser for housing strategy and innovation, said the point of the resolution is to “make sure that we have the Legislature and the governor’s office walking in lockstep on this path.”
Another piece of legislation dealing with housing is HB68 which will not create any new policy but would rather reorganize and centralize how housing policy is handled by the state.
HB68 would create the Division of Housing and Community Development, which would sit within the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity. The division would be led by the state housing coordinator who will be appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Senate.
Waldrip said the bill will “create more streamlined accountability in the governor’s office, in the executive branch, we can then report back to the Legislature and say, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re doing. Here’s why we’re doing it.’”
He said it will allow the division to share what they’ve done with their appropriations and what their goals and needs are.
Increasing supply to keep up with demand
One of the biggest housing bills of the session is HB492, sponsored by Rep. Calvin Roberts, R-Draper, which passed on Friday. The bill would help build infrastructure that would unlock plans to build thousands of houses around the state and allow them to be built.
“Housing continues to be important, we’ve got to build more housing,“ Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said during a press conference Friday evening. ”This is going to help a lot of cities and towns who want to approve these projects but just don’t have the infrastructure money available to get the sewer, water, power, roads."
There are over 100,000 entitled units across the state which cannot be built because of a lack of infrastructure such as sewer lift stations, water treatment facilities, water tanks and big regional roads. The goal of HB492 is to unlock some of these units and get more houses built to help increase the supply and make homes more affordable.
The bill would allow the state to partner with cities to help more infrastructure to be built through the State Housing Infrastructure Partnership Fund. The funding would come from money that already exists within the state government.
“One of the things we hear from citizens that get frustrated with growth is the lack of transportation, lack of money for infrastructure funds,” Schultz said.
Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, said this bill will do “a great job of increasing supply.”
Helping more Utahns save for retirement
Hundreds of thousands of Utahns aren’t saving for retirement, according to state estimators, and one key reason is because many small business employees don’t have access to employer-provided retirement plans.
That puts stress on the individual but it also puts a burden on the state, because more and more older people in Utah are relying exclusively on Social Security to pay for their retirement needs.
HB250 would create the Utah Retirement Plan Exchange, a state-facilitated marketplace where private retirement providers can offer plans to employers in a single simplified platform. This will help thousands of Utahns save for retirement who haven’t been able to before, bill sponsors say.