Wyoming put the exemption in statute
No corporate income tax. No personal income tax. A statutory sales and use tax exemption on data center equipment. A site in unincorporated county territory with a forty-year industrial permitting record.
| Corporate income tax | 0% |
| Personal income tax | 0% |
| Gross receipts tax | 0% |
| Data center equipment | Sales and use exempt |
| Statutory basis | W.S. §39-15-105 & §39-16-105 |
| Exemption threshold | $5 M infrastructure + $2 M equipment |
| Above $50 M infrastructure | UPS, backup generation and HVAC also exempt |
| Managed Data Center Cost Reduction Grant | Up to $2.25 M per award |
Current-year incentive figures and thresholds should be verified with the Wyoming Business Council. Programs are appropriated annually and amounts change.
Statutory treatment survives a change of mood
The sales and use tax exemption on data center equipment comes from statute. There is no PILOT negotiated with a county board, no abatement with an expiry, and no package to defend at a public hearing.
That distinction has become material. Most of the political friction now attaching to data center development in other states is about what a project was granted. A project whose tax treatment comes from statute and whose power comes from its own gas asks the community for nothing. That is a durable position.
The project pays its own way. Fuel and generation are privately funded. No ratepayer-funded transmission upgrade, no allocated network cost, no abatement request.
Self-supply in Wyoming
Wyoming’s utility statutes reach service offered “to or for the public” (W.S. §37-1-101). Wyoming authority has held that sales to a single purchaser, or to a small number of identified industrial customers, do not amount to service to or for the public. That is the ground a self-supply structure stands on. It is well founded, and it has not been tested at this scale.
Open items. The landlord and tenant variant of this structure is untested at data center scale. In July 2026 the Public Service Commission declined a declaratory petition seeking confirmation that co-located third-party sales would not create public utility status, holding the question had been posed hypothetically, so the point stands undecided in either direction. A Commission rulemaking on non-utility generation is live, with a hearing held on 5 August 2026. Incumbent utilities may object to a given structure. None of this stops a behind-the-meter campus, and the rulemaking is aimed at clarifying these structures, but the final form is a matter for counsel.
Executive Order 2026-03. In June 2026 Governor Gordon issued Data Centers the Wyoming Way, directing state agencies toward water minimization, protection of existing ratepayers from cost shifts, community investment and public participation. A campus fueled by its own gas, cooled by water the field already produces, and asking for no rate treatment or abatement is the profile that order sets out to encourage.
| County | Campbell, unincorporated at site |
| Zoning overlay at site | None |
| Industrial permitting history | 40+ years continuous |
| Air permitting authority | Wyoming DEQ, Air Quality |
| Water permitting authority | Wyoming DEQ / State Engineer |
| Data center moratorium | None enacted or proposed |
| Executive Order 2026-03 | In effect, June 2026 |
| PSC non-utility generation rulemaking | Live, hearing 5 Aug 2026 |
| Contractor and trades base | Established locally |
Jurisdictional concentration. Most announced United States data center capacity has been aimed at a handful of grids, and the congestion showing up in those markets is regulatory as much as physical. Siting outside the most heavily subscribed queues keeps a schedule clear of one grid operator’s planning cycle and one state’s review calendar.
The region already operates at this scale
~1,300 MW
Of thermal generation operates within about 25 miles: Dry Fork Station, Wyodak, Wygen 1, 2 and III, and the Neil Simpson units, at EIA-860 nameplate. Large thermal plants are established infrastructure here.
40 years
Of continuous industrial energy permitting. Coal and coalbed methane development have run in Campbell County since the 1970s. The permitting path, the contractor base and the skilled trades are established.
5,241 wells
Operated by Pronghorn on this position. The counterparty across the table runs field infrastructure at scale every day.
Local sentiment toward energy and digital infrastructure is supportive. Campbell County’s economy was built on producing energy, and a project that generates its own power, uses water the field already produces and asks for no abatement does not present the profile that attracts organized opposition.
A load profile is enough to begin.
Send target megawatts at first energization, a ramp schedule and a cooling approach. Pronghorn returns a generation block plan, a field development sequence, a water allocation and a term sheet across power, land and fuel. Capital and structure inquiries reach the same team.