North Carolina General Assembly · 2025–2026 session
Showing 97–120 of 2,338 bills
Introduced by Sarah Crawford
This bill clarifies the process for filing complaints about workplace retaliation under North Carolina's worker protection laws. It specifies what information complaints must contain, allows employers to submit response statements within seven days, requires extra materials submitted with complaints to be destroyed and kept confidential, and establishes how time periods are calculated in these cases.
Business & Labor
Introduced by Todd Johnson
This bill creates tax incentive districts where new development projects can receive a 90% property tax exclusion for up to 10 years or until the property is sold, whichever comes first. Local governments can designate these districts (limited to 5% of their total area) to encourage private developers to build new projects that will eventually expand the property tax base.
Taxes & Budget
Introduced by Reece Pyrtle
This bill has two main parts: it prohibits litigation investments (third-party funding of lawsuits in exchange for a share of any settlement or judgment) in North Carolina civil cases, and it increases workers' compensation benefit amounts for certain injuries, including raising maximum awards for facial disfigurement from $20,000 to $40,000 and other injury categories from $10,000-$20,000 to $20,000-$40,000.
Introduced by Donny Lambeth
This bill modernizes North Carolina's physical therapy licensing laws by updating accreditation agency references, adjusting the Board composition, modifying license renewal deadlines, clarifying disciplinary procedures, and adding new provisions for continuing competence assessments and criminal background checks.
Healthcare
Introduced by Timothy Moffitt
This bill clarifies how North Carolina cities and counties can spend room occupancy tax revenue (taxes paid by hotel guests). It prohibits using these tourism-focused funds for basic services like police, fire, water, sewage, affordable housing, and education—unless a local law specifically allows it. The restriction applies statewide, but other provisions apply only to designated cities and counties.
Introduced by Steve Jarvis
The Dominique Moody Act makes comprehensive changes to North Carolina's child welfare system to improve child safety. Key provisions include creating a statewide Child Welfare Case Escalation Team to review high-risk cases, requiring photo/video documentation during abuse investigations, establishing a predictive risk modeling program to identify at-risk children, creating a public dashboard showing county-level child safety data, and requiring public disclosure of child fatalities and near-fatalities with prior protective services contact.
Social Services & Welfare
Introduced by William Jackson
This comprehensive agricultural law makes multiple changes to North Carolina's farming and aquaculture regulations. The bill addresses water management planning for farms, creates a feral swine control program, adjusts penalties for agricultural crimes, streamlines shellfish aquaculture regulations, and modernizes various agricultural licensing and assessment procedures.
Agriculture
This bill appoints and reappoints individuals to various state boards, commissions, and authorities based on recommendations from the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House. It also makes technical corrections to term lengths and expiration dates in previous appointment legislation.
Local Government
This bill delays the use of new property values from 2026 reappraisals in counties with populations over 15,000 for the 2026-2027 tax year, requiring them to use the previous schedule of values instead. Starting in 2027-2028, counties will use the 2026 reappraisal values going forward. The bill also requires county assessors to pay a $20 examination fee to the Department of Revenue.
Introduced by Ray Pickett
This bill authorizes approximately $636.9 million in capital improvement projects across UNC campuses funded through bonds and non-appropriated sources, standardizes residency requirements for the NC School of Science and Mathematics, expands tuition grants for NCSSM and UNCSA graduates, increases the UNC Board of Governors' authority over capital projects up to $4 million, raises various construction project thresholds, and restricts state agencies from using appropriated funds for public-private partnerships without legislative approval.
Education
Introduced by Richard Carver
This bill makes three changes to how North Carolina counties and towns can use occupancy taxes (taxes on hotel room rentals). It allows Currituck County to levy an additional occupancy tax up to 2%, clarifies how New Hanover Beach Towns can spend occupancy tax revenue to include lifeguard services and police/fire overtime for events, and extends Jacksonville's ability to use occupancy tax revenue by 10 years (from 2027 to 2037).
Introduced by Ralph Hise
This bill requires North Carolina's State Auditor to conduct post-election audits of county election procedures and systems after each general election is certified. The audits would examine areas like voter roll accuracy, voting equipment testing, ballot records, chain of custody, absentee and provisional ballots, and voter assistance compliance. Audit findings cannot be used to challenge election results and would be reported to state officials and the public.
Elections & Voting
Introduced by Robert Davis
This bill extends existing moratoria (temporary bans) on new shellfish cultivation leases in the New Hanover County area and Bogue Sound, and creates a new temporary moratorium on shellfish leases in parts of Pender and Onslow Counties. The New Hanover moratorium is extended from July 1, 2026 to July 1, 2031, the Bogue Sound moratorium is extended from July 1, 2026 to July 1, 2028, and the new Pender-Onslow moratorium runs until July 1, 2028. The bill also appropriates $10,000 for public education about these moratoria.
Introduced by Jeff Zenger
This bill allows Winston-Salem's Planning Board to hold hearings and make final decisions on zoning amendment requests, rather than having all decisions go to the City Council. The City Council retains the ability to set rules for the Planning Board and must provide a process for appealing Planning Board decisions back to the Council.
Introduced by Benton Sawrey
This bill allows adult care homes to use passing inspection results from the state's Adult Care Licensure Section to satisfy similar routine inspections by other state or local departments, rather than requiring separate inspections. The bill includes exceptions for complaint-based investigations, abuse allegations, and inspections prompted by specific safety concerns, and provides $100,000 in funding to implement the streamlined process.
This bill prohibits wake surfing within 200 feet of shorelines, structures, moored vessels, kayaks, canoes, paddleboards, and swimmers. Violators would face a Class 1 misdemeanor with a minimum fine of $100. The law would take effect December 1, 2026.
Criminal Justice & Public Safety
Introduced by Bobby Hanig
This bill repeals North Carolina's ban on hardened erosion control structures (like seawalls and jetties) and instead allows them with state regulation to prevent significant harm to private property or public beaches. It also appropriates $850,000 to update the state's Beach and Inlet Management Plan.
Environment & Energy
This bill modifies the Office of the State Auditor's authority and operations, including allowing the Auditor to charge state agencies for financial statement audits, enabling the Auditor to contract with district attorneys for criminal prosecution of audit-related matters, and providing $500,000 in state funding for Annual Comprehensive Financial Report audits. The bill also allows the Auditor to convert certain positions to receipt-supported status and exempts the Auditor from some Department of Administration oversight.
Other / General Government
Introduced by Thomas McInnis
This bill allows out-of-state licensed professionals to obtain North Carolina licenses more easily through a 'universal licensure' pathway if they meet basic requirements like being licensed for at least one year, having good standing, and passing any state-specific law exam. It also exempts people age 65+ who have practiced their profession in North Carolina for 25+ years from continuing education requirements. The bill applies to most occupational licenses but excludes healthcare providers, lawyers, engineers, architects, and several other regulated professions.
Introduced by Jeffrey McNeely
This bill requires cities in Iredell County to obtain approval from the county board of commissioners before annexing certain agricultural or present-use-value land if the annexation would cause school enrollment to exceed current capacity. Cities can proceed without county approval only if they pay the county the costs needed to restore school capacity.
Introduced by Robert Reives
This bill allows Chatham County to implement and enforce a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) that was adopted on November 18, 2024, along with an accompanying zoning map. The bill removes legal barriers that prevented the county from putting this ordinance into effect, with a deadline of June 1, 2027 for the zoning map to be adopted.
Introduced by Stephen Ross
This bill establishes statewide minimum standards of care for companion animals (dogs and cats), including adequate food, water, shelter, exercise, space, and veterinary treatment. It creates criminal penalties for violations and allows local governments to adopt equal or stricter standards, while providing $10,000 for public education about these requirements.
Introduced by Donnie Loftis
This bill updates North Carolina's child car seat requirements to specify rear-facing seats for infants, forward-facing seats for older children, and rear-seat positioning until age 8 or 57 inches tall. It also adds arbitration as an option for resolving disputes between insurance policyholders and insurers over uninsured or underinsured motorist claims.
Introduced by Jim Burgin
This bill provides whistleblower protections for healthcare workers reporting safety concerns or violations, prohibits non-compete clauses for hospital employees, limits nondisclosure agreements in healthcare, caps CEO compensation at nonprofit hospitals receiving state funds at 400 times the minimum wage, and exempts certain Department of State Treasurer partnerships from health service review requirements.