Wisconsin WEDC awards Yaskawa America up to $18M in Enterprise Zone tax credits for $180M Franklin HQ relocation

Mechanism

State-level Enterprise Zone tax credit award, not a federal action. WEDC's Enterprise Zone program is a performance-based incentive: credits are earned only as the recipient hits job-creation and capital-investment milestones, claimed against state tax liability rather than paid up front. Yaskawa is relocating its North American headquarters from Waukegan, Illinois, to a new 800,000-square-foot campus in Franklin, Wisconsin, consolidating existing Illinois and Wisconsin sites. The campus will include HQ, training/lab, manufacturing and packaging facilities, and robotics/semiconductor production operations, backed by $180 million in company capital investment and a projected 700+ new jobs.

This is the same WEDC Enterprise Zone mechanism used for the Eli Lilly Kenosha County award (2025-08-05-us-wisconsin-wedc-eli-lilly-enterprise-zone-credits) and the Foxconn/EITMZ award (2025-11-25-us-wisconsin-wedc-foxconn-eitmz-amendment) — part of a pattern of Wisconsin using performance-based state tax credits to compete for advanced-manufacturing and robotics/automation capex alongside federal reshoring incentives.

Downstream implications

• Adds to the state-level (non-federal) subsidy competition for

robotics/industrial-automation manufacturing capacity, relevant to reshoring of semiconductor-adjacent production equipment.

• Performance-based structure means the full $18M is not guaranteed —

actual fiscal cost depends on Yaskawa hitting job/capex thresholds.

Open questions

• Whether Illinois offered a competing retention package that Wisconsin's

award outbid.

• Timeline for the 800,000 sq ft Franklin campus to reach full

operational capacity and job-creation targets.