Vermont Chamber News

Montpelier, VT (July 15, 2025) – The Vermont Chamber of Commerce has released its 2025 Session Legislative Outcomes Report, a comprehensive review of key policy developments that impacted the state’s business environment during the recent legislative session.

“As we reflect on the 2025 legislative session, we are reminded of both the responsibility and the opportunity that come with representing Vermont’s diverse and resilient business community,” said Amy Spear, President of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce.

In a year defined by escalating fiscal pressures, a deepening affordability crisis, and a $9 billion state budget, the Vermont Chamber remained focused on championing a pragmatic, data-informed policy agenda. The rising cost of living, a severe housing shortage, and unsustainable healthcare and education expenses require more than short-term fixes. These challenges demand durable, systemic solutions that prioritize growth and elevate the voices of Vermonters, whether heard around family tables, in boardrooms, or on the factory floor.

This session unfolded in the shadow of expiring federal relief funds and prolonged legislative deliberations. Yet, through it all, the Vermont Chamber maintained a steady course: advocating for smart housing development, protecting businesses from disproportionate tax burdens, and initiating the long-term work of bending the cost curve in education and healthcare.

The report details how the Vermont Chamber helped collaboratively shape outcomes in areas including taxation, labor law, housing, healthcare, technology, and economic development, while remaining steadfast in protecting businesses from harmful mandates and excessive fiscal burdens.

Gains were possible during the session because Vermont Chamber members were engaged, vocal, and resolute. Despite a continued pattern of high spending, with new mandates and regulatory burdens, the Legislature delivered new opportunities in housing and infrastructure development, and reforms in education and healthcare. The Vermont business community will be shaped for years to come by what happened, and what didn’t happen, this session.

Highlights from the 2025 Session Legislative Outcomes Report:

• Legislative Engagement: Vermont Chamber staff testified 39 times before committees and monitored 865 committee hearings. Eight legislative interns also joined the Vermont Chamber team this session, strengthening advocacy capacity.
• Affordability Through Critical Reform: The Vermont Chamber helped steer policies addressing healthcare cost containment, education funding, stormwater compliance flexibility, and tax fairness, ensuring that reforms advanced without placing disproportionate burdens on employers.
• Incremental Progress on Long-Term Goals: Laws impacting chemical regulation, health system oversight, and environmental permitting demonstrated where constructive compromise was possible. The Vermont Chamber remained at the table to promote pragmatic, step-by-step progress.
• Innovative Solutions for People and Places: The Vermont Chamber championed investments in housing infrastructure, workforce development, and sustained support for tourism, trade, and entrepreneurship. These priorities are grounded in the long-term vision of the Vermont Futures Project Economic Action Plan. They underscore Vermont’s imperative to attract and retain talent while fostering vibrant communities and improving affordability. The plan presents a dual framework focused on people and places, with actionable strategies to recruit and retain working-age residents, increase labor force participation, expand housing and infrastructure, and align policy with evolving community needs. Advancing these strategies is essential to strengthening affordability, enhancing community vitality, and securing a more prosperous future.
• Removal of Harmful Proposals: Unified advocacy helped remove a proposed business-only property tax classification from major education legislation and paused efforts to implement sweeping employer mandates that would have increased costs.

“As we look to 2026, we’ll continue leading with transparency, determination, and collaboration,” added Spear. “From affordability to abundance and innovation, Vermont’s economic resilience depends on policies that reflect the realities of doing business in our state. Our mission remains clear: to ensure all Vermonters have the opportunity to thrive.”

The report also outlines pending legislation expected to be revisited next year, including non-compete agreements, data privacy, and climate regulation, and reinforces the Vermont Chamber’s ongoing commitment to advocating practical, systemic solutions at the State House.

The 2025 legislative session delivered a mix of progress, pause, and uncertainty for Vermont employers. Lawmakers advanced proposals to support workforce development, housing, and infrastructure—but also continued a pattern of high spending, new mandates, and regulatory burdens.

Key decisions this year—from to-go cocktails to major education and tax reforms—will shape Vermont’s business climate for years to come. Below is a snapshot of 26 developments, delays, and decisions from the session that employers should know.

🪙$ 3 Billion in cost increases over the last  five years as the state budget has ballooned from $5.8 billion to $9.1 billion in spending. This year-over-year increase is a troubling pattern for an affordable future.

🚛Costly EV truck and car regulations under the Clean Car and Clean Truck Acts were paused by Governor Scott, recognizing the lack of available EV infrastructure and affordable all-electric vehicle options for businesses and consumers.

🤝The Small Business Development Center  received an additional $150,000 in state funding to provide expert advising to businesses across the state.

🍹A pandemic innovation, to-go cocktails will be a permanent program allowing restaurants to offer drinks to-go with takeout food orders.

🧪Chemicals used in manufacturing will receive additional regulatory oversight or a full ban with a timeline for implementation phased in over the next few years.

👩‍⚕️Small businesses will not have to shoulder the added weight of subsidizing premiums for the individual healthcare market. The individual and small group markets have been permanently separated.

🫂Unpaid Leave Expansion starts July 1, creating an expanded, more inclusive definition of family, and adding other types of leave, including bereavement and safe leave.

👩🏽‍🎓Advance Vermont received $150,000 in funding to continue building out Vermont’s premier online hub for career and education exploration and planning.

🧑🏽‍🍳Non-stick cookware ban has been pushed back to 2028 to allow more time for alternative products to be widely available for consumers and restaurants.

💵Property taxes were bought down with $77 million in one-time funds to keep this year’s increase at an average of 1%. It is not clear yet how that bill will be paid next year.

🪖Military Retiree Pensions will be exempt from taxation at $125,000 of income and scaled down to $175,000 of income, making Vermont a more desirable destination for retirees in search of a second career.

💦Stormwater Management reforms extend deadlines for business to comply with three-acre impervious surface permits, with varying dates depending on the watershed. 

🏠Available Housing remains elusive for middle-income Vermonters, but some relief will be felt with $15 million of funding in the budget for the Missing Middle-Income Homeownership Development Program and the Renter Revolving Loan Fund.

🍀Irish Trade could be in focus with a newly created Irish Trade Commission aimed at opening new markets between Vermont and the Emerald Isle.  

💻Data Privacy legislation that balanced consumer protections with business access to digital marketing tools passed the Senate unanimously before being inexplicably sidelined in the House. The bill is expected to be taken up again next year. For now, Vermont businesses remain unregulated, and Vermonters have no legal data privacy protections.

🌲Rural infrastructure capacity got a major boost with the creation of a new tax increment financing tool, which can be used by small and large communities to build  infrastructure that will support housing.

🏫Education Reform crossed its major hurdle with a sweeping reform bill aimed at revamping the entire system’s financial and governance structures in an effort to control costs and refocus the education system on students.

💰Proposed Business Only Property Tax Classification, which meant to treat businesses as a valve to stabilize other taxpayers, was removed from the education reform bill after advocacy from the business community and the Governor. This demonstrated the power of coordinated business advocacy.

🏘️Infrastructure Sustainability Fund was created and funded with $7.5 million in the Vermont Bond Bank to expand infrastructure development financing opportunities across Vermont.

❤️‍🩹Healthcare Premiums are expected to see a fourth year of unsustainable increases, but with a new law which will limit the markup of certain prescription drugs, those increases will be 4% lower than originally projected.

🤖UVM Tech Hub will leverage $750,000 in newly appropriated state funds, with additional private investment, to fuel business growth and rural workforce development across the state.

👷🏽‍♀️Employer Mandates were largely tabled this year after critical testimony on the various proposals put forward. Increasing minimum wage to  $25 an hour, implementing a fine for not providing enough employee seating, removing at-will employment, and mandating temperature related benefits are just a few of the proposals that businesses will not need to implement this year. However, they may re-emerge next year for consideration.

🍁Montreal Business Development Office will continue to operate, encouraging Canadian businesses to consider expansion opportunities in Vermont with an investment of $150,000 for the next year.

🏢Convention Center Feasibility will be studied over the summer by interested parties to understand what is involved in bringing larger conventions, and the dollars that follow, to the Green Mountain State.

🧹Brownfield remediation projects will get another $1 million in funding for the assessment, remediation, and redevelopment of sites.

💸Clean Heat Standard was neither implemented nor repealed. As a result, this high expense program will not move forward this year, though further legislative action is needed with the Global Warming Solutions Act lawsuits still looming.