Minnesota Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified October 1, 2026 Correction October 8, 2026

Check your municipality. Minnesota does not preempt local rent regulation — city or county ordinances may impose rent caps, notice periods, and fee limits that are stricter than the state law on this page. Verify your municipality's ordinances before relying on any figure below. Verified local pages: St. Paul.

What the state record says

Local rent control is not flatly barred. Minn. Stat. 471.9996 subd. 1 stops any city, county, or town from adopting or renewing rent control on private residential property, but subd. 2 expressly permits it where the ordinance, charter amendment, or law is approved in a GENERAL ELECTION. The exception is live, not theoretical: St. Paul voters approved a 3% annual rent-stabilization cap in November 2021 (effective May 2022), which the city council has since narrowed — most recently on 2025-05-07 (4-3 vote, changes effective 2025-06-13) to permanently exempt units first receiving a certificate of occupancy after 2004-12-31. Minneapolis voters in 2021 authorized their council to draft a rent-stabilization ordinance, but none has been enacted.

Minnesota at a glance

Rule	Minnesota	Cited to
Max security deposit	No statutory cap	Minn. Stat. 504B.178 +4 more
Deposit return deadline	21 days	Minn. Stat. 504B.178 +4 more
Rent-increase notice (month-to-month)	No statute — derived from termination notice	Minn. Stat. 504B.135 +2 more
Statewide rent control / rent cap	No	Minn. Stat. 504B.135 +2 more
Late-fee cap	8% of the overdue rent payment	Minn. Stat. 504B.177 +2 more
Entry notice	24 hours	Minn. Stat. 504B.211
Eviction notice (nonpayment)	14 days	Minn. Stat. 504B.321 (Complaint and summons; pre-filing written notice for nonpayment of rent; expedited procedure) +22 more
Application fee cap	No statutory cap	Minn. Stat. § 504B.173 +22 more
Interest owed on deposits	Yes — required by statute	Minn. Stat. § 504B.178 (interest on security deposits) +3 more
Repair deadline after tenant notice	14 days	Minn. Stat. § 504B.161 (covenants of landlord or licensor) +16 more
Repair and deduct	No — no statute or decision authorizes it	Minn. Stat. § 504B.161 (covenants of landlord or licensor) +16 more
Landlord notice to end a month-to-month tenancy	30 days (2 counting rules)	Minn. Stat. § 504B.135 +12 more
Owner and agent identity disclosure	Required — in the lease or in a separate writing	Minn. Stat. § 504B.111 +40 more
In-force state hazard disclosures beyond the federal lead-paint rule	1	Minn. Stat. § 504B.111 +40 more
Pet deposit	Allowed, no cap	Minn. Stat. § 504B.113 +15 more
Assistance animals: the state instrument	Documentation statute or rule	Minn. Stat. § 504B.113 +15 more

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Minnesota Landlord-Tenant Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/minnesota/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Minnesota statute it comes from on the linked topic page.

Local rent regulation in Minnesota

Minnesota law generally prohibits cities, counties, and towns from controlling rents on private residential property, but expressly allows local rent control when the measure is approved by voters at a general election — the pathway under which St. Paul's voter-approved rent stabilization ordinance operates.

Cited to Minn. Stat. § 471.9996 · Verified October 1, 2026 · Full Minnesota rent-increase rules →

Minnesota landlord-tenant laws by topic

Minnesota security deposits

Minnesota sets no cap on the size of a residential security deposit, but the deposit earns 1% simple annual interest and must be returned — with interest and a written statement of any specific withholding reasons — within three weeks after the tenancy ends and the landlord receives the tenant's mailing address or delivery instructions (five days if the tenant must leave because the building is legally condemned for reasons not due to the tenant's own conduct).

Minnesota rent increase notice

Minnesota has no statute fixing a set number of days' notice for a rent increase — for month-to-month (at-will) tenancies the operative rule is derived from Minn. Stat. 504B.135, under which either party may end the tenancy on written notice at least as long as the rent interval (capped at three months), so the Attorney General's guidance pegs a valid rent increase at written notice of one rental period plus one day.

Minnesota late fees

Minnesota caps residential late fees at eight percent of the overdue rent payment — one of the few hard statutory late-fee caps in the country — and a landlord may not charge any late fee at all unless the tenant has agreed in writing to a provision specifying when the fee will be imposed (Minn. Stat. 504B.177(a)).

Minnesota entry notice

Minnesota landlords must make a good-faith effort to give at least 24 hours' advance notice before entering a rental unit, the notice must state a time or anticipated window of entry, and the entry itself may occur only between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. unless the tenant agrees to a different hour.

Minnesota eviction process

In Minnesota, a landlord must give a residential tenant 14 days' written notice to pay before filing an eviction for nonpayment of rent, and the statutory minimums add up to about three to four weeks from that notice to a sheriff's lockout, four to six weeks in practice.

Minnesota application & screening fees

Minnesota sets no cap on rental application or tenant screening fees, but it does regulate when a landlord may charge one, what the applicant must be told before paying, and when the money has to come back.

Minnesota deposit interest

Minnesota requires interest on every residential security deposit at one percent a year, simple and noncompounded, and it is paid with the deposit when the tenancy ends.

Minnesota habitability & repairs

Every residential lease or license in Minnesota carries statutory covenants that the premises and common areas are fit for their intended use, kept in reasonable repair with pests exterminated, made reasonably energy efficient, kept in compliance with federal, state, and local health and safety laws including rental licensing ordinances, and heated to at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit from October 1 through April 30 in every place intended for habitation, kitchens and bathrooms included.

Minnesota lease termination

Minnesota sets no fixed number of days to end a periodic tenancy: written notice from either side must run at least as long as the interval between rent payments, or three months, whichever is less.

Minnesota lease disclosures

A Minnesota landlord of a building with twelve or more units must use a written lease that identifies the unit, and every written lease must carry the landlord's or manager's name and address, the lease dates and prorated rent on the first page, and the sum of rent and all nonoptional fees described as the Total Monthly Payment on the first page as well.

Minnesota pets & assistance animals

Minnesota puts no ceiling on a pet deposit, pet rent or a pet fee, because it has no deposit cap of any kind and no rule about pet money in a private tenancy.

Minnesota mobile home park laws

Minnesota's Manufactured Home Park Lot Rentals act, chapter 327C of the Minnesota Statutes, governs the tenancy of a resident who owns the home and rents the lot beneath it: lot rent may rise only on 60 days' written notice and no more than twice in 12 months, a park owner may end a tenancy only on the grounds the act lists, and closing a park or converting it to another use takes 12 months' notice plus relocation money from a state trust fund.

Minnesota Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Minnesota metro area and county.

Editable Minnesota deposit kit · Editable Minnesota disclosure packet — editable documents built on the verified Minnesota rules on this page, in Word, fillable PDF and Excel.

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (October 1, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Correction, October 8, 2026 — Minnesota: since January 1, 2025, a landlord whose residential tenant abandons the dwelling unit during the lease term must make reasonable efforts to rent it at a fair rental value; the rental agreement ends when a new tenancy begins or, if the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, on the date the landlord has notice of the abandonment; the tenant owes no rent after that, a periodic tenant owes at most the rent for the notice period, and a lease cannot waive these rights (Minn. Stat. § 504B.154, Laws 2024, chapter 118, section 10). The page had stated the pre-2025 case law under which a landlord had no duty to re-let unless it accepted the abandonment. Separately, Minnesota's plain-language contract law reaches a residential lease of three years or less (sections 325G.30 to 325G.32).

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Minnesota Revisor of Statutes site (revisor.mn.gov, Minnesota Statutes 2025 edition): Minn. Stat. 504B.178, 504B.177, and 504B.211 each read twice independently — the 1% interest rate, three-week/five-day return deadlines, $500 bad-faith punitive cap, 8%-of-overdue-rent late-fee cap, 24-hour entry notice, 8:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. window, and $500-per-violation entry penalty all matched verbatim across reads. 504B.135 and 471.9996 read twice each (the HTML section page plus the Revisor's official PDF read in full). 504B.147 and 504B.120 read once each. MN Attorney General landlord-tenant handbook (ag.state.mn.us) read for the 'one rental period plus one day' rent-increase derivation. 2026 enactment sweep on revisor.mn.gov: SF 4171 bill status and enrolled text read directly (Laws 2026 ch. 81, signed 2026-05-12, effective 2026-08-01 — flagged as pending while not yet in force; folded into late_fees 2026-08-02 once effective); HF 3245 status read (died in House committee at sine die 2026-05-18, not flagged). October 1, 2026: sections 504B.178, 504B.177, 504B.211, 504B.135, 504B.147, 504B.120, 504B.118, 504B.182, 504B.113, 504B.261 and 471.9996 and chapter 327C were read again on revisor.mn.gov, which still serves the 2025 edition and marks each section the 2026 session changed; the 2026 changes are read from Laws 2026, ch. 81. The Revisor's tables of sections affected for 2025 and 2026 show no other act touching these sections. Attorney General Opinion 430 (June 30, 2021) was read on ag.state.mn.us, and the Saint Paul and Minneapolis deposit sections in each city's published code.