Minnesota Landlord-Tenant Laws
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 August 12, 2026 · Full Minnesota rent-increase rules →
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 building is condemned).
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 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 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.
Lot-rent, closure, park-sale and home-sale rules with statute citations →
Minnesota Fair Market Rents (FY 2026) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Minnesota metro area and county.
Changes since last full verification
The Verified date above (July 9, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official state sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).
- Updated, August 12, 2026 — Minnesota's deposit page now notes the 2026 move-out utility-billing rule (Laws 2026, ch. 81, secs. 1 and 4): a landlord who has not received the actual utility bill by the date the tenant vacates may issue an estimated final bill, prorated from the preceding billing period, with no added fees beyond the existing administrative billing charge and a one-period-capped late charge. The sections state no effective date of their own, so the statutory default for 2026 regular-session laws places them in force from August 1, 2026.
- Updated, August 2, 2026 — Minnesota 2026 chapter 81 late-fee provision encoded: late fees barred where rent is late due to a qualifying utility outage (session law cited).
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).