Free Minnesota Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Minnesota residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to current Minn. Stat. ch. 504B — the Total Monthly Payment that must sit on page one, the three-week deposit return, and the 14-day pre-eviction notice no template page mentions.

Minnesota Minn. Stat. ch. 504B 21-Day Return Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Minnesota residential lease agreement is the written contract between a landlord and a residential tenant, governed by a single chapter of the statute book: Minn. Stat. ch. 504B, which runs from leasing and rent through the landlord’s covenants, the tenant’s remedies and the whole of eviction procedure. Minnesota never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, so nothing carries over from a uniform-act neighbour, and the chapter has been rewritten harder than almost any other state’s in the last three sessions. The 2023 omnibus housing article created the Total Monthly Payment rule in Minn. Stat. 504B.120, the move-in and move-out inspection rights in Minn. Stat. 504B.182, and the fourteen-day pre-eviction notice in Minn. Stat. 504B.321. Then 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 81 took effect on August 1, 2026 — five days before this page was verified — and on that day the codified text of Minn. Stat. 504B.118 on the revisor’s own site still showed the pre-amendment section under its pre-amendment title. A lease copied from a template last refreshed in 2024 is wrong on all of it.

Complete the fields below to generate a Minnesota residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the nonoptional fee total, the metering arrangement, the entry window and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Minnesota section at each point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening — and note that Minnesota regulates the screening stage too, from what an application fee may cover to which court records a landlord may not consider. Pair the signed lease with a Minnesota move-in / move-out checklist, because the inspection rights in Minn. Stat. 504B.182 are only as useful as the record they produce.

Minnesota recognizes the usual range of residential arrangements, and the statute book treats two of them very differently. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and simply expires on its end date — Minn. Stat. 504B.135 does not apply to it at all. A tenancy at will, which is what an ordinary month-to-month arrangement is in Minnesota, continues until one side gives written notice under that section. A room or roommate agreement covers one room in an occupied dwelling; a sublease passes the tenant’s interest onward while leaving the original tenant liable; and a lease-to-own agreement adds a purchase option that sits outside the residential rules.

Two categories fall outside this form. A commercial lease is not governed by the residential provisions of chapter 504B. And a manufactured home park lot runs under its own statutory scheme in chapter 327C, which is why Minn. Stat. 504B.211, subd. 7 expressly disapplies the entry rules to a park governed by Minn. Stat. 327C.015. A Minnesota manufactured home lot agreement must never be built from this page.

There is also a category the rankers miss entirely. Minnesota gives a tenant a statutory route out of a lease that has nothing to do with the lease type: under Minn. Stat. 504B.206 a tenant who fears imminent violence after domestic abuse, criminal sexual conduct, sexual extortion or harassment may terminate without penalty on signed, dated written notice accompanied by a qualifying document — an order for protection, a no-contact order, documentation from a court official or law enforcement, or a statement from a qualified third party on the prescribed form. A sole tenant owes rent for the entire month in which termination occurs and forfeits claims to the deposit, but escapes the balance of the term. The landlord may not disclose the notice, the qualifying document, the tenant’s relocation address or the tenant’s status, including into any shared database, and a breach carries statutory damages of two thousand dollars plus attorney fees. The right cannot be waived and a landlord may not require a waiver.

Only in a building of twelve or more residential units. Minn. Stat. 504B.111 requires a landlord of such a building to have a written lease for each unit rented to a residential tenant, requires that lease to identify the specific unit the tenant will occupy before the tenant signs, and makes a landlord who fails to provide one guilty of a petty misdemeanor. The same section confirms that, notwithstanding any other state law or city ordinance, a landlord may ask for the tenant’s full name and date of birth on the lease and application.

Below twelve units Minnesota compels nothing. That is the answer competitors give and stop at, and it is misleading, because the more demanding question is not whether a lease must exist but what it must say if it does. Three separate sections dictate content. Minn. Stat. 504B.120 requires every nonoptional fee to be in the lease and the Total Monthly Payment on page one. Minn. Stat. 504B.146 requires the start date, the end date and any prorated rent on page one. Minn. Stat. 504B.216, subd. 10 requires a titled attachment for a shared-metered building. An oral Minnesota tenancy is not illegal in a small building — it simply forfeits every protection those sections build into the document, for both sides.

Where a written lease does exist, Minn. Stat. 504B.115 requires the landlord to give a copy to every tenant occupying the unit whose signature appears on it. The landlord may take a signed receipt, which is prima facie evidence of delivery. The sanction is defensive rather than monetary: in an action to enforce the written lease — other than one for nonpayment of rent, disturbing the peace, malicious destruction of property, or a violation of Minn. Stat. 504B.171 — the tenant may defend by proving the landlord never handed over a copy, unless the landlord shows the tenant actually knew the terms at issue.

The Total Monthly Payment, every nonoptional fee, the lease start date, the lease end date and any prorated rent. Two independent sections regulate page one, and between them they make Minnesota a lease-content state rather than a lease-disclosure state. No page currently ranking for this query describes either rule.

Minn. Stat. 504B.120, created by the 2023 omnibus housing article, is the stronger of the two. Subdivision 1 requires a landlord to disclose all nonoptional fees in the lease agreement, and requires that the sum total of rent and all nonoptional fees must be described as the Total Monthly Payment and be listed on the first page of the lease. The same subdivision extends the disclosure to advertisements for the unit and requires the landlord to specify whether utilities are covered by the rent. Subdivision 2 is the enforcement: a landlord who violates the section is liable to the residential tenant for treble damages and the court may award the tenant reasonable attorney fees.

The practical consequence is that the common practice of listing rent at one number and then adding a trash administration fee, a common area fee, a pest control fee and a technology package on a later page is now a treble-damages exposure. If a fee is not optional, it belongs in the Total Monthly Payment. That is why the builder above asks for the fees and the fee total separately and then does the arithmetic itself — the label is statutory and the placement is statutory.

Minn. Stat. 504B.146 covers the second half. A written lease for a residential unit must identify the lease start date and lease end date; where the lease requires the tenant to move in or out on a date other than the first or last day of the month and the rent is prorated, the lease must state the prorated amount for those months; and the information required by the section must be provided on the first page of the lease.

Proration is not merely a drafting requirement either. Minn. Stat. 504B.116 requires the final month’s rent to be prorated at the average daily rate, calculated using the actual number of calendar days in the month in which the lease expires, so the tenant pays only for the days occupancy is allowed. It applies to all leases, expressly including a lease requiring the last month’s rent to be paid in advance, and any attempted waiver by contract or otherwise is void and unenforceable.

There is no limit. Chapter 504B contains no ceiling on a residential security deposit anywhere in it. Minn. Stat. 504B.178, subd. 1 provides only that money deposits securing performance of residential rental agreements, excluding advance rent payments, are governed by the section. Any page reporting a Minnesota deposit cap is importing another state’s rule.

The absence is a real finding rather than a gap, because it tells you where Minnesota put its regulatory effort instead. The section says nothing about how much may be taken and a great deal about what happens to the money: it must earn interest, it must come back on a deadline, the reasons for keeping any of it must be specific and in writing, and the burden of justifying a withholding sits on the landlord rather than the tenant.

Two related deposits sit outside the main section. Minn. Stat. 504B.175 governs a prelease deposit — a payment given to a landlord by a prospective tenant before any rental agreement exists, excluding a reasonable applicant screening fee. It requires a conspicuous written agreement specifying the circumstances of return, requires return within seven days of the triggering event, requires the deposit to be applied to the security deposit or rent if a rental agreement is signed, and makes a landlord in breach liable for the deposit plus one-half that amount as a penalty. And an applicant screening fee under Minn. Stat. 504B.173 is not a deposit at all and is governed by its own rules, discussed below.

Three weeks — 21 days. Minn. Stat. 504B.178, subd. 3 requires the landlord, within three weeks after termination of the tenancy and after receipt of the tenant’s mailing address or delivery instructions, to either return the deposit with the interest required by subd. 2 or furnish the tenant a written statement showing the specific reason for withholding the deposit or any portion of it.

The deadline shortens dramatically in one case. Where the tenant leaves the building because it was legally condemned, for reasons not due to the tenant’s own wilful, malicious or irresponsible conduct, the landlord has five days. That variant is almost never mentioned on template pages and it is the one that catches landlords in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, where rental licensing and condemnation activity is highest.

What may be withheld is narrow: amounts reasonably necessary to remedy the tenant’s default in the payment of rent or other funds due under the agreement, or to restore the premises to their condition at the start of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted. And the allocation of proof is unusual in the landlord’s disfavour: the same subdivision places the burden of proving that a withholding is reasonable on the landlord. Build the statement with a Minnesota security deposit itemization form and send it with a Minnesota security deposit return letter.

Deposits also earn interest, which the rankers mention but rarely quantify correctly. Under Minn. Stat. 504B.178, subd. 2 the deposit is not held in a fiduciary capacity but bears simple noncompounded interest at the rate of one percent per annum, computed from the first day of the month following full payment of the deposit to the last day of the month in which the landlord in good faith complies with subd. 3, or to the date judgment is entered in any civil action involving the landlord’s liability for the deposit, whichever date is earlier. Interest amounting to less than one dollar is excluded.

Two further subdivisions govern what happens when the property changes hands or the tenancy runs out. Under subd. 5, on a sale, assignment or other change of ownership the landlord must transfer the deposit to the successor and notify the tenant, or return it to the tenant, within sixty days; under subd. 6 the successor becomes responsible for it and the tenant has twenty days from written notice to object to the stated amount. And under subd. 8 a tenant may not withhold the final period’s rent on the footing that the deposit will cover it, except in a month-to-month agreement where no notice to quit has been given — doing so raises a rebuttable presumption that the withholding was not in good faith and exposes the tenant to a penalty plus interest. Our Minnesota security deposit laws guide works through the whole section.

Two separate liabilities, and they stack. This is the single most commonly compressed rule in Minnesota coverage: template pages report one number where the statute creates two independent exposures.

The first is Minn. Stat. 504B.178, subd. 4. A landlord who fails to provide the written statement within three weeks of termination, or within five days of a condemnation departure, or who fails to transfer or return the deposit as subds. 5 and 6 require, is liable to the tenant for damages equal to the portion of the deposit withheld and its interest, as a penalty — in addition to the portion of the deposit wrongfully withheld and its interest. The withheld money comes back and an equal amount is owed as a penalty. A landlord who keeps the whole deposit and misses the deadline is exposed to roughly double it before anything else is considered.

The second is subd. 7. Bad-faith retention of a deposit, its interest or any portion of it subjects the landlord to punitive damages not to exceed five hundred dollars for each deposit, on top of the subd. 4 damages. And there is a presumption attached: retention is presumed to be in bad faith where the deposit is not returned within two weeks after the action is commenced. A landlord who is sued and then sits on the money for a fortnight has, by default, conceded the point.

Subdivision 9 lets the action be brought in the county where the property is located or where the landlord resides, which removes a practical obstacle for tenants who have moved away. And subd. 10 closes the loop: any attempted waiver of the section is void and unenforceable, so none of it can be drafted around.

Minn. Stat. 504B.182 created them in 2023 and no ranking template page carries them. The section is short, it is non-waivable, and it changes the shape of every deposit dispute that follows.

At the commencement of the tenancy, or within fourteen days of the tenant occupying the unit, the landlord must notify the tenant of the option to request an initial inspection whose purpose is to identify deficiencies that already exist, so that they cannot later be deducted from the security deposit. If the tenant requests one, the parties schedule it at a mutually acceptable time. As an alternative the landlord may, with the tenant’s agreement, provide written acknowledgment of photographs or video showing the condition of the unit at the start or end of the tenancy — which is the modern practical route and is expressly blessed by the statute.

The landlord must also notify the tenant in writing of the option to request a move-out inspection. On request, the landlord conducts it at a reasonable time but no earlier than five days before the termination, the lease end date, or the day the tenant plans to vacate. The point of the timing is that it gives the tenant a window to remedy what the inspection identifies before anything is charged against the deposit. If the tenant declines the inspection, the landlord’s obligation is satisfied.

Subdivision 3 confirms the section does not modify the duties in Minn. Stat. 504B.178, 504B.185, 504B.195, 504B.271, 504B.375 or 504B.381, and subdivision 4 voids any oral or written provision by which a tenant waives the section as contrary to public policy. Read together with the burden of proof in Minn. Stat. 504B.178, subd. 3, the effect is that a Minnesota landlord who skipped the inspection notice and then charges for damage is arguing uphill.

No more than eight percent of the overdue rent payment, under Minn. Stat. 504B.177 — and only where the landlord and tenant have agreed in writing and the agreement specifies when the late fee will be imposed.

Both conditions matter and the second is the one that fails in practice. A lease that says “a late fee may be charged on overdue rent” without stating when the fee attaches has not satisfied the section. No written agreement, or a written agreement that does not name the trigger, means no late fee at all. The statute also clarifies that the due date does not include any earlier deadline the lease offers for a discount — so an “early payment discount” that expires on the third does not make rent late on the fourth.

There are two carve-outs. Where a federal statute or regulation governing a subsidized tenancy conflicts with the eight percent cap, the landlord may follow the federal requirement instead. And for a unit under a housing assistance payment contract, the late fee applies only to the portion of the rent payable by the tenant, not to the subsidy. See Minnesota late fee laws and, when rent runs late, the Minnesota late rent notice.

A written fourteen-day pre-eviction notice, and it is mandatory. Minn. Stat. 504B.321, subd. 1a, inserted by the 2023 rewrite, is the largest change to Minnesota eviction practice in a generation, and not one of the seven pages currently ranking for this query mentions it.

Before filing an eviction action for nonpayment of rent, the landlord must deliver the tenant a written notice containing five things:

• the total amount due, with an itemized breakdown;
• the name and address of the person authorized to receive rent payments;
• a statement that the tenant has the right to seek legal assistance and that Legal Aid may be available;
• information about financial help, naming county or tribal social services, the state benefits portal at MNBenefits.mn.gov, and the 2-1-1 hotline; and
• the statement that the landlord can file an eviction case if the tenant does not pay the total amount due or move out within fourteen days from the date of the notice, together with a note that a local government may require a longer period.

It is delivered personally or by first-class mail to the tenant at the premises. The sanction for skipping it is severe and automatic: a complainant who files without attaching the notice faces dismissal without prejudice and expungement of the case file. Serve it properly with a Minnesota 14-day notice to pay rent or quit.

Subdivision 1b adds a benefit landlords generally welcome. Receipt of the pre-eviction notice is itself verification of an emergency for county emergency assistance under Minn. Stat. 256D.06, subd. 2, and a county may not require additional emergency verification or proof that the landlord will accept assistance funds. In practice the notice is often what unlocks the money that pays the arrears.

For a non-monetary breach the picture is different, and the difference is a finding rather than an omission. Minnesota has no general statutory notice-and-cure period. Under Minn. Stat. 504B.285, subd. 1 the grounds are holding over after a foreclosure sale, the expiry of a mortgage redemption period or a tax sale; holding over after the lease has terminated or when rent is due; and a tenant at will holding over after a notice to quit. Any cure right for an ordinary lease violation therefore has to be written into the lease, which is why the builder above treats it as a term rather than a restatement. Where the lease does provide one, use a Minnesota notice to cure or quit; where the conduct is beyond cure, an unconditional quit notice. Our Minnesota eviction notice laws guide covers the sequence.

The complaint itself is regulated too. Under Minn. Stat. 504B.321, subd. 3 the complainant must attach the current or most recent written lease and any relevant addenda; for nonpayment, a detailed itemized accounting; for a lease breach, the specific clause, the nature of the conduct, the dates and the clause authorizing eviction; and must state whether the tenancy involves a federal or state housing subsidy, Section 8, low-income housing tax credits or a similar program, naming the administering agency. Under subd. 6 the eviction file is nonpublic until final judgment is entered, except to the parties and their licensed attorneys — which is why a landlord may not treat a pending filing as a public black mark, and why Minn. Stat. 504B.173, subd. 3a bars denying an application because of one.

Yes, and the price of doing so is unusually low. Minn. Stat. 504B.291, titled eviction action for nonpayment, redemption and other rights, is one of the most tenant-favourable redemption provisions in the country and is almost never described accurately.

Subdivision 1(a) starts by removing a technicality: a landlord may bring an eviction for unpaid rent whether or not the lease contains a re-entry clause, and the action is itself the demand for rent. It then grants the redemption right. Unless the landlord has also alleged a lease violation under Minn. Stat. 504B.285, subd. 5, the tenant may redeem the tenancy at any time before possession is delivered by paying the rent in arrears, with interest, the costs of the action, and an attorney’s fee not to exceed five dollars. That figure has not moved in decades and it means the redemption price is essentially the rent plus costs. A governmental agency or a tax-exempt organization administering a rental assistance program may guarantee the redemption payment, which is how emergency assistance is deployed in practice.

Subdivision 1(b) softens it further: where the tenant pays the arrears but cannot cover the interest, costs and fee, the court may permit payment into court to restore the tenancy within the stay periods available under Minn. Stat. 504B.345. Subdivision 1(d) contains a rule that decides a surprising number of cases — rent paid applies first to arrears from a prior period before current-period rent, unless the court finds the prior claim was waived. A tenant who pays “this month” while last month is outstanding has, as a matter of law, paid last month.

One evidential rule sits alongside. A tenant who presents copies of money orders totalling the rent amount, properly dated and made out to the landlord, creates a rebuttable presumption of payment, which the landlord may rebut with business records showing non-payment.

2026 Minn. Laws ch. 81 took effect, and because it did so five days before this page was verified, it is the clearest example in this wave of a codified statute lagging the law it is supposed to state. On the day of verification the revisor’s own page for Minn. Stat. 504B.118 still displayed the section under its pre-amendment title, with its pre-amendment one-sentence text and a history line ending in 2010, carrying only a banner noting that the section “has been affected by law enacted during the 2026 Regular Session.” A banner is not text. The session law governs.

Minn. Stat. 504B.118 is now a payment-of-rent section. The cash receipt rule survives — a written receipt immediately where cash is paid in person, or within three business days otherwise. What is new is the treatment of digital payment platforms, defined as an electronic application or system under the landlord’s control, or operated by a vendor the landlord contracts with, that enables financial transactions. Where a landlord requires or permits one, the tenant must have an alternative payment option without fees; the landlord must promptly restore functionality or provide an alternative when the platform fails; and the landlord may not take any adverse action — including an eviction or a late fee — where both the platform and the alternative are not functioning. A tenant has an affirmative defence to an eviction for nonpayment where the landlord violated the section, requiring dismissal and permitting reasonable attorney fees and equitable relief. That defence applies to eviction actions filed on or after August 1, 2026.

Minn. Stat. 504B.2136 is brand new. A residential landlord shall not list the minor child of a residential tenant as a defendant in an eviction action complaint, unless the minor is the sole tenant on the lease. The protection cannot be waived by a lease and any waiver provision is void as contrary to public policy. A tenant recovers actual damages or three hundred dollars, whichever is greater. It applies to eviction actions filed on or after August 1, 2026.

The expedited eviction track widened and got more expensive to abuse. Minn. Stat. 504B.321, subd. 2 already allowed an expedited hearing for a violation of Minn. Stat. 504B.171 and for conduct seriously endangering the safety of other residents or intentionally and seriously damaging property. The amendment adds a tenant who assaults the landlord or the landlord’s employees or contractors, with “assault” taking the meaning given in Minn. Stat. 609.02, subd. 10. In the same breath it raised the civil penalty for abusing the expedited procedure from five hundred to seven hundred fifty dollars. The expedited timetable is unchanged: appearance five to seven days after the summons issues, service within twenty-four hours, an affidavit of specific facts required, and no consolidation with an ordinary breach or nonpayment claim.

Finally, the act added Minn. Stat. 504B.216, subd. 7a, allowing a landlord who has not received the actual utility bill by the tenant’s move-out date to issue an estimated final bill calculated from the immediately preceding billing period and prorated for the days occupied, with only administrative charges and late fees for previously unpaid charges added on top.

At least twenty-four hours, and only between eight in the morning and eight at night. Minn. Stat. 504B.211 — titled, tellingly, “residential tenant’s right to privacy” — is one of the more specific entry statutes in the country and the rankers report roughly half of it.

Subdivision 2 requires the landlord to enter only for a reasonable business purpose and only after making a good faith effort to give the tenant reasonable notice under the circumstances of not less than twenty-four hours in advance. The tenant may consent to a shorter period. But the tenant may not be required to waive the right to prior notice as a condition of the lease, which is what kills the “landlord may enter at any time” clause that circulates in generic templates. Entry is confined to the hours between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. unless the tenant agrees otherwise.

Subdivision 3 lists the reasonable business purposes: showing the unit to prospective tenants; showing it to prospective buyers or an insurance representative; performing maintenance work; allowing an inspection by a government official; responding to a disturbance; addressing a suspected lease violation; performing housekeeping in senior housing where at least eighty percent of residents are fifty-five or older; addressing unauthorized occupancy; and entering a unit the tenant has vacated.

Subdivision 4 permits entry without prior notice on three grounds only, each requiring the landlord to reasonably suspect that immediate entry is necessary: to prevent injury to persons or property because of conditions relating to maintenance, building security or law enforcement; to determine the tenant’s safety; or to comply with local ordinances. And subdivision 5 adds a duty that almost never appears on template pages — where the landlord enters without prior notice and without the tenant present, the landlord must place a written disclosure of the entry in a conspicuous place in the unit.

Subdivision 6 supplies the remedy, and it is not trivial. A violation entitles the tenant to a rent reduction or rescission of the lease, recovery of the damage deposit, a civil penalty of up to five hundred dollars for each violation, and reasonable attorney fees; and the tenant may use the procedures in Minn. Stat. 504B.381, 504B.385 and 504B.395 to 504B.471 to enforce it. Subdivision 7 exempts a manufactured home park governed by Minn. Stat. 327C.015. See Minnesota landlord entry laws and give notice with a Minnesota notice to enter.

Minnesota does not use the phrase “warranty of habitability” in its statute. It uses covenants, and it makes them unwaivable, which is stronger. Minn. Stat. 504B.161, subd. 1(a) provides that in every lease or licence of residential premises the landlord covenants:

• that the premises and all common areas are fit for the use intended by the parties;
• to keep the premises and all common areas in reasonable repair during the term, including the services and conditions listed in Minn. Stat. 504B.381, subd. 1 and the extermination of insects, rodents, vermin or other pests, except where the disrepair was caused by the wilful, malicious or irresponsible conduct of the tenant or someone under the tenant’s control;
• to make the premises and common areas reasonably energy efficient by installing weatherstripping, caulking, storm windows and storm doors where the measure produces energy cost savings exceeding its cost, with interest, amortized over the following ten years;
• to maintain the premises and common areas in compliance with the applicable health and safety laws of the United States, the state and local units of government, including ordinances regulating rental licensing, except where the violation was caused by the tenant’s wilful, malicious or irresponsible conduct; and
• to equip or furnish heat at a minimum temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit in all places intended for habitation, including kitchens and bathrooms, from October 1 through April 30, unless a utility company requires and instructs the heat to be reduced.

Then paragraph (b), which is the whole point of the section: the parties to a lease or licence of residential premises may not waive or modify the covenants imposed by this section. Not “a waiver is disfavoured” and not “a waiver must be conspicuous” — the parties simply cannot do it. Subdivision 3 reinforces the point twice over: the section is to be construed liberally, and an opportunity to inspect the premises before concluding the lease does not defeat the covenants. Subdivision 4 makes them additional to anything imposed by law, ordinance or the lease itself, and subdivision 5 preserves the landlord’s liability to third parties.

Exactly one arrangement is permitted, and it is narrow. Under subd. 2 the landlord and tenant may agree that the tenant performs specified repairs or maintenance, but only where the agreement is supported by adequate consideration and set forth in a conspicuous writing. No such agreement may waive subd. 1, and none may relieve the landlord of the duty to maintain the common areas. A clause buried in the body of a lease saying “tenant is responsible for all maintenance” fails both limbs. Our Minnesota habitability laws guide works through the covenants and the case law around them.

Minnesota gives the tenant two distinct court routes, and picking the right one turns on urgency.

The emergency route is Minn. Stat. 504B.381, amended in the 2023 rewrite. A tenant may petition the district court for emergency relief where a government unit has revoked the rental licence, issued a condemnation order or declared the property uninhabitable, or where there is an emergency involving the loss of an essential service for which the landlord is responsible. The section names them: a serious infestation, the loss of running water, the loss of hot water, the loss of heat, the loss of electricity, the loss of sanitary facilities, a nonfunctioning refrigerator, a nonfunctioning air conditioner or elevator where the lease provides one, and any conditions, services or facilities that pose a serious and negative impact on health or safety. That last catch-all is broad and deliberately so.

The petition must describe the premises, identify the landlord, set out facts showing the emergency and ask for relief. The tenant must attempt to notify the landlord at least twenty-four hours before filing, and the court may grant relief without notice where reasonable efforts to notify were unsuccessful. On finding a violation the court shall order the landlord to begin remedying it immediately and may order the relief available under Minn. Stat. 504B.425. The section does not reach an emergency resulting from the tenant’s own negligence or deliberate act, and subd. 8 allows a conciliation-court filing fee subject to an inability-to-pay affidavit.

The non-emergency route is rent escrow under Minn. Stat. 504B.385. Where the violation is the subject of a code inspection order, the tenant waits for the repair deadline to pass. Where it is not, the tenant must first give the landlord written notice specifying the violation, delivered personally or to the place where rent is normally paid; if it is not corrected within fourteen days, the tenant may deposit the rent with the court administrator together with an affidavit. The critical discipline is that the tenant must deposit all rent coming due and may not simply withhold it — withholding rather than escrowing forfeits the protection and hands the landlord a nonpayment case. A hearing follows within ten to fourteen days, and the court may order rent abatement, release rent to pay for repairs, abate future rent, or impose a fine. Minn. Stat. 504B.441 protects the tenant from being penalized for making the complaint, and those rights cannot be waived.

A fixed-term lease simply expires. That is worth saying plainly, because Minnesota’s notice statute does not apply to it. Minn. Stat. 504B.135 — whose actual title is “terminating tenancy at will”, not “terminating a periodic tenancy” — provides that a tenancy at will may be terminated by either party by giving notice in writing, and that the time of the notice must be at least as long as the interval between the times rent is due, or three months, whichever is less.

Worked through, that means: an ordinary month-to-month tenancy takes one full rental period; a weekly tenancy takes 7 days; a quarterly tenancy takes three months rather than a quarter; and a tenancy whose rent interval runs longer than three months is capped at three months. Serve it with a Minnesota tenant notice to vacate or, for a fixed term the landlord will not renew, a Minnesota notice of non-renewal.

Two sections then modify the picture, and neither appears on any ranking page.

Minn. Stat. 504B.147 — notice parity. Where a lease sets different notice periods for the two sides, subd. 2 lets the tenant give notice to vacate using either the tenant’s period or the landlord’s, whichever the tenant chooses. Subd. 3 is the operative rule: the landlord may not give a notice to quit the premises or a notice of a rent increase that is shorter than the time period the lease establishes for the tenant’s notice of intent to vacate. “Notice to quit” expressly includes a notice of non-renewal. Subd. 4 makes the section non-waivable and voids any contrary lease provision as contrary to public policy. The practical consequence is that a landlord who demands sixty days’ notice from the tenant has bound himself to sixty days as well.

Minn. Stat. 504B.145 — automatic renewals. To enforce an automatic renewal clause in a lease of an original term of two months or more that renews for a further two months or more unless the tenant gives notice, the landlord must give the tenant written notice directing the tenant’s attention to the automatic renewal provision, served personally or mailed by certified mail at least fifteen days but not more than thirty days before the date by which the tenant must furnish notice of an intention to quit. Miss that window and the renewal clause is unenforceable. Certified mail is specified; ordinary post does not satisfy it.

Finally, Minn. Stat. 504B.154, created in 2024, resolves what happens when a tenant leaves early. If the tenant abandons the unit during the term, the landlord must make reasonable efforts to re-rent it at a fair rental value. Where the landlord re-lets for a term beginning before the agreement expires, the agreement terminates when the new tenancy begins. Where the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts, or accepts the abandonment as a surrender, the agreement terminates on the date the landlord has notice of the abandonment. Either way the tenant is not liable for rent after termination, and for a periodic tenancy the maximum liability is the notice period required to end the lease. Any waiver of that duty is void and unenforceable. See Minnesota lease termination laws and Minnesota breaking-lease laws.

Minnesota fixes no statewide minimum notice period for a rent increase, and it imposes no cap on the amount. What it does instead is constrain the increase from an unexpected direction.

Minn. Stat. 504B.147 applies to a notice of a rent increase exactly as it applies to a notice to quit: the landlord may not give one shorter than the notice period the lease requires of the tenant for notice of intent to vacate. A lease demanding sixty days from the tenant has, by operation of that section, given the tenant sixty days’ warning of any increase. The section cannot be waived.

Beyond that, a fixed-term lease sets its own rent for its own term and cannot be increased mid-term without agreement; a tenancy at will can be varied on notice consistent with Minn. Stat. 504B.135 and 504B.147. Local overlays exist — some Minnesota cities have adopted their own rent-stabilization or notice ordinances, and Minn. Stat. 504B.321, subd. 1a itself contemplates that a local government may require a pre-eviction period longer than fourteen days — so a landlord in a licensed rental city should check the municipal code as well as the statute. See Minnesota rent increase laws and serve the change with a Minnesota rent increase notice.

Minnesota answers both, and the retaliation answer is structurally more favourable to tenants than most states’.

Lockouts — Minn. Stat. 504B.375. A residential tenant who is unlawfully excluded or removed from the premises, actually or constructively — and the section expressly includes the termination of utilities or the removal of doors, windows or locks — may file a verified petition in district court describing the premises and the landlord, stating the facts showing the exclusion was unlawful, and asking for possession. Where the petition clearly establishes unlawfulness, the court may immediately order possession restored, on such security as the court deems appropriate, and the sheriff executes the order by demanding possession from the landlord and, if refused, putting the tenant back in. The landlord may move to dissolve the order on at least two days’ notice, and either party may appeal within ten days. Subdivision 4 voids any lease provision waiving the section.

Utility shutoffs — Minn. Stat. 504B.221. Separately and in addition, a landlord who interrupts electricity, heat, gas or water service to the tenant is liable for treble damages or five hundred dollars, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney fees. The defences are narrow: the tenant’s own negligence, the tenant’s failure to notify the landlord, a good-faith effort to reinstate service within a reasonable time after notice, and an interruption to repair faulty or defective equipment where service is promptly restored. Any waiver is contrary to public policy and void.

Abandoned property — Minn. Stat. 504B.271. A landlord who takes possession of property left behind must store and care for it, and may sell or dispose of it only twenty-eight days after receiving actual notice of the abandonment or after it reasonably appears the tenant has abandoned, whichever occurs last, having made reasonable efforts to notify the tenant at least fourteen days beforehand by personal service, by first-class and certified mail, and by posting on the premises. Remaining sale proceeds go to the tenant on written demand. And a landlord who fails to let the tenant retake possession within twenty-four hours after written demand — or forty-eight hours excluding weekends and holidays where the property is stored off the premises — is liable for actual damages, attorney fees, and punitive damages not exceeding twice the actual damages or one thousand dollars, whichever is greater.

Retaliation — Minn. Stat. 504B.285, subds. 2 and 3. A tenant may defend an eviction brought on a notice to quit by proving the notice was intended in whole or part as a penalty for the tenant’s good-faith attempt to secure or enforce rights under the lease or under state or federal law, or for reporting a violation to a governmental authority. The mechanism is a burden shift, and the window is generous: where the notice to quit was served within ninety days of the tenant’s protected act, the burden of proving that the notice was not served in whole or part for a retaliatory purpose rests with the landlord. Subdivision 3 extends the defence to an eviction for nonpayment where a rent increase or service reduction was itself retaliatory, provided the tenant tenders the original rent obligation to the court or the landlord. Subdivision 5 lets a landlord plead nonpayment and a lease violation in the alternative, and gives the tenant up to seven days to pay any rent the court determines is due if the lease-violation claim fails.

Minnesota has no single omnibus void-clause section of the kind Colorado or Arizona use. It voids waivers section by section, and once collected the list is longer and stricter than most states’ consolidated versions. A Minnesota lease clause that contradicts any of the following is unenforceable, even though the lease itself remains in force:

• Minn. Stat. 504B.161, subd. 1(b) — the parties may not waive or modify the landlord’s covenants at all. A tenant-repair agreement under subd. 2 is permitted only with adequate consideration, in a conspicuous writing, and never for common areas.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.171, subd. 3 — the covenant against unlawful activities may not be waived or modified.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.178, subd. 10 — any attempted waiver of the security deposit section is void and unenforceable.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.182, subd. 4 — a waiver of the initial and move-out inspection options is contrary to public policy and void.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.116 — a waiver of the prorated final month is void and unenforceable.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.147, subd. 4 — the notice-parity rule may not be waived or modified.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.211, subd. 2 — a tenant may not be required to waive the right to prior notice of entry as a condition of the lease.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.195, subd. 5 — a waiver of the outstanding-order disclosure is contrary to public policy and void.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.221 — a waiver of the utility-interruption remedy is void.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.271, subd. 4 — a waiver of the abandoned-property protections is void.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.375, subd. 4 — a waiver of the unlawful-exclusion remedy is void.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.154, subd. 2 — a waiver of the duty to mitigate after abandonment is void.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.206, subd. 5 — the victim-of-violence termination right cannot be waived and a landlord may not require a waiver.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.465 — the tenant remedies action may not be waived.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.2136 — the bar on naming a minor child as a defendant cannot be waived; any waiver is void as contrary to public policy.
• Minn. Stat. 504B.113, subd. 3 — no additional fee, charge or deposit may be required for a service or support animal, and Minn. Stat. 504B.114, subd. 2 makes any declawing or devocalization requirement void and unenforceable.

Then there is the attorney-fee clause, which Minnesota handles in a way no other state in this family does. Minn. Stat. 504B.172 does not ban a one-sided clause and does not create an exception to a ban. It provides that if a residential lease specifies an action, circumstances, or an extent to which a landlord — directly or through additional rent — may recover attorney fees in an action between the landlord and tenant, the tenant is entitled to attorney fees if the tenant prevails in the same type of action, under the same circumstances, or is entitled to costs under Minn. Stat. 549.02, and to the same extent as specified in the lease for the landlord. The clause survives; it simply acquires a mirror image. A landlord who drafts a landlord-only fee clause has, as a matter of statute, also handed the tenant one. That is why the optional fee clause in the builder above is drafted as a prevailing-party clause: it states the position the statute produces anyway.

And one more that is not a waiver but functions like one. Minn. Stat. 504B.171, subd. 2a limits crime-free lease provisions: a landlord may not penalize a tenant for off-premises conduct by the tenant, a household member or a guest, unless that conduct is a crime of violence against another tenant, a guest, the landlord or the landlord’s employees, or results in a conviction for such violence against an unrelated person — excluding chapter 152 offences. Subdivision 1 of the same section adds that a landlord may not prohibit the lawful possession or use of cannabis; only consumption by combustion or vaporization may be barred.

Eight under state law, plus one federal — and most of them are things the lease must contain rather than papers handed over alongside it.

Landlord, manager and agent for service of process — Minn. Stat. 504B.181. Before the tenancy begins the landlord must disclose in writing the person authorized to manage the premises and the landlord or an agent authorized to accept service of process, and must post a printed notice of the same information conspicuously on the premises. Where the disclosure was not made and the landlord cannot be located, subd. 3 deems a caretaker, manager or the person to whom rent is paid the agent for service. Subd. 4 is the sanction: no action to recover rent or possession may be maintained unless the information was disclosed, or was known to the tenant thirty days before the action began.

Total Monthly Payment and every nonoptional fee — Minn. Stat. 504B.120. On the first page. Treble damages and attorney fees for a breach.

Lease duration notice and prorated rent — Minn. Stat. 504B.146. Start date, end date, prorated amount. Also on the first page.

Outstanding inspection and condemnation orders — Minn. Stat. 504B.195. A copy of any outstanding inspection order that has produced a citation, and of any condemnation order, goes to a prospective tenant before the lease is signed or any money is accepted, to a current tenant within seventy-two hours of the citation issuing, and to a new owner. The housing inspector indicates whether the violation threatens health or safety; where it does not, the landlord may post a summary conspicuously and make the full order available on request. The tenant’s remedy is the private right of action in Minn. Stat. 8.31, subd. 3a, plus equitable relief, and subd. 5 voids any waiver.

Notice of pending foreclosure or contract cancellation — Minn. Stat. 504B.151. This is the section frequently mis-cited as 504B.155, which is in fact the provision requiring a tenant to give cold weather notice before vacating a building. Under 504B.151, once the landlord has received notice of a contract for deed cancellation or a mortgage foreclosure sale, the landlord may not accept rent or a security deposit without first giving the tenant written notice of that fact and of the date on which the contract cancellation period or the mortgagor’s redemption period ends. The permitted lease is then restricted to a periodic tenancy of not more than two months or the time remaining in that period, whichever is less, or a fixed term not extending beyond it — unless the mortgage holder or contract vendor agrees to a longer term and the lease bars prepayment of rent beyond the redemption period. A violating landlord faces a civil penalty of five hundred dollars per violation.

Shared-metered UTILITY BILLS attachment — Minn. Stat. 504B.216. For a unit in a shared-metered residential building, a lease entered into or renewed on or after January 1, 2025 must include an attachment titled “UTILITY BILLS” explaining how the bill is calculated — square footage for natural gas, occupancy count for water and sewer — stating that the tenant is not charged for common-area utilities or shared amenities, disclosing the permissible charges including the capped late fee and administrative fee, setting out the tenant’s right to a reasonable payment plan and to dispute a bill, and giving the contact details of the Public Utilities Commission Consumer Affairs Office. The landlord must be the bill payer and customer of record, and the apportionment of electricity is banned outright. A violation is a breach of Minn. Stat. 504B.161 and 504B.221 and the attorney general may enforce it. Note carefully that the older section Minn. Stat. 504B.215 was repealed in 2024; three of the pages currently ranking for this query still cite it.

Service and support animal — no additional fee — Minn. Stat. 504B.113. A landlord must not require a tenant with a reasonable accommodation to pay any additional fee, charge or deposit for a service or support animal, and must disclose that prohibition in any lease that includes a pet policy. That disclosure duty is a lease-content requirement no ranking page lists. The landlord may require supporting documentation for each animal for which an accommodation is requested, but not where the disability is readily apparent or already known. Our Minnesota pet and assistance animal laws guide covers the accommodation process.

Attorney general’s statement — Minn. Stat. 504B.275. The attorney general prepares, revises annually and distributes a public statement summarizing landlord and tenant rights and obligations under chapter 504B, written in words with common everyday meanings, after a public meeting each time. Minn. Stat. 504B.181, subd. 2 requires the landlord to post notice that a copy is available from the attorney general on request.

Lead-based paint — federal, 42 U.S.C. 4852d. Any dwelling built before 1978 requires the federal disclosure, the EPA pamphlet and any known records. Our Minnesota lead-based paint disclosure form handles it.

Minnesota does not require a radon, mold, bed bug, flood-risk, military ordnance, pending demolition, sex-offender registry or asbestos disclosure in a residential lease. Radon deserves a sentence of its own because it is asserted so often: the Minnesota Radon Awareness Act at Minn. Stat. 144.496 and the disclosure duty at Minn. Stat. 513.61 both govern the sale of residential real property, and neither reaches a landlord letting to a tenant. Bed bugs deserve one too: Minnesota has no bed bug statute at all, and Minn. Stat. 504B.245, occasionally cited for one, is the remedies provision for a violation of the tenant screening report rules in Minn. Stat. 504B.241 — it gives a person injured by such a violation the greater of one thousand dollars or actual damages, with investigation costs and attorney fees, and gives the attorney general enforcement power. Infestations reach Minnesota law more forcefully through the non-waivable extermination covenant in Minn. Stat. 504B.161 and through “a serious infestation” as an express emergency ground in Minn. Stat. 504B.381.

More than most states, and the rules bite before a lease exists. Minn. Stat. 504B.173 governs the applicant screening fee. A landlord may not charge one where no unit is available or will become available within a reasonable future time; must give a written receipt, which may form part of the application; and may not use, cash or deposit the fee until every prior applicant has been screened or rejected.

Subdivision 3 is the one that changes behaviour. Before accepting the fee the landlord must disclose in writing both the name, address and telephone number of any tenant screening service used and the criteria on which the decision to rent will be based. A rejected applicant must be notified within fourteen days, identifying the criteria the applicant failed. Publishing the criteria up front is not optional and is not a courtesy.

Subdivision 3a bars three grounds of denial outright: a pending eviction case, a sealed or expunged court file, and an eviction that never produced a final writ of recovery. That aligns with Minn. Stat. 504B.321, subd. 6, which makes an eviction file nonpublic until final judgment — a filing that has not been decided is not a screening data point in Minnesota.

The remedies are modest but real: subd. 4 gives the applicant the screening fee back plus a civil penalty of up to one hundred dollars, filing costs and reasonable attorney fees, while an applicant who supplies materially false information faces up to five hundred dollars. Separately, Minn. Stat. 504B.245 makes a violation of the tenant report rules in Minn. Stat. 504B.241 worth the greater of one thousand dollars or actual damages plus costs of investigation and attorney fees. Our Minnesota tenant screening laws guide covers what a landlord may and may not consider.

• Burying nonoptional fees behind a headline rent. Minn. Stat. 504B.120 requires them all in the lease and requires the Total Monthly Payment on the first page. Treble damages plus attorney fees.
• Leaving the start date, end date or prorated amount off page one. Minn. Stat. 504B.146 puts them there by name.
• Filing an eviction for unpaid rent without the 14-day pre-eviction notice. Minn. Stat. 504B.321, subd. 1a. Dismissal without prejudice and expungement of the file.
• Copying a deposit cap from another state. Minnesota has none. The rules are all about interest, the deadline and the burden of proof.
• Treating the deposit penalty as a single number. Minn. Stat. 504B.178, subd. 4 makes the withheld amount and its interest a penalty in addition to the amount wrongfully withheld, and subd. 7 adds punitive damages for bad faith.
• Forgetting the five-day deadline after a condemnation. The ordinary three weeks does not apply where the tenant left because the building was condemned.
• Skipping the move-in and move-out inspection notices. Minn. Stat. 504B.182 makes them mandatory and non-waivable, and the burden of justifying a deduction already sits with the landlord.
• Charging a late fee with no written trigger. Minn. Stat. 504B.177 requires the written agreement to state when the fee is imposed, and caps it at 8 percent of the overdue rent payment.
• Writing “landlord may enter at any time”. Minn. Stat. 504B.211 forbids requiring the tenant to waive prior notice as a condition of the lease, and confines entry to eight in the morning through eight at night.
• Entering without notice and leaving nothing behind. Subdivision 5 requires a written disclosure of the entry in a conspicuous place.
• Demanding sixty days from the tenant and giving thirty. Minn. Stat. 504B.147 forbids it, and the section cannot be waived.
• Relying on an automatic renewal clause without the certified-mail warning. Minn. Stat. 504B.145 makes it unenforceable.
• Drafting a landlord-only attorney-fee clause. Minn. Stat. 504B.172 hands the tenant the same entitlement by statute.
• Waiving the repair covenants. Minn. Stat. 504B.161, subd. 1(b) says the parties may not, and inspecting the unit first does not help.
• Charging a pet fee for a service or support animal. Prohibited by Minn. Stat. 504B.113, which also requires the prohibition to be disclosed in any lease with a pet policy.
• Citing Minn. Stat. 504B.215 for shared-meter rules. Repealed in 2024; the section is now Minn. Stat. 504B.216 and it requires a titled attachment.
• Naming a tenant’s minor child as a defendant in an eviction complaint. Barred by Minn. Stat. 504B.2136 since August 1, 2026.
• Denying an applicant over a pending or expunged eviction filing. Barred by Minn. Stat. 504B.173, subd. 3a.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. Minnesota puts unusually large numbers on the landlord’s own compliance — treble damages on an undisclosed nonoptional fee, a stacked deposit penalty plus punitive damages, treble damages or a fixed sum on a utility shutoff, five hundred dollars per entry violation — and since 2023 it has also lengthened the road to possession with a mandatory pre-eviction notice, which raises the cost of choosing the wrong tenant in the first place. Minnesota also regulates the screening stage itself: Minn. Stat. 504B.173 requires the criteria to be published before the fee is taken and bars denial over a pending or expunged eviction filing. Verifiable income, a clean payment history and no completed eviction judgments remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background and employment verification, and our Minnesota landlord-tenant laws hub collects the rest of the chapter. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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