Minnesota rent increases: no state cap, the lease's notice clock, and St. Paul's 3 percent

Minnesota sets no statewide limit on how much you can raise rent, and no Minnesota city may set one unless voters approve it at a general election. St. Paul is the city that did: 3 percent in any 12 months, with buildings first occupied after 2004 permanently exempt. Elsewhere the rule is notice, and your own lease can set its length.

Unit 12 is in Minneapolis. Unit 5 is four miles east in St. Paul. Both run month to month, both are due for a January 1 increase, and they take different rules. Unit 12 can move to whatever the submarket carries. Unit 5 moves by 3 percent, unless its certificate of occupancy is dated 2005 or later, in which case it sits in exactly the same position as unit 12. The notice date for both comes out of a document nobody has opened since signing: the lease itself.

The market-neutral spine of a rent increase, cadence, notice, service, and the file, is covered in How and When to Raise Rent: Scheduling and Notice Periods. This is the Minnesota layer: the statute that keeps cities out of rent control and the one city that got in anyway, the notice clock no percentage tier controls, and the exemption with a date on it. Operator education, not legal advice, with every rule named to its official source.

How much you can raise rent in Minnesota

Minnesota sets no ceiling. No state statute limits the size of a residential rent increase, so outside St. Paul the number is a business decision, priced against the submarket and against what a good resident is worth keeping. What the state does regulate is who else may set a ceiling, and the answer is almost nobody: under section 471.9996 of the Minnesota Statutes, no statutory or home rule charter city, county, or town may adopt or renew any law to control rents on private residential property, with one exception, an ordinance or charter amendment "approved in a general election."

That exception is why the map looks the way it does. The 1984 preemption moved local rent control to the ballot rather than banning it, so Minnesota's is drawn by voters city by city, and St. Paul's ordinance opens by citing that subdivision as its authority. Two boundaries survive statewide, both about why rather than how much: an increase cannot be retaliation for a protected action, and it cannot fall unevenly along the lines fair housing law protects.

The notice: what Minnesota actually requires

Minnesota rent increase notice is termination law doing double duty. No statute prescribes a period for raising rent as such; section 504B.135 prescribes the clock for ending a tenancy at will, and a periodic increase rides it, because proposing new terms is the same act as ending the old ones. Its rule: a tenancy at will may be terminated by written notice, and "the time of the notice must be at least as long as the interval between the time rent is due or three months, whichever is less." That is a formula, not a number. A month-to-month interval is one month and a week-to-week interval is one week, with the three months a ceiling for long intervals rather than a floor for short ones. Because the notice covers a whole interval it lands on a period boundary, which the Minnesota Attorney General's landlord and tenant handbook describes as one rental period plus a day.

Then comes the part that makes your own lease the operative document. Under section 504B.147, titled "Time period for notice to quit or rent increase," a landlord "may not give a notice to quit the premises or notice of a rent increase that is shorter than the time period the lease provides for the tenant to give notice of an intention to quit the premises," and its requirements "may not be waived or modified by the parties." Write a lease that asks residents for 60 days' notice before they move out and you have written yourself a 60-day rent increase notice, in every unit that lease governs.

Minnesota advice online is unusually wrong about this. Pages and AI answers repeat a schedule of 30 days for smaller increases and 60 days for increases of 10 percent or more, as though it were state law. Chapter 504B carries one section whose heading mentions a rent increase, and it compares the landlord's notice to the tenant's, not the increase to a percentage; those tiers belong to other states. One further clock does exist: where a lease of two months or more renews automatically unless the resident gives notice, section 504B.145 requires a written reminder 15 to 30 days before their notice deadline, or the renewal is unenforceable.

The St. Paul rent stabilization ordinance

St. Paul rent stabilization is Chapter 193A of the Saint Paul Legislative Code, approved by voters in November 2021, effective January 1, 2023 in its amended form, and amended again in May 2025. Its operative sentence is section 193A.04: no landlord shall demand, charge, or accept a rent increase within a 12-month period "that is in excess of three (3) percent of the existing monthly rent," except through the paths the ordinance itself opens.

The cap attaches to the unit rather than the tenancy. Under section 193A.05 a change of tenancy resets nothing unless the vacancy was for just cause, so re-renting at market is not a lever a St. Paul operator holds. Where the landlord demonstrates a just cause vacancy to the Department of Safety and Inspections, one of the causes enumerated in the ordinance, it permits up to 8 percent plus the Consumer Price Index above the existing rent.

Above 3 percent the route is an application, not a notice. Section 193A.07 puts the burden on the landlord to show the increase is necessary for a reasonable return on investment, and the city runs two lanes: self-certification between 3 and 8 percent, a staff determination above that. The timing is what to plan around, because an increase over 3 percent "shall not take effect until a final determination is issued," and either side has 45 days from that determination to appeal, with the increase held until the appeal finishes. What the ordinance never sets is a notice period. It governs the amount and leaves the paper to the state, which is why the city's own landlord guidance points to Minnesota law for notice.

The exemption, and the disclosure that goes with it

The St. Paul exemption is a date, not a judgment call. Section 193A.08 provides that the limitation does not apply to newly constructed residential rental properties "that were issued their first building certificate of occupancy after December 31, 2004," and applies the same cutoff to formerly non-residential buildings issued a certificate on a change of classification to residential. The City Council made that permanent in May 2025, effective June 13, 2025, replacing a version that ran for a fixed number of years after occupancy. Because the test is documentary, the Department of Safety and Inspections will look the date up and issue a letter stating it, which is worth holding in the property file: an exempt owner who assumes they are capped gives up rent they could have charged, and a capped owner who assumes they are exempt serves an increase the ordinance forbids.

The exemption also carries an obligation that lands at leasing time rather than at increase time: where a unit is not subject to the limitation, "the landlord shall notify prospective tenants that the rental unit is not subject to chapter 193A.04 rent limitations prior to a finalized rental agreement." The occupancy date makes the exemption real; the disclosure is owed on every new lease. California operators will recognize the shape of that trap from California Rent Increases: AB 1482 Cap and Local Ordinances, where the single-family exemption depends on prescribed written notice, and Washington puts its version on the notice itself in Washington State Rent Increases: Annual Cap, 90 Days' Notice. Section 193A.09 adds that a lease provision purporting to waive a right created by the chapter is void, so the disclosure states a fact and never contracts out of one.

Minnesota's rent increase rules, at a glance

The whole rulebook, each row tied to its source:

The Minnesota procedure, start to finish

Run this per lease, counted backward from the intended effective date:

1. Establish the property's city. St. Paul brings Chapter 193A; everywhere else the state rules stand alone.
2. Pull the certificate of occupancy date on any St. Paul property. After December 31, 2004 means the cap does not apply, and the Department will confirm the date in writing.
3. Read the lease before the statute. Find the notice the resident owes you when they leave; under section 504B.147 yours to them can never be shorter.
4. Set the number. Outside St. Paul nothing caps it; inside St. Paul it is 3 percent unless the property is exempt or you hold a determination.
5. File for the exception before you need it. An increase above 3 percent waits for a final determination, and appeals run 45 days from it.
6. Count the notice back to a period boundary. A full rent interval, or the lease's longer figure, plus the section 504B.145 reminder where a lease renews automatically.
7. Serve written notice and keep the proof. What was served, to whom, how, and when, attached to the lease.

Key questions

Is there rent control in Minnesota?

Not statewide. No Minnesota statute limits the size of a rent increase, and section 471.9996 of the Minnesota Statutes bars any city, county, or town from adopting rent control unless the measure is approved at a general election. St. Paul voters approved one in November 2021, capping increases at 3 percent in a 12-month period. The property's city decides which rule a building follows.

How much notice does a landlord have to give to raise rent in Minnesota?

One full rental interval or three months, whichever is less, in writing. Section 504B.135 of the Minnesota Statutes sets that clock for ending a tenancy at will, and a periodic rent increase rides it, because new terms replace the old ones. For a month-to-month tenancy that is one month, described in the Minnesota Attorney General's landlord and tenant handbook as one rental period plus a day. Section 504B.147 can make it longer.

Does Minnesota require 60 days' notice for a rent increase over 10 percent?

No. No Minnesota statute ties notice length to the size of an increase. Chapter 504B carries exactly one section on rent-increase notice, section 504B.147, and it compares the landlord's notice period to the tenant's, not the increase to a percentage. Those tiered schedules are other states' rules. The Minnesota clock is the rental interval in section 504B.135, lengthened by the lease wherever 504B.147 applies.

Can a landlord raise rent in the middle of a lease in Minnesota?

No, not unless the lease provides for it. Rent is a contract term for the length of a definite term, so a mid-term increase takes a clause that authorizes one. Without that clause the increase waits for the renewal offer or, once the tenancy runs month to month, for written notice clearing a full rental interval. In St. Paul the 3 percent limit applies whenever the increase lands.

How often can a landlord raise rent in Minnesota?

Outside St. Paul, as often as the tenancy allows; no Minnesota statute sets a frequency limit. A definite-term lease holds its rent until the term ends, and a month-to-month tenancy can change with any properly noticed interval. Inside St. Paul the ordinance is the limit: no more than 3 percent within any 12-month period, which makes once a year the working cadence.

Is there rent control in Minneapolis?

No. Minneapolis voters approved a charter amendment in 2021 authorizing the City Council to regulate rents, but the Council has adopted no ordinance, and the city's own rent stabilization page states that an ordinance it did pass would still go to Minneapolis voters before taking effect. Until both steps happen, a Minneapolis building follows the state rules: no cap, and the section 504B.135 notice clock.

Is my building exempt from St. Paul rent stabilization?

If its first building certificate of occupancy is dated after December 31, 2004, yes, and permanently. Section 193A.08 of the Saint Paul Legislative Code exempts newly constructed properties, and non-residential buildings converted to residential, on that fixed cutoff, made permanent in the amendment effective June 13, 2025. The Department of Safety and Inspections confirms the date on request, and an exempt unit carries a disclosure duty to prospective residents.

Does the St. Paul rent cap still apply when a tenant moves out?

Usually yes. Under section 193A.05 the 3 percent limit follows the unit through a change of tenancy, so a vacancy is not a reset. The exception is a just cause vacancy: where the landlord demonstrates one to the Department, the ordinance allows up to 8 percent plus the Consumer Price Index above the existing rent. The just causes are listed in the ordinance, and the demonstration is the landlord's to make.

How Scaalr runs a Minnesota schedule

Scaalr resolves the market from the property's address, and Minnesota is two markets rather than one. A property outside St. Paul resolves to the Minnesota profile, which carries no cap, so there is no market number to inherit and no portfolio rate to anchor to: each scheduled increase takes the explicit percentage you set on that lease, the same arrangement as Texas Rent Increases: Notice, Timing, and the Lease Terms and Alberta Rent Increases: No Cap, 12-Month Rule, Notice Periods. Minnesota prescribes no government form either, so Scaalr composes the notice from the market's rules rather than filling one.

A St. Paul address resolves to the stabilized regime by default, carrying the 3 percent limit and the once-in-12-months rule. The exempt regime is a second profile you select on the lease or pin to the property, and no address reaches it on its own, because Scaalr does not hold your certificate of occupancy dates and does not decide covered versus exempt. Defaulting to stabilized is deliberate: capping a building that turns out to be exempt costs an increase you could have taken and is corrected by selecting the other regime, while the reverse would serve an increase the ordinance forbids. Each regime carries its own acknowledgment, and nothing serves in either until a manager reviews and acknowledges that regime's current rules.

The schedule is validated when you set it and re-checked before anything serves. Under the stabilized regime an increase above 3 percent asks for the reference of the determination that allows it, because St. Paul provides a path above its cap rather than a flat ceiling; the application, the self-certification, and the Consumer Price Index arithmetic stay with you and the city. The statutory minimum holds as a hard floor and the lead above it is yours to set, which is where the section 504B.147 comparison belongs, since the length that rule produces lives in your lease rather than in any market profile.

On the due date Scaalr opens a rent-increase case, generates and attaches the notice, and records service as a staff task, keeping the send-by date and the record of what was served, to whom, and when. Minnesota notices are not served by email in Scaalr, and nothing goes out unsigned: a designated signer captures a signature once for unattended sending, reviews each notice, or routes notices to the owner through a secure emailed link. Every supported market is listed on the rent increases page, and automated rent-increase notices are included on Growth and up.

Unit 5, current

Back to unit 5 in St. Paul. Its regime is recorded on the lease instead of remembered, its 3 percent is checked when the schedule is set and again before the notice composes, and its notice date is counted from the interval in its own lease rather than from a number somebody read on a blog. Unit 12 in Minneapolis runs the same calendar with a different number behind it. Minnesota left you the pricing and the judgment; the dates, the paper, and which rulebook each door answers to run on the system.