Minnesota fee transparency law: what landlords must disclose

Minnesota has required non-optional fees to be disclosed alongside rent since January 1, 2024, making it one of the earlier adopters of the fee-transparency wave now spreading through other states — which means Minnesota landlords have had longer than most to build this into a standard process rather than a recent scramble.

What the law requires

Non-optional fees must appear alongside the rent figure in rental listings and on the first page of the lease itself, not buried further into the document where a renter is less likely to read closely before signing. The total housing cost has to be shown before an applicant provides personal information, and auto-renewal terms need to be stated in clear, straightforward language.

Why "first page of the lease" is the specific detail worth getting right

A fee schedule disclosed accurately but placed on page twelve of a lease technically discloses the number without meeting the spirit — or in Minnesota's case, the letter — of a rule that specifically calls for first-page placement. This is the kind of detail that is easy to overlook when adapting a lease template written before the requirement existed.

What to check

Confirm listings show non-optional fees next to the rent figure rather than in fine print elsewhere, confirm the lease template itself places that disclosure on its first page, and review auto-renewal language for plain wording. Public summaries do not detail specific penalties, so verify current enforcement mechanisms directly if your process has not been updated since the rule took effect.

Once fee terms are tied to the lease record rather than typed separately into a listing each time, this kind of placement requirement is a template question, not a recurring audit — lease and document tracking keeps that template consistent across every unit.

For how this compares with other states and the federal rules on short-stay pricing, see fee transparency laws by state.