Preliminary notices in Minnesota
Subcontractors and suppliers on a private job in Minnesota serve a pre-lien notice within 45 days after your first day furnishing labor or materials. It is required. That is longer than most states that set a fixed window (the middle is about 26 days), but a late notice can still cost you.
Some larger commercial projects are exempt.
General contractors have their own step: residential pre-lien notice in the contract within 10 days after your first day furnishing labor or materials, required only in some cases. Residential work: in the contract or delivered within 10 days of starting.
Lien filing deadline in Minnesota
If the GC hired you, you have 120 days after your last day furnishing labor or materials to record a mechanics lien in Minnesota, about 30 days longer than the national median of 90 days (counted from last furnishing on a sample job). 9 of the 51 jurisdictions we track use this same lien deadline.
Serve the owner within the same 120 days.
The clock starts on your last day furnishing labor or materials under your contract. In many states, warranty visits and punch list work done mainly to extend the deadline don't restart it, so use your last day of real contract work.
Deadline to sue on the lien
To keep the lien alive you must sue to enforce it within 12 months after your last day furnishing labor or materials. That comes to about 365 days after your last day on the job, about the same as the national median of 365 days. 23 of the 48 jurisdictions we track have a shorter overall time to sue and 22 have a longer one.
Minnesota counts the suit deadline from last furnishing, not from recording, so recording late eats into the time left to sue.
Minnesota counts the suit deadline from last furnishing.
How Minnesota compares
Days are counted on a sample job with the lien recorded on its last allowed day, so states that count from recording or from completion can be compared with those that count from your last day on site. The median is across the jurisdictions with a dated rule on file.
- Preliminary notice (from first day)
- Minnesota: 45 daysNational median: 25.5 days
- Record the lien (from last day)
- Minnesota: 120 daysNational median: 90 days
- Sue to enforce (from last day)
- Minnesota: 365 daysNational median: 365 days
Public and federal projects
Public property can't be liened, so subcontractors and suppliers on state and local public jobs in Minnesota claim against the GC's payment bond instead. We haven't reduced Minnesota's bond claim deadlines to one set of numbers, because they vary by agency and project. The governing law is Minn. Stat. §574.26 to .32. Verify the notice and suit deadlines with the statute and the bond itself before the job starts.
Federal jobs in Minnesota follow the Miller Act instead of state law: those hired by a sub or supplier give the prime contractor notice within 90 days of their last furnishing, and suit is due within 1 year, in federal court. Prime contractors on federal work have no lien or bond claim.
Retainage and prompt payment in Minnesota
On public work the cap is 5%, the most common cap among states that set one. Up to 5% of each payment.
On private work we have no statutory cap on file, so retainage is usually whatever the contract says. Read the retainage and release clauses before you sign.
Once the GC is paid, it has 10 days on private work to pay its subs. GC pays subs within 10 days of receiving payment.
Late payments carry interest of 1.5% per month. That turns a slow payment into a number you can put in a demand letter.
| Public work | Private work | Federal work | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retainage cap | 5% | Verify | 10% |
| Release | After substantial completion. | Verify with state statute | Released with final payment, or earlier once progress is satisfactory. |
| GC pays subs within | Verify | 10 days | 7 days |
| Late-payment interest | Verify | 1.5% per month (18% a year) | Treasury prompt payment rate (reset every January and July) |
Not legal advice. Retainage and prompt payment rules differ by agency, contract size and contract date, and change often. Confirm the rules with the current statute, your contract and a construction attorney before relying on them.
Worked example: an electrical sub in Minnesota
An electrical subcontractor hired by the GC on a private bank branch in Minnesota starts work on March 2, 2026 and last furnishes on July 17, 2026. The project is completed on August 28, 2026. Run through Minnesota's rules, those dates give:
| Deadline | Date | Counted from |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-lien notice | April 16, 2026 | First furnishing |
| Record the lien | November 14, 2026 Weekend | Last furnishing |
| Sue to enforce the lien | July 17, 2027 Weekend | Last furnishing |
The first deadline on the calendar is “Pre-lien notice” on April 16, 2026, counted from the day the crew started, long before any payment is late.
2 dates land on a weekend (November 14, 2026, July 17, 2027). Not every state rolls a deadline to Monday, so the safe move is to record or serve by the Friday before.
Open the lien deadline calculator for Minnesota and enter your own dates to get this table for your job, with countdowns and a PDF deadline calendar.
Check your own dates with the free tools
- Mechanics lien and notice deadline calculator (MN): every notice, lien and suit date for your role, tier and job type.
- Retainage and prompt payment rules (MN): check your contract's retainage against the cap and work out late-payment interest.
- Schedule of values and pay application builder: bill each period with retainage calculated, so what you're owed is documented.
- Cash flow and retainage forecaster: see what slow payment and held retainage do to your bank balance.
Statutes cited
- Minn. Stat. §514.01 to .17
- Minn. Stat. §574.26 to .32 (public bonds)
- Minn. Stat. §15.72 and §16C.29 (public)
- Minn. Stat. §337.10 (prompt pay)
- Federal work in Minnesota: 40 U.S.C. §3131 to §3134 (Miller Act)
Not legal advice. Lien and bond claim rules change and have exceptions for project type, contract terms and how notices are served. Confirm every deadline with the current statute or a construction attorney in the project's state before relying on it. Rules shown as "Verify with state statute" have exceptions or variations we could not reduce to one number.