Minnesota Property Tax Refund: Eligibility, Amounts, and Deadlines

The Minnesota property tax refund returns money to homeowners and renters whose housing costs are high compared to their income. Homeowners with household income below $142,490 can receive up to $3,310 through the regular Homestead Credit Refund, and a separate special refund worth up to $1,000 is available when property taxes jump sharply from one year to the next.¹ Renters with household income below $77,570 qualify for a credit that, starting with the 2024 tax year, is now claimed on the state income tax return rather than on Form M1PR.²

Who Qualifies

Three things decide eligibility: Minnesota residency, occupancy of the property, and not being claimed as a dependent on someone else’s federal return. The statute defines a claimant as a Minnesota resident who is not a federal dependent.³ Part-year residents can file, but household income for the full calendar year counts, not just the months spent in Minnesota.

Homeowners must have owned and occupied the home as a homestead on January 2 of the year the property taxes are payable, and the county assessor must have classified it as homestead property by December 31 of the relevant assessment year.³ Manufactured home owners qualify too, though their property tax statements arrive on a different schedule.¹

Renters qualify if they live in a building where the owner pays property taxes or makes equivalent payments to the local government. People in tax-exempt housing, including some university dormitories and nonprofit facilities that don’t contribute to the local tax base, generally are not eligible. The 2025 household income ceiling for the renter’s credit is $77,570.²

What Changed for Renters in 2024

If you rent, the filing process is no longer the one described in older guides. Beginning with the 2024 tax year, the renter’s credit is a refundable credit on your Minnesota individual income tax return, Form M1. You claim it using Schedule M1REF along with the new Schedule M1RENT.²

That shifts your deadline to the regular April 15 income tax date and takes you off the August 15 property tax refund timeline. You can file electronically with tax software or mail Form M1 with Schedule M1RENT and copies of every Certificate of Rent Paid you received. If you try to use the online Property Tax Refund filing system as a renter, the Department of Revenue warns that your return will be delayed.⁴ Anyone filing or amending a renter’s claim for 2023 or earlier still uses the old Form M1PR.

How Much Homeowners Can Receive

The regular Homestead Credit Refund runs on a sliding scale: the less you earn and the more you pay in property taxes relative to income, the larger the refund. For claims filed in 2026 based on 2025 household income, the eligibility ceiling is $142,490.¹

The statute sets a threshold percentage of income you’re expected to pay toward property taxes. When your actual taxes exceed that threshold, the state refunds a share of the overage. At lower income levels the threshold is 1% of income and the state covers 88% of the excess, with a maximum refund of $3,310. As income rises, the threshold increases, the state covers a smaller share, and the maximum refund steps down. Someone with household income between $50,100 and $73,059, for example, can receive up to $2,680.⁵ The commissioner adjusts the brackets and maximums each year, which is why the current ceiling sits above the base figure in the statute text.

The Special Refund for Big Tax Increases

A second refund, often called the special or targeting refund, has no income limit and exists for homeowners hit with a large year-over-year property tax increase.¹ To qualify, all of the following must be true:

You owned and lived in the same home on January 2 of both the current and prior year
Your net property tax increased by more than 12% from the prior year
The dollar amount of the increase was at least $100
The increase was not caused by improvements you made to the property

The refund equals 60% of the tax increase above the greater of 12% of the prior year’s taxes or $100, capped at $1,000.⁵ You claim it on the same Form M1PR as the regular refund, and you can receive both in the same year if you qualify for each.

An example: if your taxes went from $3,000 to $3,600, that’s a $600 increase, or 20%. Twelve percent of the prior year’s taxes is $360. The $600 increase exceeds that threshold by $240, so your special refund would be 60% of $240, or $144.

How Household Income Is Calculated

Minnesota uses an unusually broad definition of household income for these programs. It starts with federal adjusted gross income, then adds back a long list of non-taxable money the federal return ignores. The additions include:

Social Security and railroad retirement benefits, including the portion excluded from federal taxable income
Workers’ compensation and disability payments, whether or not funded through insurance
Nontaxable pensions, annuities, and veterans’ benefits unless funded entirely with after-tax money
Cash public assistance
Contributions to IRAs, 401(k) plans, and similar accounts above a retirement base amount
Nontaxable interest from federal, state, or local government bonds
Nontaxable scholarships and fellowship grants

The statute also pulls in passive activity losses, retirement plan distributions not otherwise counted, and several other items.³ Household income means income received by every member of the household, not just the person filing, though a dependent’s income is excluded. This is where people get tripped up. An adult child or partner living with you who earns money adds to the household total even when they aren’t on the claim.

Military families should note that nontaxable combat pay, which appears in Box 12 of the W-2 under Code Q, falls under the statute’s broad nontaxable income category and gets added back.

Documents to Gather Before You File

Missing paperwork is the most common reason refunds get delayed or denied.

Homeowners need the Statement of Property Taxes Payable, which your county mails by March 31 for most properties, or by mid-July for manufactured homes classified as personal property.⁶ Use that statement, not the Notice of Proposed Taxes you receive in November.¹ The qualifying tax amounts appear on lines 1 and 2 of the tax detail section.

Renters need a Certificate of Rent Paid (CRP) from their landlord, who is required to provide it by January 31.⁷ The CRP shows your total rent for the year and the portion attributable to property taxes. If your landlord won’t provide one, you can request help from the Department of Revenue. Since the credit now goes on Form M1, attach copies of every CRP when you file.

Both homeowners and renters also need records of all income sources for every household member, including non-taxable income. Form M1PR requires entries for federal adjusted gross income, nontaxable Social Security benefits, government assistance, retirement plan contributions, and co-occupant income, among others.⁸

Deadlines and How to File

Homeowners file Form M1PR by August 15, and the state accepts the claim up to one year after that date. A 2026 claim can be filed as late as August 15, 2027.⁴ Many homeowners file earlier, often alongside their April income tax return.

Homeowners have three ways to file:

The Department of Revenue’s free Property Tax Refund Online Filing System, available only to homeowners.⁴
Commercial tax software, some of which can e-file Form M1PR.
Paper filing by mailing Form M1PR, with the postmark date counting as the filing date.⁹

Renters file as part of their income tax return using Schedule M1RENT, so the deadline is the standard April 15 income tax date.² The credit is refundable, so you receive it even if you owe no state income tax; it either reduces what you owe or increases your refund.

When the Money Arrives

Homeowner refunds follow a slower schedule than regular income tax refunds because the state needs to cross-reference property tax payments from mid-year installment periods. Most homeowner payments go out beginning in late September or October. Choosing direct deposit when you file speeds delivery compared to waiting on a paper check.

Because the renter’s credit is now part of the income tax return, renters who file by April 15 generally receive the credit with their regular state income tax refund, typically within a few weeks of e-filing. That is faster than the old M1PR timeline, which pushed renter payments to August or later.

The Department of Revenue runs a Where’s My Refund? tool for tracking any pending payment.¹⁰ If the department finds discrepancies, such as mismatched property ID numbers, income figures that don’t line up with federal data, or missing CRP information, expect a letter requesting clarification before the refund is released.

Debts That Can Reduce Your Refund

Your property tax refund can be intercepted before it reaches you if you owe certain debts. Minnesota’s child support enforcement agency can file a claim against a parent with arrears and take all or part of the property tax refund, the renter’s credit refund, and even lottery winnings over $600.¹¹ Past-due state taxes and other government debts can also trigger an offset. Federal delinquent debts can reach the refund through the Treasury Offset Program, which matches debtors against federal and state payments.¹²

1
Minnesota Department of Revenue. Homeowner’s Homestead Credit Refund
2
Minnesota Department of Revenue. Renter’s Credit
3
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 290A.03 – Definitions
4
Minnesota Department of Revenue. Filing for a Property Tax Refund
5
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes 290A.04 – Refund Allowable
6
Minnesota Department of Revenue. Property Tax Statement Instructions for Payable 2026
7
Minnesota Department of Revenue. Certificate of Rent Paid (CRP) Instructions
8
Minnesota Department of Revenue. 2025 Form M1PR – Homestead Credit Refund
9
Minnesota Department of Revenue. 2025 Homestead Credit Refund Forms and Instructions
10
Minnesota Department of Revenue. Where’s My Refund?
11
Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families. State Tax Refund Offset
12
Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Treasury Offset Program