Is This Fee Legal in Minnesota?

You are looking at a receipt with a fee on it that was not in the price you were shown. There are three possible answers, and all three are common.

One — the fee had to be in the price. Minnesota’s price-transparency rule took effect January 1, 2025. If a business advertised, displayed, or offered a price for something, that price had to already include every mandatory fee. Adding the fee later, at the cart or on the invoice, is the violation. Under the statute’s words the question is what the advertised price said, and the Attorney General’s office reads it that way too — see Gate 1.

Two — the fee is allowed, but only if the business did a specific thing. The statute has eight lettered paragraphs that describe ways to comply, most of them on a condition. A delivery app that showed you the fee twice complies. A restaurant that disclosed the percentage of an automatic gratuity complies. A moving company that told you the price factors and said the total may vary complies. You can check each condition against what you actually saw.

Three — the fee is outside this law entirely. Government sales tax is excluded by the statute’s own words. So are three categories of seller. And conduct before January 1, 2025 is not covered at all, no matter how bad it looks.

I wrote this page to get you to the right one of those three. Five gates, in order. If you fall out at any gate, you have your answer.

Gate 1 — was a price advertised, displayed, or offered?

Everything here runs off a price the business showed you. Minn. Stat. § 325D.44, subd. 1a(a):

A person engages in a deceptive trade practice when, in the course of business, vocation, or occupation, the person advertises, displays, or offers a price for goods or services that does not include all mandatory fees or surcharges. If the person that disseminates an advertisement is independent of the advertiser, the person is not liable for the content of the advertisement.

Three verbs — advertises, displays, or offers. A menu board is a display. A shelf tag is a display. A rental listing, a hotel search result, a ticket page, a mailer, a quoted monthly rate in an email: all of them are a price the business put in front of you.

The violation happens at that moment, not at checkout. That is the whole design of the provision. The argument a business will make is that the consumer saw the fee before paying and chose to pay it anyway — and under this subdivision that argument is aimed at the wrong event. The question is what the advertised, displayed, or offered price said.

The Attorney General’s office reads it the same way. Its Price Transparency Law FAQ (Revised 4/2025) asks whether a business can comply “by disclosing mandatory fees or surcharges separately from the advertised price, before a consumer finalizes a transaction,” and answers:

No. The price advertised, offered, or displayed to consumers must be the full price that the consumer is required to pay, inclusive of all mandatory fees or surcharges.

That is the Attorney General’s view of the statute, not a court’s. Searching the Minnesota Supreme Court, the Minnesota Court of Appeals, the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota and the Eighth Circuit on CourtListener on September 18, 2026, I found no decision construing subdivision 1a. That database does not carry every unpublished Minnesota opinion, so what I can tell you is that none had surfaced as of that date — not that none exists. But it is the reading the text supports.

Where this gate ends the inquiry: if no price was ever advertised, displayed, or offered — you called for a quote and the first number anyone gave you was the all-in number — there is no subdivision 1a problem. The second sentence of paragraph (a) matters too: if the party that ran the ad is independent of the advertiser, that party is not on the hook for the ad’s content.

And the date. Subdivision 1a was added by Laws 2024, chapter 111. Sections 1 and 2 of that act each carry the same clause:

This section is effective January 1, 2025, except that this section is effective June 1, 2025, for industries where the prices are regulated by the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

Conduct before January 1, 2025 is not a subdivision 1a violation. The Attorney General’s FAQ goes one step further and says the law “is not retroactive,” and that “[t]o the extent a contract was signed before January 1, 2025, this law does not apply regardless of when the contractual obligations are completed.” Again — that is the AG’s position, and a business will quote it at you.

Gate 2 — is it a “mandatory fee”?

If a price was shown, the next question is whether the fee had to be inside it. Subdivision 1a(b) defines the term, and the structure of the definition is the most important thing on this page:

(b) For purposes of this subdivision, “mandatory fee” includes but is not limited to a fee or surcharge that:

(1) must be paid in order to purchase the goods or services being advertised;

(2) is not reasonably avoidable by the consumer; or

(3) a reasonable person would expect to be included in the purchase of the goods or services being advertised.

Read the end of clause (2). The word is or. Any one of the three is enough. The list is also open — “includes but is not limited to.”

I am flagging that because the Attorney General’s own FAQ prints the three prongs joined with and, not “or.” The statute governs. If someone shows you the FAQ’s version and tells you all three have to be true, the statute is the document that decides, and the statute says otherwise.

Prong (3) is the one that does the unexpected work. It reaches a fee that the business insists is optional if a reasonable person would have expected it to be inside the price. A charge that is technically declinable, in a place nobody declines it, is still inside the definition under (3).

Taxes are out, by the text. The definition closes with this:

For the purposes of this subdivision, mandatory fee does not include taxes imposed by a government entity on the sale, use, purchase, receipt, or delivery of the goods or services.

Sales tax on your restaurant bill does not belong in the advertised price. Neither does a government-imposed delivery tax. Note the shape of the exclusion, though: it covers taxes imposed by a government entity on the sale, use, purchase, receipt, or delivery. A private fee with an official-sounding name — “regulatory recovery fee,” “compliance charge,” “administrative fee” — is not a tax because a business called it one.

Gate 3 — did the business land in a safe harbor?

This is where a lot of readers find out their fee was legal. Paragraphs (c) through (j) each describe a way to comply. Run yours against the list.

(c) Delivery platforms — two conditions, both required. A delivery platform complies if it does all of the following: at the point where you view and select a vendor or items, it displays “in a clear and conspicuous manner that an additional flat fee or percentage is charged,” and “[t]he disclosure must include the additional fee or percentage amount”; and then, after you select items but before checkout, it displays “a subtotal page that itemizes the price of the menu items and the additional fee that is included in the total cost.” Both, not either. The first one — the disclosure of the amount at the moment you pick the restaurant — is the one to check.

The Attorney General reads “delivery platform” as a third-party service that does not make the goods or set their price. On that reading, a restaurant that cooks the food and drives it to you is not a delivery platform and cannot use paragraph (c) at all.

(d) Shipping. A person “may charge a reasonable postage or shipping fee that is actually incurred by a consumer who has purchased a good that requires shipping.” Two conditions in one sentence: reasonable, and actually incurred. A flat handling charge that is the same whether the box goes across town or across the country is not obviously either one.

(e) Discounts. Nothing stops a business from selling below its advertised price. Sales are fine.

(f) Auctions. Where consumers bid and the total cost is indeterminable, the seller complies by disclosing, clearly and conspicuously, any mandatory fees and that the total cost may vary. A fixed-price “buy it now” listing is not an auction.

(g) Variable-price services — usually legal, and this is a big lane. Where the total “is determined by consumer selections and preferences, or where the total cost of the service relates to distance or time,” the business complies by disclosing, clearly and conspicuously, “(1) the factors that determine the total price, (2) any mandatory fees associated with the transaction, and (3) that the total cost of the services may vary.” Rides, movers, tow trucks, hourly trades. If your estimate listed the price factors, named the fees, and said the total could change — that is compliance, and you can stop here. The condition people miss is (2): the fees have to be disclosed too, not just the hourly rate.

(h) Food and beverage, including hotels — read this one closely. In full:

(h) A food or beverage service establishment, including a hotel, is compliant with this subdivision if, in every offer or advertisement for the purchase of a good or service that includes pricing information, the total price of the good or service being offered or advertised includes a clear and conspicuous disclosure of the percentage of any automatic and mandatory gratuities charged.

What it covers is the percentage of an automatic and mandatory gratuity. “Parties of eight or more are charged a 20% automatic gratuity,” printed on the menu, is the thing this paragraph was written for, and it is lawful.

What it does not say is “service charge,” “wellness fee,” “kitchen appreciation,” “living wage fee,” or “administrative charge.” It says gratuities. Whether a charge with one of those other names is a gratuity is answered by a different statute, and I take that up in The Service Charge on Your Wedding or Banquet Invoice.

(i) Broadband. A provider complies by complying with the federal broadband consumer label rules at 47 C.F.R. § 8.1(a). That is a disclosure harbor, not an all-in-price rule.

(j) Cable and satellite video. A provider complies by complying with “the pricing requirements adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in Report and Order FCC 24-29, pursuant to United States Code, title 47, section 552.” Note the narrowness: this is about video programming pricing. It is not a blanket exemption for a telecom company’s every line item.

(k) is not a harbor for a business — it is a limit on the statute: “This subdivision is enforceable unless preempted by federal law.”

The honest summary of Gate 3: if you are looking at a disclosed automatic-gratuity percentage, a properly disclosed variable-price estimate, a delivery app that showed the fee at vendor selection and again at the subtotal, or real shipping cost, the answer is that the fee is allowed. Those four paragraphs are where most “this fee is legal” answers live.

Gate 4 — is the seller exempt?

Subdivision 1b takes three categories out of subdivision 1a altogether:

(1) fees authorized by law related to the purchase or lease of a motor vehicle that are charged by a motor vehicle dealer, as defined by section 168.27, subdivision 1, paragraph (f);

(2) any business or the business’ affiliate where either the business or the affiliate is regulated by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission; or

(3) any fees, surcharges, or other costs associated with settlement services, as defined in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, United States Code, title 12, section 2602(3). This clause does not apply to real estate broker commissions and fees.

Three things about these that are easy to read past.

Clause (1) is narrower than “car dealers are exempt.” It exempts fees authorized by law. A dealer fee that no law authorizes is not inside the exemption.

Clause (2) is written at the corporate-family level — “any business or the business’ affiliate.” If either the company or an affiliate is PUC-regulated, the exemption reaches it.

Clause (3) ends with a carve-back that gets overlooked: “This clause does not apply to real estate broker commissions and fees.” Broker commissions and fees are back inside the statute.

Gate 5 — what the law actually gives you

This is the part most consumer pages skip, and it is the part that decides whether anything happens.

Subdivision 1a sits inside Minnesota’s Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. That act’s own remedy section, Minn. Stat. § 325D.45, gives an injunction:

A person likely to be damaged by a deceptive trade practice of another may be granted an injunction against it under the principles of equity and on terms that the court considers reasonable. Proof of monetary damage, loss of profits, or intent to deceive is not required. Relief granted for the copying of an article shall be limited to the prevention of confusion or misunderstanding as to source.

An injunction is a court order telling the business to stop. It is not money. And the fee-shifting in that act runs both directions and only on a finding of state of mind:

Costs shall be allowed to the prevailing party unless the court otherwise directs. The court may award attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party if (1) the party complaining of a deceptive trade practice has brought an action knowing it to be groundless, or (2) the party charged with a deceptive trade practice has willfully engaged in the trade practice knowing it to be deceptive.

So the money claim has to come from somewhere else. It comes from the Consumer Fraud Act. Minn. Stat. § 325F.69, subd. 1 makes unlawful “[t]he act, use, or employment by any person of any fraud, unfair or unconscionable practice, false pretense, false promise, misrepresentation, misleading statement or deceptive practice, with the intent that others rely thereon in connection with the sale of any merchandise, whether or not any person has in fact been misled, deceived, or damaged thereby.” Subdivision 8 defines an unfair or unconscionable practice as one that “(1) offends public policy as established by the statutes, rules, or common law of Minnesota; (2) is unethical, oppressive, or unscrupulous; or (3) is substantially injurious to consumers.”

And § 325F.70, subd. 3(a) supplies the private remedy:

In addition to the remedies otherwise provided by law, a consumer injured by a violation of sections 325F.68 to 325F.70, in connection with a sale of merchandise for personal, family, household, or agricultural purposes, may bring a civil action and recover damages, together with costs and disbursements, including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney fees, and receive other equitable relief as determined by the court. An action brought under this section benefits the public.

“Consumer” there means “a natural person or family farmer,” and the purchase has to be for personal, family, household, or agricultural purposes. A business buying for its business is not a consumer under that subdivision.

There is a third route people will point you to, Minn. Stat. § 8.31, subd. 3a, which lets “any person injured by a violation of any of the laws referred to in subdivision 1” sue for damages, costs, investigation costs and attorney’s fees. Read subdivision 1’s list before relying on it. It names, among others, sections 325D.01 to 325D.07, sections 325D.09 to 325D.16, sections 325D.49 to 325D.66, section 325F.67, and sections 325F.68 to 325F.70. Sections 325D.43 to 325D.48 — the deceptive-trade-practices sections where subdivision 1a lives — are not on that list. Whether subdivision 3a nonetheless reaches a stand-alone deceptive-trade-practices claim is a genuinely contested question in Minnesota, and I am not going to tell you it is settled, because it is not.

Where that leaves a reader: the price-transparency rule is a strong liability rule attached to a weak remedy. The money, when there is money, is routed through the Consumer Fraud Act, and a well-built claim has to stand up on that act’s own terms rather than leaning on subdivision 1a to do the work.

What a single fee is worth, honestly

Almost nothing, standing alone. A $4.95 processing fee is a $4.95 claim. No lawyer takes it, and you should be suspicious of anyone who says otherwise.

Two things change that arithmetic, and only two.

Scale. A fee is a business decision made once and applied to everyone. The same $4.95, charged to every Minnesota customer, is not a $4.95 question — and the facts that matter are identical for every person who paid it: what the advertised price said, what the fee was, when it was added. That is what makes these class questions rather than individual ones. Whether any particular practice can actually be litigated that way depends on things this page cannot tell you — the contract you signed, whether it has an arbitration clause, whether it waives class claims, which court the case lands in.

Fee-shifting. Section 325F.70, subd. 3 lets a prevailing consumer recover costs of investigation and reasonable attorney fees. That provision is the reason small consumer claims get brought at all. Section 325D.45, subd. 2 lets a court shift fees only on a finding of willfulness — and it lets the court shift them to a defendant too, if a claim is brought knowing it to be groundless. Either way the word is “may.”

What to do next

Ask the business first. Asking costs nothing, and it is where a refund is most likely to come from without a lawyer. Name the fee, the date, the amount, and the price you were shown. Ask for the fee back in writing.

The Attorney General’s office is a separate government body, not us. The Minnesota Attorney General enforces this law and can seek injunctive relief, restitution, disgorgement, civil penalties, costs and fees. That office states in its own FAQ that it is “not authorized to give specific legal advice to individuals or to act on behalf of individuals in private legal matters.” A complaint to the Attorney General is not a lawsuit and does not get you a refund. It is still worth filing — patterns are how that office decides what to look at. File it on the Attorney General’s own site, at ag.state.mn.us. The Attorney General’s Office is a separate government office; this site is not affiliated with it, and, as that office says in the sentence quoted above, it does not act on behalf of individuals in private legal matters.

Conciliation court. Minnesota’s small-claims division hears civil claims where the amount “does not exceed: (1) $20,000; or (2) $4,000, if the claim involves a consumer credit transaction.” Minn. Stat. § 491A.01, subd. 3a(a). No lawyer is required. Two limits to know before you go: no writ of execution or garnishment summons issues out of conciliation court, and the court has no jurisdiction over an action “brought or defended on behalf of a class.” § 491A.01, subds. 2, 4(4). It is the right venue for your own fee and the wrong one for everybody’s.

Or show us the documents. Madgett Law, LLC is evaluating whether some of these pricing practices can be challenged in Minnesota on behalf of the people who paid. Minnesota law requires all-in pricing. If a business advertised one price and charged you more, we want to see your receipt. Three of these sectors have their own page and their own document list:

• Your Apartment’s “Total Monthly Payment” — a separate statute, with a better remedy, that reaches leases signed on or after January 1, 2024
• The Service Charge on Your Wedding or Banquet Invoice
• Resort Fees at Minnesota Resorts and Hotels

Sending documents to a law firm does not make you a client, and nothing on this page is advice about your situation. It is a reading of a statute.

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Published by Madgett Law, LLC. Statutes and sources verified September 18, 2026 against the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.