Minnesota Never Opted Out, So You Get to Choose. The Hard Part Is That the Minnesota Numbers Are Not in the Statute Book.

Most states took the federal exemptions away. Congress let them: 11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(2) makes the federal list available “unless the State law that is applicable to the debtor under paragraph (3)(A) specifically does not so authorize.” Minnesota did not do that. It did the opposite, in one sentence.

So a Minnesota debtor picks a set. That is well known. What is less well known is that you cannot reliably look up the Minnesota half of the comparison. As of July 1, 2026 the Minnesota exemption amounts changed by administrative announcement, and the statutory text published at revisor.mn.gov is the 2025 edition — it still shows the old numbers. Meanwhile the Department of Commerce schedule that does show the new numbers does not cover the subdivisions the 2024 Legislature rewrote.

And buried in the same statute that gives you the choice is a rule that can take it away from your spouse for three years.

Does Minnesota actually let me use the federal exemptions?

Yes, and by affirmative grant rather than by silence. Minn. Stat. § 550.371, subd. 1:

Except as provided in this section, the exemptions set forth in subsection (d) of section 522 of the Bankruptcy Act, United States Code, title 11, section 522(d), shall be available to residents of this state.

That is the whole opt-out question. The federal Code’s default is that § 522(d) applies unless a state affirmatively withdraws it, and Minnesota not only declined to withdraw it but wrote the availability into its own statutes.

The alternative set — what § 522(b)(3) calls the state track — is not just chapter 550. Section 522(b)(3)(A) lets a debtor claim “any property that is exempt under Federal law, other than subsection (d) of this section, or State or local law . . . .” A Minnesota debtor on the state track therefore stacks Minn. Stat. § 550.37, the homestead exemption in Minn. Stat. §§ 510.01–.02, other Minnesota exemption statutes such as § 550.39, and non-§ 522(d) federal exemptions like the Social Security Act’s anti-assignment provision. That stacking is a real advantage of the state track that gets left out of side-by-side charts.

One thing on the state track that trips people who moved recently: § 522(b)(3)(A) does not ask where you live. It asks where you were domiciled for the 730 days before filing, and if that was not a single state, “the place in which the debtor’s domicile was located for 180 days immediately preceding the 730-day period or for a longer portion of such 180-day period than in any other place.” Move to Minnesota in 2025 and file in 2026 and your state-track exemptions are the other state’s. If that other state’s law restricts its exemptions to its own residents, § 522(b)(3) ends with the rescue clause:

If the effect of the domiciliary requirement under subparagraph (A) is to render the debtor ineligible for any exemption, the debtor may elect to exempt property that is specified under subsection (d).

Why are the Minnesota numbers not in the statute book?

Because Minnesota adjusts its exemptions by executive announcement, not by amendment, and the Revisor publishes the change only in the next annual edition.

Minn. Stat. § 550.37, subd. 4a is the machinery. It is worth reading closely, because it is not a CPI escalator:

(a) Except for subdivisions 5 and 7, the dollar amounts in this section shall change periodically as provided in this subdivision to the extent of changes in the implicit price deflator for the gross domestic product, 2005 = 100, compiled by the United States Department of Commerce… The index for December 2011 is the reference base index.

(b) The designated dollar amounts shall change on July 1 of each even-numbered year if the percentage of change, calculated to the nearest whole percentage point, between the index for December of the preceding year and the reference base index is ten percent or more. The portion of the percentage change in the index in excess of a multiple of ten percent shall be disregarded and the dollar amounts shall change only in multiples of ten percent of the amounts stated in this section.

Three consequences follow. Adjustments happen only in even-numbered years. They move in flat 10-percent-of-base steps, so every increase is the same dollar increment each cycle. And subdivisions 5 and 7 — farm machines, and the combined cap on farm machines plus tools of trade — never adjust at all.

Subdivision 4a(d) puts the publishing duty on the commissioner of commerce: announce and publish “on or before April 30 of each year in which dollar amounts are to change,” then “promptly notify the revisor of statutes in writing,” and “[t]he revisor shall publish the changes in the next edition of Minnesota Statutes.” Section 510.02, subd. 2 hooks the homestead figures to the same process.

That last step is the gap. Amounts change July 1. The Revisor publishes them in the next edition. Today the statute pages at revisor.mn.gov are labeled 2025 Minnesota Statutes, and they show the pre-July-1-2026 figures.

The Department of Commerce publishes the operative schedule. Its current adjustment table shows amounts effective July 1, 2026 for the line items it tracks, including:

• the household furniture, appliance, and consumer electronics cap in § 550.37, subd. 4(b), moving from $12,150 to $12,600;
• the jewelry cap in § 550.37, subd. 4(c) (Commerce still labels this line “wedding rings”), moving from $3,307.50 to $3,430;
• the tools-of-trade exemption in § 550.37, subd. 6, moving from $13,500 to $14,000;
• the surviving-spouse and child life insurance exemption in § 550.37, subd. 10, moving from $54,000 to $56,000, with the per-dependent increase moving from $13,500 to $14,000;
• the unmatured life insurance accrued dividend, interest, and loan value exemption in § 550.37, subd. 23, moving from $10,800 to $11,200;
• the employee benefit plan present-value cap in § 550.37, subd. 24, moving from $81,000 to $84,000; and
• the homestead exemption in § 510.02, subd. 1, moving from $510,000 to $540,000, and the agricultural homestead from $1,275,000 to $1,350,000.

Note what the tools-of-trade line does to subdivision 7. Subdivision 6 adjusts; subdivisions 5 and 7 do not. So a debtor claiming only tools of trade can claim $14,000, but a debtor combining farm machines under subdivision 5 with tools of trade under subdivision 6 is still capped at the unadjusted $13,000 under subdivision 7. The combined claim is now worth less than the single claim.

And here is the other half of the problem. In 2024 the Legislature rewrote or added a series of § 550.37 subdivisions with fresh statutory dollar figures — the motor vehicle exemption in subdivision 12a, household tools and equipment in subdivision 27, the new bankruptcy wildcard in subdivision 28, and the sacred-possessions, library, musical-instrument, and family-pet exemptions in subdivisions 2, 2a, 2b, and 2c. The Commerce schedule does not carry those lines, and it does not carry the health savings and medical savings account exemption in subdivision 26 either. Its motor vehicle rows still track a $2,000 base amount, against a statute that since August 1, 2024 has read $10,000. For the 2024-vintage subdivisions the statutory figure is the figure until Commerce publishes an adjustment for them.

Practical rule: for the pre-2024 line items, use the Commerce schedule; for the 2024-vintage subdivisions, use the statute. Do not use one source for both.

What are the current federal numbers?

Those are easier, because one document controls. Under 11 U.S.C. § 104 the § 522 amounts adjust every three years, and the Judicial Conference published the current adjustment at 90 Fed. Reg. 8941 (Feb. 4, 2025). The notice states the operative date and the operative limitation in two sentences:

Notice is hereby given, pursuant to 11 U.S.C. 104(b), that the next such adjustment will occur on April 1, 2025… This adjustment does not apply with respect to cases commenced before April 1, 2025.

The adjusted § 522(d) figures — a 13.2004 percent increase, rounded to the nearest $25 — are:

• § 522(d)(1), residence or burial plot: $31,575
• § 522(d)(2), one motor vehicle: $5,025
• § 522(d)(3), household goods and wearing apparel: $800 per item, $16,850 aggregate
• § 522(d)(4), jewelry: $2,125
• § 522(d)(5), the wildcard: $1,675, plus up to $15,800 of any unused § 522(d)(1) amount
• § 522(d)(6), implements, professional books, and tools of the trade: $3,175
• § 522(d)(8), loan value of unmatured life insurance: $16,850
• § 522(d)(11)(D), personal bodily injury, “not including pain and suffering or compensation for actual pecuniary loss”: $31,575

The related caps moved too: § 522(f)(3) to $8,575, § 522(f)(4) to $900 each time it appears, the IRA cap in § 522(n) to $1,711,975, and the homestead limits in § 522(p) and § 522(q) to $214,000 each.

A footnote worth knowing about, because it is a warning about how these tables get used. The February 4 notice was corrected three weeks later: two dollar amounts in the venue-threshold rows for 28 U.S.C. § 1409(b) had been transposed between columns, and the Judicial Conference published a correction at 90 Fed. Reg. 10643 (Feb. 25, 2025) swapping “$25,700” and “$27,750” back into the right cells. No § 522 exemption figure was affected. But an official table published by the Judicial Conference of the United States sat in the Federal Register for three weeks with two values in the wrong rows, and nothing about the table looked wrong.

The next § 104 adjustment is April 1, 2028.

Which set wins?

Not the one with the longer list. Three or four line items decide almost every Minnesota case, and they point in opposite directions.

The pattern is that Minnesota wins on almost everything except two things: liquid value with nowhere to put it, and life insurance cash value. Which is why the homeowner-versus-renter distinction decides so many cases before anything else is examined.

What overrides the choice on a house?

Three federal provisions, all of which apply only when the debtor elects the state track under § 522(b)(3)(A).

Section 522(p) — the 1,215-day cap. A debtor “may not exempt any amount of interest that was acquired by the debtor during the 1215-day period preceding the date of the filing of the petition that exceeds in the aggregate” $214,000 in a residence, cooperative, burial plot, or homestead. That is roughly three years and four months. It does not apply to a family farmer’s principal residence under § 522(p)(2)(A). And § 522(p)(2)(B) excludes equity rolled from a previous principal residence acquired before the 1,215-day window “if the debtor’s previous and current residences are located in the same State.” Sell one Minnesota house and buy another and the rolled equity is not new interest; move here from out of state and it is.

Section 522(o) — the ten-year conversion lookback. Homestead value “shall be reduced to the extent that such value is attributable to any portion of any property that the debtor disposed of in the 10-year period ending on the date of the filing of the petition with the intent to hinder, delay, or defraud a creditor . . . .” Ten years, not the two-year reachback in § 548.

Section 522(q) — the $214,000 felony and securities-fraud cap. It applies where the court finds the debtor was convicted of a felony demonstrating that the filing was an abuse, or the debtor owes a debt arising from securities-law violations, fiduciary fraud, a civil RICO remedy, or “any criminal act, intentional tort, or willful or reckless misconduct” causing serious injury or death in the preceding five years.

None of the three touches a debtor who elects § 522(d).

What happens if my spouse and I disagree?

This is the part that surprises people, and it is where the real Minnesota trap lives.

Both spouses must pick the same set. 11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(1) provides that in joint cases and in individual cases by or against spouses whose estates are jointly administered under Rule 1015(b), “one debtor may not elect to exempt property listed in paragraph (2) and the other debtor elect to exempt property listed in paragraph (3).” Minn. Stat. § 550.371, subd. 2 says the same thing from the state side: spouses joined in a petition “may jointly elect to utilize either the applicable exemption provisions pursuant to Minnesota law or pursuant to subsection (d)… but not both.”

If they cannot agree, the federal set wins by default. The next sentence of § 522(b)(1): “If the parties cannot agree on the alternative to be elected, they shall be deemed to elect paragraph (2), where such election is permitted under the law of the jurisdiction where the case is filed.” Paragraph (2) is the federal list. That default is only available in a state that permits the federal election — which is exactly what § 550.371, subd. 1 does. So in Minnesota, a stalemate between spouses resolves in favor of § 522(d), and for a Minnesota homeowner that is usually the worse outcome by a very wide margin.

And filing separately does not solve it. It creates a three-year lockout. Minn. Stat. § 550.371, subd. 3:

When a petition for bankruptcy is filed individually, and not jointly, for a spouse, (a) one spouse shall not claim any exemption pursuant to Minnesota law for a period of three years from the date of filing if the other spouse has claimed any exemption under subsection (d) of section 522…; and (b) one spouse shall not claim any exemption pursuant to subsection (d) of section 522… for a period of three years from the date of filing if the other spouse has claimed any exemption pursuant to Minnesota law.

Read that against a common fact pattern. One spouse files alone in a bad year, has no home equity, and claims the federal exemptions — the obviously correct call on those facts. Two years later the couple has bought a house and the other spouse needs to file. That spouse cannot claim the Minnesota homestead exemption. Not because of anything in the Bankruptcy Code, and not because the cases are jointly administered, but because Minnesota says so for three years from the date of the first filing.

Subdivision 4 defines who counts: spouses are spouses “if they are married to each other at the time of the filing of the first individual or joint petition for bankruptcy by either of them unless a decree of separation or temporary order of separation of the parties is issued prior to the time the petition is filed.”

Separately, 11 U.S.C. § 522(m) provides that “[s]ubject to the limitation in subsection (b), this section shall apply separately with respect to each debtor in a joint case” — so joint filers who agree on a set each get a full set of that set’s amounts. The same-set rule constrains which list, not how many.

Is retirement money a reason to choose one over the other?

Mostly no, and that is the useful answer.

Tax-qualified retirement funds are exempt on both tracks and by parallel provisions. Section 522(b)(3)(C) exempts “retirement funds to the extent that those funds are in a fund or account that is exempt from taxation under section 401, 403, 408, 408A, 414, 457, or 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986,” and § 522(d)(12) does the same for the federal track. Section 522(b)(4) supplies the proof structure: a fund with a favorable IRS determination under § 7805 in effect on the petition date is presumed exempt, direct transfers do not break the exemption, and neither do eligible rollover distributions redeposited within 60 days.

The one cap that applies to both is § 522(n): traditional and Roth IRA assets, excluding rollover contributions from qualified plans and earnings on them, are exempt only up to $1,711,975 in an individual case — “except that such amount may be increased if the interests of justice so require.”

What does not meaningfully constrain the state track is Minn. Stat. § 550.37, subd. 24’s $84,000 present-value cap, at least for ERISA-qualified plans. The Revisor carries an editorial note to that effect, and the underlying decision is Community Bank Henderson v. Noble, 552 N.W.2d 37 (Minn. Ct. App. 1996), which held that subdivision 24 “‘relates to’ employee benefit plans” and is therefore preempted by 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a) as to plans ERISA covers. The court of appeals described the resulting line by quoting an earlier Minnesota Supreme Court explanation that “plans governed by ERISA will continue to be entirely exempt, whereas plans not covered by ERISA, like an IRA, will only be exempt up to an indexed [amount], plus an amount reasonably necessary for the support of the debtor and the debtor’s spouse or dependents.” Id. at 39 (quoting an earlier decision). So subdivision 24’s cap does real work only on non-ERISA vehicles — and for those, § 522(b)(3)(C) is generally the better tool anyway.

Community Bank Henderson also decided something that matters far more often than the preemption holding: once funds are disbursed from an ERISA plan, they lose ERISA’s anti-alienation protection. The court held that funds were disbursed when the plan’s cashier’s check was drawn, even though the check was never cashed, and that “[o]nce the funds were disbursed, they were no longer protected by ERISA’s anti-alienation provision and were subject to attachment.” Id. at 40. A debtor who takes a distribution before filing has converted protected money into attachable money.

Is there a limit on how generous Minnesota can be?

Yes, and it is constitutional, which has no federal analogue. Minn. Const. art. I, § 12 provides:

A reasonable amount of property shall be exempt from seizure or sale for the payment of any debt or liability. The amount of such exemption shall be determined by law.

In In re Tveten, 402 N.W.2d 551 (Minn. 1987), answering certified questions from the bankruptcy court in a case where a debtor had converted non-exempt assets into fraternal-benefit annuities and life insurance, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the word “amount” carries a value limit: “When determining whether annuities or un-matured life insurance are exempt from creditor’s levy by being a ‘reasonable amount’, by necessity ‘reasonable amount’ must be synonymous with ‘reasonable value.’” Id. at 558. The court was careful that the constitution does not demand a specific dollar figure — it pointed to the “reasonably necessary for the support of the debtor” standard in § 550.37, subd. 24 as an acceptable objective criterion — but a statute that does not “provide for any limitation at all” fails. Its answer to the fourth certified question:

Minn.Stat. §§ 550.37, subd. 11, and 64B.18 are unconstitutional as violative of article 1, section 12, and article 12, section 1, of the Minnesota Constitution insofar as they grant a value limitless exemption to debtors who have purchased annuities or unmatured life insurance from a fraternal benefit society.

Id. at 560. Subdivision 11 is still printed in the statute book with a Revisor’s note recording that it was found unconstitutional. Do not claim it.

Two forward-looking observations follow, and both should be treated as open rather than settled.

First, the Legislature has been adding caps to previously uncapped exemptions. Section 550.39, which exempts the net amount payable under accident or disability insurance, was amended in 2024 to add the words “up to a total amount of $1,000,000 per claim and subsequent award.” Before that amendment it had no value limit at all.

Second, § 550.37, subd. 22 — the personal injury exemption that is the single biggest reason a Minnesota debtor with a claim chooses the state track — still states no value limit. Nothing in the text of Tveten’s reasoning is confined to fraternal benefit societies. No decision retrievable here has applied that reasoning to subdivision 22, and the point should be treated as untested rather than as a defect. But a trustee looking for an argument has one available.

How the choice actually gets made

In practice the analysis runs in this order, and it is short:

1. Run § 522(p) first if there is a house. If the equity was acquired inside 1,215 days, the Minnesota homestead is capped at $214,000 and the whole comparison changes before it starts.
2. Check domicile. Two full years in Minnesota before filing, or the state track points somewhere else entirely under § 522(b)(3)(A).
3. Check the spouse’s filing history. Section 550.371, subd. 3 runs three years from the date of the earlier filing, and it does not care whether the cases are related.
4. Compare home equity against the wildcard. That single comparison decides most cases. Equity above roughly $32,000 in a Minnesota home you have owned more than 1,215 days points to the state track and it is not close. No equity points to the federal track, because up to $17,475 of untethered wildcard is worth more than anything else on the table.
5. Then check the three swing items: a pending injury claim, wages and recently-deposited earnings, and a work vehicle. All three favor Minnesota.
6. Confirm every Minnesota figure against the Commerce schedule, not the statute page, for the pre-2024 subdivisions — and against the statute for the subdivisions added or rewritten in 2024.

Related reading on the collection side of the same exemptions: Minnesota’s homestead exemption and its five holes, what a judgment creditor can and cannot garnish, and how chapter 551 execution actually moves the money. On the bankruptcy side: what happens when a lawsuit is left off the schedules and why “insolvent” means four different things in Minnesota.

Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota consumers in chapter 7 and chapter 13 bankruptcy, in judgment-collection and garnishment defense, and in exemption disputes with creditors and trustees. If you are deciding whether to file, or a creditor is levying on property you believe is exempt, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.

Sources: 11 U.S.C. § 522(a)(2) (definition of “value”), § 522(b)(1) (election between paragraphs (2) and (3); same-set rule for spouses; deemed election of paragraph (2) on disagreement), § 522(b)(2) (federal list available unless state law “specifically does not so authorize”), § 522(b)(3)(A) (state and non-§ 522(d) federal exemptions; 730-day and 180-day domicile rules), § 522(b)(3)(C) (tax-qualified retirement funds), § 522(b)(3) closing sentence (fallback to subsection (d) where the domiciliary rule leaves the debtor ineligible), § 522(b)(4)(A)–(D) (favorable-determination presumption; direct transfers; eligible rollover distributions), § 522(d)(1)–(6), (8), (11)(D), (12) (federal exemptions), § 522(f)(3)–(4), § 522(m) (separate application to each debtor in a joint case), § 522(n) (IRA aggregate cap), § 522(o) (ten-year conversion reduction), § 522(p)(1)–(2) (1,215-day cap; family farmer and same-state rollover exceptions), § 522(q)(1) (felony and securities-fraud cap), and § 104 (three-year adjustment), as published at uscode.house.gov (text in effect on August 21, 2026); 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a) (ERISA preemption) as applied in the case cited below. Judicial Conference of the United States, “Adjustment of Certain Dollar Amounts Applicable to Bankruptcy Cases,” 90 Fed. Reg. 8941 (Feb. 4, 2025) (adjustment date April 1, 2025; non-application to cases commenced before that date; 13.2004 percent increase rounded to the nearest $25; adjusted amounts for §§ 522(d), 522(f)(3), 522(f)(4), 522(n), 522(p), 522(q)), and the correction at 90 Fed. Reg. 10643 (Feb. 25, 2025) (transposed 28 U.S.C. § 1409(b) values), both read at govinfo.gov. Minn. Stat. § 550.371, subd. 1 (federal exemptions available to Minnesota residents), subd. 2 (joint petition; one set only), subd. 3 (three-year bar on the other set after a spouse’s individual filing), subd. 4 (who counts as a spouse); § 550.37, subd. 2 through subd. 2c (sacred possessions, library, musical instruments, family pets), subd. 4(a)–(c) (personal goods; household furniture and electronics; jewelry), subd. 4a(a)–(e) (adjustment mechanism, reference base index, ten-percent multiples, Commerce publication duty, exclusion of subdivisions 5 and 7), subd. 5 (farm machines), subd. 6 (tools of trade), subd. 7 (combined value cap), subd. 10 (insurance proceeds and per-dependent increase), subd. 12a (motor vehicles), subd. 13 (earnings; 20-day post-deposit protection), subd. 14 (need-based government assistance; six-month and 60-day rules), subd. 17 (selection by the debtor), subd. 19 (waiver form), subd. 20 (traceable funds), subd. 21 (“value” means current fair market value), subd. 22 (rights of action for injuries to the person), subd. 23 (unmatured life insurance loan value), subd. 24(a)–(b) (employee benefits; support-order carve-out), subd. 26 (health savings and medical savings accounts), subd. 27 (household tools and equipment), subd. 28 (bankruptcy wildcard), together with the Revisor’s notes to subdivisions 11 and 24; § 510.01 (homestead defined and exempt), § 510.02, subd. 1 (160 acres; value caps), subd. 2 (adjustment via § 550.37, subd. 4a); § 550.39 (accident and disability insurance; $1,000,000 per claim cap), all as published by the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes at revisor.mn.gov, 2025 edition. 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 114, art. 3, §§ 84–87 (§ 550.37, subds. 2, 2a, 2b, 2c), § 88 (§ 550.37, subd. 4), § 89 (rewrite of § 550.37, subd. 12a, effective August 1, 2024), § 93 (§ 550.37, subd. 27), § 94 (§ 550.37, subd. 28, effective August 1, 2024 and applicable to exemptions claimed on or after that date), § 95 (§ 550.39 cap); 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 101, art. 3, § 2 (revisor instruction replacing “husband and wife” with gender-neutral terms — the only 2024 change to § 550.371). Minnesota Department of Commerce, “Historic Adjustments, Restrictions on Deficiency Judgments and Minnesota Property Exemption, Adjustment of Dollar Amounts,” schedule showing amounts effective July 1, 2026, at mn.gov/commerce-stat/pdfs/historic-adjustments-chapter325G.pdf. Minn. Const. art. I, § 12 (“A reasonable amount of property shall be exempt…”). In re Tveten, 402 N.W.2d 551, 558, 560 (Minn. 1987) (certified questions; “reasonable amount” means reasonable value; §§ 550.37, subd. 11 and 64B.18 unconstitutional insofar as they grant a value limitless exemption). Community Bank Henderson v. Noble, 552 N.W.2d 37, 39–40 (Minn. Ct. App. 1996) (ERISA preemption of § 550.37, subd. 24; loss of anti-alienation protection on disbursement), read from the Caselaw Access Project archive; the ERISA-versus-IRA passage quoted above appears within that opinion at page 39, where the court of appeals is quoting an earlier Minnesota Supreme Court decision whose own reporter citation is not independently verified here and is therefore not repeated. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.