Minnesota Eviction Expungement: The Test Most People Still Cite Was Repealed in 2023

Almost every explanation of Minnesota eviction expungement you will find — including material still circulating from housing organizations and law firms — describes a standard the legislature deleted. Under the old version of Minn. Stat. § 484.014, subd. 2, a tenant could get a discretionary expungement only upon motion and only if the court found “that the plaintiff’s case is sufficiently without basis in fact or law, which may include lack of jurisdiction over the case…” Practitioners called it the sufficient-basis test, and it was hard to meet: a landlord who had a colorable claim and simply lost, or dismissed, defeated it.

That language is gone. Laws 2023, chapter 52, article 19, section 117 struck it. Effective January 1, 2024, the entire discretionary standard reads:

The court may order expungement of an eviction case court file if the court finds the expungement is clearly in the interests of justice and those interests are not outweighed by the public’s interest in knowing about the record.

No motion requirement in the text. No showing that the landlord’s case was baseless. A pure two-sided balance. If you are working from a form, a checklist, or an article that recites the “without basis in fact or law” language, you are working from repealed law.

Three other things changed at the same time or shortly after, and together they reorganize this area:

1. The mandatory-expungement list grew from one narrow foreclosure scenario to seven categories plus a catch-all for cannabis and covenant cases.
2. A pending eviction is now nonpublic until final judgment — so in a live case there is often nothing to expunge yet.
3. In 2024 the legislature deleted the tenant-screening statute’s express duty to delete expunged court files and replaced it with a different and, for tenants, stronger mechanism.

Where does Minnesota eviction expungement law actually live?

Still in chapter 484 — it was not recodified into chapter 504B, despite that chapter absorbing most of landlord-tenant law. Minn. Stat. § 484.014 is titled “Housing records; expungement of eviction information,” and it defines its own terms in subdivision 1:

“expungement” means the removal of evidence of the court file’s existence from the publicly accessible records

That definition does real work. Expungement here is a public-access remedy. It does not destroy the file, and it does not touch a separate money judgment, a collection account, or a landlord’s own internal records. The eviction proceeding itself is, by statutory definition, “a summary court proceeding to remove a tenant or occupant from or otherwise recover possession of real property by the process of law set out in this chapter.” Minn. Stat. § 504B.001, subd. 4.

Four other sections carry expungement commands that most readers never connect to § 484.014:

• § 504B.321, subd. 1(d) — dismissal and expungement when the landlord failed to attach the required pre-filing notice.
• § 504B.321, subd. 6 — the eviction file is not public until final judgment.
• § 504B.345, subd. 1(c)(2) — mandatory expungement when the defendant wins.
• § 504B.285, subd. 1(b) — attorney fees against a landlord who files a prohibited eviction, measured by the cost of getting the expungement.

Which evictions must be expunged without anyone filing a motion?

Minn. Stat. § 484.014, subd. 3(a) is written as a command to the court:

The court shall, without motion by any party except for clauses (6) and (7), order expungement of an eviction case

Clauses (1) through (5) are therefore supposed to happen on the court’s own initiative:

1. Cases commenced solely on the holdover-after-foreclosure-or-contract-cancellation ground in § 504B.285, subd. 1, clause (1), where the defendant either vacated before the action was commenced after the redemption or cancellation period expired, or was a tenant during that period who never received a § 504B.285, subd. 1a, 1b, or 1c notice to vacate on a date before the case was filed.
2. The defendant prevailed on the merits.
3. The complaint is dismissed for any reason.
4. The parties agreed to an expungement.
5. Three years after the eviction was ordered.

Clause (3) is worth pausing on. Before 2024 it read “if the court dismissed the plaintiff’s complaint for any reason.” Laws 2024, chapter 118, section 1 changed it to the passive “if the complaint is dismissed for any reason.” That is not a stylistic edit. The old phrasing arguably reached only court-ordered dismissals; the new phrasing covers a landlord’s own voluntary dismissal — which is exactly how a large share of eviction filings end after the tenant pays or moves.

Clause (5) is the one tenants most often do not know exists. Three years after an eviction was ordered, the court is directed to expunge the file without anyone asking. If your eviction judgment is more than three years old and still appears in a public search, the remedy is to ask the court to do what the statute already required.

Clause (4) is a negotiating tool. Agreement to expungement is a term you can put in a settlement, and once the parties have agreed, expungement is mandatory rather than discretionary. Compare that with clause (7), below, which requires a motion.

Which categories require a motion?

Three.

Clause (6) — prohibited filings. Added by Laws 2024, chapter 118, section 1: expungement upon a defendant’s motion “if an eviction action has been filed in violation of section 504B.285, subdivision 1, paragraph (b).” That paragraph bars a landlord from commencing an eviction against a tenant or authorized occupant solely on the basis that the person has been the victim of an act listed in § 504B.206, subd. 1(a) — domestic abuse under § 518B.01, subd. 2; criminal sexual conduct under §§ 609.342 to 609.3451; sexual extortion under § 609.3458; or harassment under § 609.749. It also bars evicting a residential tenant who terminated the lease under § 504B.206.

The same 2024 act added a fee-shift to § 504B.285, subd. 1(b):

A landlord violating this paragraph is liable to the tenant for reasonable attorney fees and costs incurred by the tenant for obtaining an expungement as provided under section 484.014, subdivision 3.

That is an unusual and underused provision: the fee award is measured by the expungement work itself. Both the clause (6) trigger and the fee-shift took effect 30 days after final enactment — the governor signed chapter 118 on May 24, 2024, so those provisions became operative June 23, 2024.

Clause (7) — completed settlements. Expungement upon a defendant’s motion “if the case is settled and the defendant fulfills the terms of the settlement.” The motion is the tenant’s job, and the timing is the tenant’s problem: nothing happens automatically when the last payment clears. Calendar it at the time of settlement.

Subdivision 3(b) — the retroactive catch-all. This one is broader than it looks:

If a tenant brings a motion for the expungement of an eviction, the court shall order the expungement of an eviction case that was commenced on the grounds of a violation of section 504B.171 or any other claim of breach regardless of when the original eviction was ordered, if the tenant could receive an automatic expungement under section 609A.055, or if the breach was based solely on the possession of marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinols.

Section 504B.171 is the statutory covenant against unlawful activities — controlled substances, prostitution-related activity, unlawful firearm use or possession, and stolen property in the premises or its common area and curtilage. If a tenant was evicted on a covenant or breach theory and the underlying conduct is one the Adult-Use Cannabis Act made automatically expungeable under § 609A.055, or the breach was solely marijuana or THC possession, expungement is mandatory on motion with no time limit. A 2011 eviction qualifies as readily as a 2023 one.

Paragraph (b) has a different pedigree from the rest of subdivision 3, which is why it is easy to miss. It was not added by the omnibus public-safety act. It came from the Adult-Use Cannabis Act — Laws 2023, chapter 63, article 6, section 54 — which amended the same subdivision in the same session as chapter 52 did, working from the pre-chapter-52 text. Section 54 carries no effective-date clause of its own and no article-wide clause governs it, so it took effect August 1, 2023 under Minn. Stat. § 645.02, four months before the chapter 52 changes. The Revisor merged the two amendments into the single subdivision you now read. For how § 609A.055 automatic cannabis expungement works on the criminal side, see our companion piece on criminal expungement after Clean Slate.

My case is still pending. Is it already public?

No — and this is the single most useful thing a tenant with a live case can be told.

Minn. Stat. § 504B.321, subd. 6:

An eviction action is not accessible to the public until the court enters a final judgment, except that parties to the case and licensed attorneys assisting a party in the case, regardless of whether or not they are the attorney of record, shall have access to the eviction action file.

Added by Laws 2023, chapter 52, article 19, section 119, effective January 1, 2024. A filed-but-undecided eviction is not a public record. If the case settles or is dismissed before final judgment, it never becomes public in the first place, and clause (3) of the mandatory list then requires expungement of the file that exists.

The practical consequence is that “the filing is already on my record” is usually not true during the pendency of the case, and settlement leverage built on that fear is built on sand. It also means the tenant’s most valuable move is often speed: resolve it before judgment.

What if the landlord skipped the pre-eviction notice?

Then dismissal and expungement are both required. Minn. Stat. § 504B.321, subd. 1(d):

If applicable, the person filing a complaint must attach a copy of the written notice described in subdivision 1a. The court shall dismiss an action without prejudice for failure to provide a notice as described in subdivision 1a and grant an expungement of the eviction case court file.

Subdivision 1a requires that, before bringing an eviction alleging nonpayment of rent or another unpaid financial obligation, the landlord give the residential tenant written notice containing the total amount due; a specific accounting broken out among unpaid rent, late fees, and other charges under the lease; the name and address of the person authorized to receive rent and fees; a statement about the right to seek legal help and to contact Legal Aid or LawHelpMN.org; a statement about applying for financial help through the county or Tribal social services office, MNBenefits.mn.gov, or 2-1-1; and a statement that the landlord can file if the tenant does not pay or move out within 14 days, noting some local governments require longer. The notice must be delivered personally or by first class mail to the tenant at the leased premises, and the landlord may file only if the tenant fails to cure within 14 days — or within a longer period set by local rule.

Six required contents, a delivery method, and a waiting period. Each is a potential defect, and the statute’s consequence for a defect is not merely dismissal. It is dismissal plus expungement, by command.

These provisions took effect January 1, 2024 and apply to actions filed on or after that date. Laws 2023, ch. 52, art. 19, § 116 (“Sections 103 to 115 are effective January 1, 2024, and apply to actions filed on or after that date.”).

What if I won the case?

Expungement is mandatory and it happens at judgment. Minn. Stat. § 504B.345, subd. 1(c):

If the court or jury finds for the defendant, then the court: (1) shall enter judgment for the defendant, tax the costs against the plaintiff, and issue execution in favor of the defendant; and (2) shall expunge the records relating to the action under the provisions of section 484.014 or under the court’s inherent authority at the time judgment is entered or after that time upon motion of the defendant.

That subdivision previously said the court “may” expunge. Laws 2023, chapter 52, article 19, section 108 changed “may” to “shall,” effective January 1, 2024 for actions filed on or after that date. Note the two timing options built into the clause: at the time judgment is entered, or later on the defendant’s motion. A tenant who won years ago and never got the expungement has not lost the right.

Where a tenant prevailed by asserting a habitability or repair claim, the underlying issues are often the ones covered in our guides to the eviction timeline and redemption and unlawful lockouts under § 504B.375.

Does expungement actually get the eviction off a screening report?

This is where 2024 changed the machinery, and where most guidance is now wrong.

The old version of Minn. Stat. § 504B.241, subd. 4 contained this sentence: “If a tenant screening service knows that a court file has been expunged, the tenant screening service shall delete any reference to that file in any data maintained or disseminated by the screening service.” Laws 2024, chapter 118, section 22 struck that sentence.

Read in isolation that looks like a loss for tenants. It is not, because the same section added paragraph (b):

Every residential tenant screening service has an affirmative duty to update and verify the current status of court files by accessing the Minnesota Court Records Online no more than 24 hours prior to issuing a residential tenant screening report.

And it narrowed the safe harbor in paragraph (d): a screening service escapes liability under § 504B.245 only if it reports complete and accurate information as provided by the court “consistent with paragraph (b).”

The old rule was a knowledge duty — the tenant had to establish the service knew the file was expunged. The new rule is a timing duty that runs in every case, and the safe harbor is conditioned on satisfying it. A screening service that pulled a Minnesota court record more than 24 hours before issuing the report has breached an affirmative duty and cannot claim the safe harbor, whether or not it knew about the expungement. Since an expunged file is removed from the publicly accessible records, an MCRO check performed inside the 24-hour window would not have returned it.

The remedy also changed. The old § 504B.245 pointed to the private-attorney-general statute, § 8.31, and treated FCRA compliance as compliance with § 504B.241. Laws 2024, chapter 118, section 23 replaced the whole section:

In addition to the remedies otherwise provided by law, any person injured by a violation of section 504B.241 may bring a civil action against a residential tenant screening service or landlord and recover the greater of $1,000 or actual damages, together with costs and disbursements, including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney fees, and receive other equitable relief as determined by the court. The attorney general has the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of section 504B.241.

Four changes worth noting: a floor of $1,000 without proof of actual damages; express recovery of investigation costs on top of attorney fees; landlords named as defendants alongside screening services; and the disappearance of the FCRA-compliance-equals-compliance sentence. These provisions took effect January 1, 2025 under the general effective-date section of chapter 118 (“Except as otherwise specified, this act is effective January 1, 2025.”).

Section 504B.241 carries other duties that pair with expungement work. Subdivision 1 requires disclosure of the nature and substance of all information in the file and its sources on request with proper identification — free if a report was used within the past 30 days to deny a rental or increase the deposit or rent. Subdivision 2 requires reinvestigation of disputed items, deletion of information found inaccurate or unverifiable, and, at the individual’s request, notice of the deletion to anyone who received the report in the past six months. Subdivision 3 gives the tenant the right to attach an explanation of any eviction report or unresolved disputed item, which the service must include in the report, capped at 100 words.

One distinction matters and is easy to get wrong: Minn. Stat. § 332.70, the business-screening-service statute, is about criminal records. It defines “criminal record” as a record of an arrest, citation, prosecution, criminal proceeding, or conviction. An eviction is a civil action. The tenant-report path is §§ 504B.241 and 504B.245; the criminal-record path is § 332.70. A demand letter that cites the wrong one signals that the sender did not read either.

What expungement does not reach

• The debt. Expunging the eviction file does not discharge unpaid rent, damages, or a separate money judgment, and it does not remove a collection account from a credit file. That is a different fight, under the FCRA and the FDCPA.
• What the landlord already knows. A former landlord who is called as a reference is not reporting a court file.
• Records already sold. A screening service that pulled and resold the record before expungement is reachable only through the correction, reinvestigation, and 24-hour-verification duties above — which is precisely why those duties matter.
• Federal court and administrative records. Section 484.014 addresses the state eviction case file.

Related tenant-side obligations that frequently show up in the same dispute are covered in our discussions of security deposits under § 504B.178 and landlord entry and tenant privacy under § 504B.211.

Effective dates, in one place

Because so much of this changed in three separate acts, the dates decide which version of the rule governs a given case:

• August 1, 2023 — § 484.014, subd. 3(b), the retroactive cannabis-and-covenant catch-all. Laws 2023, ch. 63, art. 6, § 54 (no effective-date clause; default under Minn. Stat. § 645.02; chapter signed May 30, 2023).
• January 1, 2024 — § 484.014, subds. 2 and 3 as rewritten by the omnibus act (repeal of the sufficient-basis test; the five no-motion mandatory categories; the original clause (6) settlement provision), and § 504B.321, subd. 6 (nonpublic until final judgment). Laws 2023, ch. 52, art. 19, § 120. No filing-date limitation in that clause.
• January 1, 2024, for actions filed on or after that date — the § 504B.321 rewrite including subd. 1(d) and the subd. 1a notice, and the change of “may” to “shall” in § 504B.345, subd. 1(c)(2). Laws 2023, ch. 52, art. 19, § 116.
• June 23, 2024 — the current § 484.014, subd. 3 (new clause (6) for prohibited filings; clause (3) rewritten to passive voice; clause (7) renumbering) and the § 504B.285, subd. 1(b) fee-shift. Laws 2024, ch. 118, §§ 1, 26 (“effective 30 days following the date of final enactment”; the governor signed chapter 118 on May 24, 2024).
• January 1, 2025 — the § 504B.241, subd. 4 rewrite and the § 504B.245 remedy. Laws 2024, ch. 118, § 32.

Madgett Law, LLC

Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota tenants seeking eviction expungement under Minn. Stat. § 484.014 — including old judgments that should have been expunged automatically at three years, cases dismissed or settled where nobody moved, and covenant and cannabis-based evictions that qualify for retroactive expungement under subdivision 3(b). The firm also brings claims against tenant screening companies and landlords that keep reporting expunged eviction files, under Minn. Stat. §§ 504B.241 and 504B.245 and the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 484.014, subd. 1(1)–(3) (definitions; “removal of evidence of the court file’s existence from the publicly accessible records”), subd. 2 (current discretionary standard — interests of justice), subd. 3(a)(1)–(7), (b) (mandatory categories; no-motion command; retroactive cannabis/covenant catch-all); Laws 2023, ch. 52, art. 19, § 117 (deleting “only upon motion of a defendant and decision by the court, if the court finds that the plaintiff’s case is sufficiently without basis in fact or law, which may include lack of jurisdiction over the case”), § 118 (adding clauses (2)–(6)), § 119 (adding § 504B.321, subd. 6), § 120 (“Sections 117 to 119 are effective January 1, 2024”), § 116 (“Sections 103 to 115 are effective January 1, 2024, and apply to actions filed on or after that date”), § 108 (“may” → “shall” in § 504B.345, subd. 1(c)(2)), § 105 (§ 504B.321 rewrite); Laws 2023, ch. 63 (Adult-Use Cannabis Act), art. 6, § 54 (adding § 484.014, subd. 3(b); no effective-date clause and no article-wide clause, so August 1, 2023 under Minn. Stat. § 645.02; chapter signed May 30, 2023), art. 6, § 55 (§ 504B.171 amendments); Minn. Stat. § 645.02 (default August 1 effective date); Laws 2024, ch. 118, § 1 (current § 484.014, subd. 3; effective 30 days after final enactment), § 22 (striking the tenant-screening knowledge duty; adding the 24-hour MCRO duty and conditioning the safe harbor), § 23 (current § 504B.245 remedy), § 26 (§ 504B.285, subd. 1(b) fee-shift; effective 30 days after final enactment), § 32 (“Except as otherwise specified, this act is effective January 1, 2025”), signed by the governor May 24, 2024; Minn. Stat. § 504B.001, subd. 4 (definition of eviction); § 504B.171, subd. 1(a) (covenant against unlawful activities); § 504B.206, subd. 1(a)(1)–(4) (qualifying acts); § 504B.241, subds. 1(a)–(b), 2, 3, 4(a)–(d) (tenant report disclosures, corrections, 100-word explanation, court file information, 24-hour verification duty, conditioned safe harbor); § 504B.245 (remedies — greater of $1,000 or actual damages, costs of investigation, attorney fees, attorney general authority); § 504B.285, subd. 1(a)(1), (b) (grounds; prohibited filings; expungement fee-shift); § 504B.321, subds. 1(d), 1a(a)(1)–(6), (b)–(c), 6 (notice attachment, dismissal-and-expungement, 14-day notice contents and delivery, nonpublic until final judgment); § 504B.345, subd. 1(c) (mandatory expungement on a defendant’s win); § 609A.055 (automatic cannabis expungement, cross-referenced by § 484.014, subd. 3(b)); § 332.70, subd. 1(c) (definition of “criminal record,” distinguishing the criminal-records screening statute from the tenant-report statute). Statutory text pulled from the Office of the Revisor of Statutes at revisor.mn.gov; session laws at revisor.mn.gov/laws. Currency check: no 2026 amendment banner appears on §§ 484.014, 504B.171, 504B.206, 504B.241, 504B.245, or 504B.285; the 2026 banners on §§ 504B.321 and 504B.345 reach only subd. 2 of each, neither of which is cited here.

This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no particular outcome is promised or implied. Whether a specific eviction record qualifies for expungement depends on the grounds pleaded, the disposition, and the filing date.