You may have heard that the state will find money you forgot about and just mail you a check. Some states do. Illinois runs a program it calls “Enhanced Money Match”, and the Illinois treasurer’s office says it can “verify that unclaimed property belongs to you and automatically mail you a check for the exact amount you are owed.”
Minnesota doesn’t do that. Nothing in Minnesota’s unclaimed property law tells the Department of Commerce to send anybody anything without a claim. You have to go get it.
The upside is that it waits for you. Forever, as far as the statute’s concerned. The downside is what can happen to it while it waits. If it was stock, the state can sell it and keep you to the sale price. If it was crypto, it was usually sold before it ever reached the state. And if it was an uncashed paycheck, it isn’t earning a dime while it waits.
Does Minnesota send unclaimed money back automatically?
No. Minnesota’s statute is an old uniform act, adopted here in 1969, and it still calls itself that: sections 345.31 to 345.60 “may be cited as the ‘Uniform Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act.’” Minn. Stat. § 345.60. The road home for your money in that act runs through a claim. “Any person claiming an interest in any property delivered to the state under sections 345.31 to 345.60 may file a claim thereto or to the proceeds from the sale thereof on the form prescribed by the commissioner.” § 345.49, subd. 1(a). Commerce considers it, “may hold a hearing”, and if it’s allowed, “shall make payment forthwith.” § 345.50, subds. 1–2.
The Department’s own page says the same thing in friendlier words. It safeguards the property “until claimed by the rightful owners or heirs.” Its search tool is at unclaimedproperty.mn.gov.
The Legislature had a chance to rebuild the whole thing this year. House File 4120, introduced March 9, 2026, would have repealed sections 345.31 to 345.60 and enacted a new chapter 345A, the “Revised Minnesota Unclaimed Property Act.” The bill never got past its introduction version, and there’s no chapter 345A in the statutes today. What did pass in 2026 was a handful of new sections bolted onto the 1969 act, which I’ll get to.
How long before a business has to turn my money over to the state?
It depends on what it is. The statute calls this a presumption of abandonment, and the clock is different for almost every kind of property. The common ones:
- Bank accounts. A checking, savings, or matured time deposit is presumed abandoned unless, within three years, the owner has made a deposit or withdrawal, written to the bank about it, received statements by mail, or otherwise shown an interest as listed in the statute. § 345.32(a). Activity on another account at the same bank counts too. § 345.32(a)(5).
- Wages. “[U]npaid compensation for personal services or wages, including wages represented by unpresented payroll checks,” is presumed abandoned after it remains unclaimed “for more than one year after becoming payable”. § 345.39, subd. 3. One year. If you left a job and never got that last check, I covered what your employer owed you at /news/minnesota-final-paycheck-181-13/.
- Utility deposits. One year after the service ends. § 345.34.
- Life insurance. Money “unclaimed and unpaid for more than three years after the moneys became due and payable”. § 345.33(b). A policy is treated as matured, even without proof of death, if it was in force when the insured reached the limiting age under the mortality table the reserve is based on, unless, within the preceding three years, the person entitled to it assigned, borrowed against, or paid premiums on the policy, or wrote to the insurer about it. Id. The beneficiary fights that come after a death are at /news/minnesota-life-insurance-beneficiary-disputes/.
- Stock. Three years of unclaimed dividends or distributions and no contact, and at least three dividends or distributions have to go unclaimed during that period. § 345.35(a)–(b).
- Safe deposit box contents. More than five years after the lease ran out. § 345.32(d). Before the bank can open the box, it has to send a certified-mail notice and wait 60 days, and the box is opened in front of a notary who inventories and seals the contents. § 345.32(d)(1)–(2).
- Money orders and traveler’s checks. Seven years for a money order and 15 for a traveler’s check. § 345.32(c).
- Co-op patronage. Seven years. § 345.39, subd. 2.
- Everything else. Refunds, overpayments, credit balances, unpaid claims, vendor checks, royalties: three years after it became payable. § 345.39, subd. 1.
- Money a court or government agency is holding for you. Three years. § 345.38, subds. 1, 3.
New in 2026: virtual currency is presumed abandoned “three years after the apparent owner’s latest indication of interest”, and logging into the account counts as interest. § 345.384(a), (b)(4). Prepaid funeral money is presumed abandoned at the earliest of three years after the beneficiary’s death, one year after the beneficiary turned (or would have turned) 105 if the holder doesn’t know whether he’s alive, or 30 years after the contract was signed. § 345.382. 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 124, art. 6, §§ 2, 4.
Before any of it goes to the state, the business is supposed to warn you. Not more than 120 days before it files its report, the holder must send written notice to your last known address if its records show an address that isn’t known to be bad, your claim isn’t time-barred, and the property is worth $100 or more. § 345.41(e). Reports are due before November 1 each year, as of the preceding June 30. Life insurers file before October 1. § 345.41(d).
Is there a deadline to claim unclaimed property in Minnesota?
Not in chapter 345. I read sections 345.31 to 345.60 front to back and found no time limit on an owner’s claim to Commerce. The only limitation section runs the other direction. It says an expired limitations period on your claim against the business doesn’t stop the property from being presumed abandoned and turned over, and it limits how long Commerce has to sue a business over reporting and delivery. § 345.46(a)–(b).
The state’s promise is built into the money’s path. Every dollar that comes in, less certain collection expenses, goes “forthwith” into the state’s general fund. § 345.48, subd. 1. (Unclaimed restitution a court was holding goes to the crime victim and witness account instead. Id.) Then the Legislature made a standing appropriation of “an amount sufficient to make the refund and payment” to anyone entitled to it. § 345.49, subd. 2. The state spends your money, and promises to pay you back out of whatever it has when you show up.
Minnesota does have an unclaimed-money statute with a hard deadline, and it’s aimed squarely at heirs. When a probate estate can’t find an heir, the court may have the personal representative deposit the share with the county treasurer. The heir then has to petition the court “within 21 years after such deposit,” and “if not claimed within such time no recovery thereof shall be had.” Minn. Stat. § 524.3-914. Meanwhile the money is credited to the county’s revenue fund. Id. An heir who petitions in time can get it back with any interest the county collected on it; one who doesn’t gets nothing. Chapter 345 expressly steps aside for that money. § 345.38, subd. 1. So whether a dead relative’s share sits with Commerce or with a county treasurer matters a great deal.
The state holds your money forever. It doesn’t hold your stock.
Here’s the part people don’t expect about leaving something unclaimed for a long time.
Stock gets sold. Commerce may liquidate securities after holding them for one year, and a claimant “is not entitled to receive any appreciation in the value of the property occurring after sale by the commissioner.” § 345.47, subd. 3a. Securities from an insurance-company demutualization can be sold “upon receipt.” Id. So if your forgotten shares were sold in a bad year and the company has tripled since, you get the sale proceeds.
Crypto gets sold even sooner. Under the 2026 amendment, the business holding it “must liquidate the virtual currency and remit the proceeds” within 30 days before filing its report. “The owner does not have recourse against the holder or the commissioner to recover any gain in value that occurs after the liquidation of the virtual currency under this subdivision.” § 345.43, subd. 2b(a)–(b). Ordinarily the state never touches the coins. It gets the cash. (If the holder can’t liquidate, Commerce can have the coins moved to a custodian it picks, or left where they are until they can be sold. § 345.43, subd. 2b(c).)
Other tangible property gets auctioned, kept, or thrown out. Commerce has to hold a public sale of the property other than money at least once every ten years, after published notice, though it can skip anything that would cost more to sell than it’s worth. § 345.47, subds. 1–2. The buyer takes it “free from all claims of the owner”. § 345.47, subd. 4. Six months before a sale, the Minnesota Historical Society gets the inventory and can pick anything it wants for its collections. § 345.47, subd. 5. And if Commerce decides an item has “no commercial or historical value”, it may destroy it, and nobody can sue the state or the holder over that. § 345.525. Old family letters from a safe deposit box are exactly the sort of thing that can land there.
Interest is thin, and sometimes nothing. If property other than money comes in, you get the income or gain it earned before the state sold it. § 345.451. If the property was interest-bearing, Commerce pays interest at the lesser of the one-year constant-maturity Treasury yield or whatever it was earning with the holder, starting when it’s delivered and ending at the earlier of ten years or the day you’re paid. Id. That’s the only provision in the chapter that pays an owner interest. An uncashed paycheck was never interest-bearing.
Your claim is paid “without deduction for costs of notices or sale or for service charges.” § 345.50, subd. 2. Small consolation.
What isn’t in Minnesota’s unclaimed property list?
A few things you might expect to find aren’t there.
Gift cards. “‘Intangible property’ does not include gift certificates, gift cards, or layaway accounts issued or maintained by any person in the business of selling tangible property or services at retail”. § 345.39, subd. 1. A retailer’s unused gift card balance never goes to the state. What happens to it instead is at /news/minnesota-gift-card-law-325g53/.
Section 529 and 529A accounts. As of 2026, property in a plan described in section 529 or 529A of the Internal Revenue Code is “exempt from the requirements of sections 345.31 to 345.60.” § 345.383; 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 124, art. 6, § 3.
Some public pension money. A covered Minnesota public pension fund can’t be treated as abandoned if its plan has its own unclaimed-money provision. § 345.381.
Federal money. Commerce’s own page sends you elsewhere for refunds of mortgage insurance on a government loan (HUD), retirement accounts from discontinued plans (PBGC), accounts at failed banks (FDIC) and liquidated credit unions (NCUA), undeliverable U.S. savings bonds or bonds no longer earning interest (TreasuryDirect), and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Workers Owed Wages search. None of that is in the Minnesota search.
One thing that is in there surprised me: your own state tax refund. Before the end of each year, the commissioner of revenue reports to Commerce “any uncashed checks or warrants for overpayments of taxes that were issued more than two years preceding the date of the report.” § 345.41(i). The Department of Revenue doesn’t keep your uncashed refund. It hands it to a different department, and you have to go claim it there.
Somebody called offering to find my money for a fee. Is that legal?
Not for the first two years. Minnesota makes it “unlawful for a person to seek or receive from another person or contract with a person for a fee or compensation for locating property, knowing it to have been reported or paid or delivered to the commissioner pursuant to chapter 345 prior to 24 months after the date the property is paid or delivered to the commissioner.” § 345.515.
After 24 months, the statute doesn’t cap the fee. It does something sneakier. An agreement to locate reported property for “a fee or other compensation exceeding ten percent of the value of the recoverable property” isn’t valid “unless the agreement is in writing and signed by the owner and discloses the nature and value of the property and the name and address of the holder thereof as such facts have been reported.” Id. So a finder who wants 30 percent has to tell you, in writing, what the property is, what it’s worth, and who reported it, which is everything you’d need to go claim it yourself for free.
And even a signed deal isn’t the last word: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent an owner from asserting at any time that an agreement to locate property is based upon an excessive or unjust consideration.” Id.
The search on unclaimedproperty.mn.gov costs nothing. Commerce doesn’t take a cut. A finder is selling you a phone call.
What if Commerce denies my claim?
You can go to court. A person “aggrieved by a decision of the commissioner”, or whose claim Commerce hasn’t acted on within 90 days, may sue in district court. The action must be brought “within 90 days after the decision of the commissioner or within 180 days from the filing of the claim if the commissioner fails to act”, and it’s “tried de novo without a jury.” § 345.51. De novo means the judge starts fresh rather than deferring to Commerce. But those 90 and 180 days are short, and they’re the real deadlines in this chapter.
Heirs have more paperwork. The statute defines “owner” to include “the person’s legal representative”, § 345.31, subd. 7, and lets a claimant submit “only such portions of the document or order necessary to establish a claim” when the claim rests on a will, a trust, or a court order. § 345.49, subd. 1(b). Whether a dead relative’s unclaimed money needs a probate, or whether a small-estate affidavit will collect it, is the same question it’d be for any other asset. I walked through the affidavit route at /news/minnesota-small-estate-affidavit/, and how payable-on-death and joint accounts skip the estate entirely at /news/minnesota-pod-and-joint-accounts/.
Go look. The search is free, and the state isn’t going to mail it to you.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC helps Minnesota families plan estates and clean them up afterward: wills and trusts, beneficiary designations, probate avoidance, affidavits of collection, and disputes over accounts and life insurance after a death. Read about our trusts and estate planning practice. If a relative’s money is sitting with the state or a county treasurer and you’re not sure who has the right to claim it, send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 345.31, subd. 7 (“owner” includes legal representative); § 345.32(a), (a)(5) (bank deposits; three years), (c) (checks, money orders, traveler’s checks), (d), (d)(1)–(2) (safe deposit contents; five years; notice and opening); § 345.33(b) (life insurance; three years; limiting age); § 345.34 (utility deposits; one year); § 345.35(a)–(b) (stock; three years; three unclaimed distributions); § 345.38, subds. 1, 3 (courts and public agencies; three years; exception for § 524.3-914); § 345.381 (public pension funds); § 345.382 (prepaid funeral funds); § 345.383 (529 and 529A plans exempt); § 345.384(a), (b)(4) (virtual currency; three years; account activity as indication of interest); § 345.39, subd. 1 (miscellaneous property; three years; gift cards excluded), subd. 2 (cooperatives; seven years), subd. 3 (wages; one year); § 345.41(d) (report dates), (e) (holder’s notice to owner), (i) (uncashed state tax refunds reported by commissioner of revenue); § 345.43, subd. 2b(a)–(b) (virtual currency liquidated before reporting; no recourse for later gain); § 345.451 (income and interest credited to owner); § 345.46(a)–(b) (limitations); § 345.47, subds. 1–2 (public sale; notice), subd. 3a (securities; one-year holding; no post-sale appreciation), subd. 4 (title free of owner’s claims), subd. 5 (Minnesota Historical Society); § 345.48, subd. 1 (deposit in general fund; restitution to crime victim and witness account); § 345.49, subd. 1(a)–(b) (claims), subd. 2 (standing appropriation); § 345.50, subds. 1–2 (determination; payment without deduction); § 345.51 (judicial action; 90 and 180 days; de novo without jury); § 345.515 (24-month bar on locator fees; ten-percent written-disclosure rule; excessive-consideration defense); § 345.525 (property of no commercial or historical value); § 345.60 (citation). 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 124, art. 6, §§ 1–5 (virtual currency; prepaid funeral funds; 529 exemption). Minn. Stat. § 524.3-914 (estate assets deposited with county treasurer; 21-year claim period). H.F. No. 4120, 94th Minn. Leg. (introduced Mar. 9, 2026) (proposed Revised Minnesota Unclaimed Property Act, ch. 345A). Minnesota Department of Commerce, “Find Your Missing Money & Unclaimed Property” (other sources of unclaimed property). Illinois State Treasurer, “Enhanced Money Match for Unclaimed Property”. 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.