Lease Renewal Clause
in Your Lease
What it actually means, what Minnesota law says, what's specific to Minneapolis - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- Minneapolis's row on this chart reads 1 month (tenancy at will). § 504B.135 counts in rent intervals, not days: at least the interval between rent due dates, or three months if that is less, and the same rule binds the tenant.
- A lease cannot hand the landlord a shorter clock than you. § 504B.147 counts a notice of nonrenewal as a notice to quit, bars a landlord's notice shorter than the tenant's lease period, and makes a waiver “contrary to public policy and void”.
- An automatic renewal clause comes with a reminder duty. § 504B.145 requires written notice pointing you to the clause, served personally or by certified mail at least 15 days, but not more than 30 days, before your own deadline to give notice.
- Outside § 504B.147 and the foreclosure rule in § 504B.285, subd. 1a, our record of Chapter 504B finds no notice period a landlord must give before declining to renew a fixed-term lease at the end of its term.
- Minneapolis prices one kind of nonrenewal. Under § 244.2130, a new owner of an affordable housing building who refuses to renew without cause during the tenant protection period owes relocation assistance of three months of the current monthly contract rent.
Understanding the Lease Renewal Clause
A lease renewal clause decides what happens when the term runs out: whether the lease rolls on, who has to act to stop it, and how much warning each side gets. Minnesota answers the warning question in rent intervals rather than days, and the sections our record covers add two rules aimed at the clause itself.
The clock sits in Minn. Stat. § 504B.135. Either party may end a tenancy at will by written notice at least as long as the interval between rent due dates, or three months, whichever is less. Where rent is due monthly, that is one month.
The clause rules come next. § 504B.147 stops a lease from giving the landlord a shorter notice period than the tenant, and § 504B.145 makes a landlord send a written reminder before enforcing an automatic renewal. For a fixed-term lease with neither feature, our record of Chapter 504B finds no nonrenewal notice period, which leaves the paragraph you signed as the first document to read.
What renters assume
Minnesota guarantees every renter a month's warning before a Minneapolis lease term ends, so a landlord who stays silent until the final week has broken the law.
What is actually true
§ 504B.135's one month is for ending a tenancy at will where rent is due monthly. Outside § 504B.147 and the foreclosure rule in § 504B.285, subd. 1a, our record of Chapter 504B finds no notice period for declining to renew a fixed-term lease at the end of its term.
Nine of the 21 rows on this chart are drawn at the thirty-day mark: Austin, Chicago, Phoenix, Nashville, Boston, Las Vegas, Columbus, Detroit and Minneapolis. Five rows read 60 days, in Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Atlanta and Baltimore, and three sit at 90, in New York City, Denver and Portland.
Philadelphia reads 15 days, Charlotte reads 7 days, and Washington and Newark draw no bar because their rows require cause.
Minneapolis's label says 1 month (tenancy at will) rather than a day count. § 504B.135 states the period as the interval between rent due dates, capped at three months, so the bar stands with the thirty-day group for comparison and we have not converted the month into days.
The bar also measures a tenancy at will. On a fixed-term Minneapolis lease, the rules our record finds reaching the renewal paragraph are § 504B.147 and § 504B.145, set out below.
Plain English Version
If you rent in Minneapolis with no fixed end date, you or your landlord can end the tenancy with written notice at least as long as the gap between rent due dates, which is one month when rent is due monthly. If you signed a lease with an end date, our record finds no general notice period for declining to renew it.
Two rules in our record still reach the clause: the landlord's notice cannot be shorter than the one the lease demands from you, and an automatic renewal needs a written reminder before the landlord can enforce it.
Lease Renewal Clause Example - What the Wording Looks Like in Minneapolis, MN
The sample clause below is real lease language - a court quoted it word for word, and then ruled on it. What the judge decided is at the bottom of this block.
Find the equivalent paragraph in your own lease and read the two side by side. The wording will differ; the moving parts rarely do.
[I]f Tenant is to vacate the premises as of December 31, 2011, Landlord must receive by October 31, 2011 Tenant’s written notice to terminate * * * or the Lease will automatically renew for the one year term beginning January 1, 2012 and ending December 31, 2012 * * * .
Quoted from the published opinion in Continental Ents., Ltd. v. Hunt, 2015-Ohio-5411 (Ohio Ct. App., 8th Dist., Cuyahoga No. 102200, Dec. 24, 2015). Judicial opinions are not subject to copyright; the lease language is reproduced in limited part for commentary under 17 U.S.C. § 107.
“December 31, 2011, Landlord must”
The vacate date and the landlord's side of the bargain sit together here, and the duty the lease gives the landlord is a passive one: wait for the tenant's letter. A Minneapolis landlord cannot leave it there. Minn. Stat. § 504B.145 covers a clause renewing a lease of an original term of two months or more for another two months or more unless the tenant gives notice. To enforce it, the landlord must first give written notice directing the tenant's attention to the automatic renewal provision. A one-year lease that rolls into another year is the shape that section describes.
“October 31, 2011 Tenant’s written notice to”
The tenant's deadline falls well before the term ends, and in Minnesota it is also the date the landlord's reminder is measured from. § 504B.145 requires that reminder to be served at least 15 days, but not more than 30 days, before the time the tenant must give notice of an intention to quit. A reminder sent in the summer for a deadline at the end of October would be too early, and one that lands in the final week would be too late.
“terminate * * * or the Lease will automatically”
The default here is another year, and the deadline in this paragraph belongs to the tenant. If the landlord wanted out instead, a second Minnesota rule would come in. Where a lease sets different notice periods for each side, § 504B.147 counts a notice of nonrenewal as a notice to quit, and subdivision 3 bars a landlord's notice shorter than the period the lease gives the tenant. Subdivision 2 lets the tenant use either period, and subdivision 4 makes a waiver “contrary to public policy and void”. The excerpt sets no landlord period in the words quoted, so read the rest of your lease for one.
“the one year term beginning January 1,”
The renewal is a full fixed year, and that brings in a timing limit from the other end. § 504B.144 bars a landlord from requiring a tenant to renew a lease longer than ten months sooner than six months before the current lease expires. A deadline set a couple of months out sits inside that line. A clause demanding a renewal decision in the spring for a December end date is the kind to read against that section.
Two rulings, and the landlord lost the one that mattered. Ohio's Eighth District first reversed the trial court's conclusion that this clause made the lease perpetual and therefore void for failure to comply with the statute of conveyances, R.C. 5301.01: a one-year lease that renews into a second stated year does not automatically renew for a term exceeding three years, so the clause survived the statutory attack. Then the court affirmed judgment for the tenant anyway. She had substantially complied with the notice requirement by emailing the landlord under the subject line “RE: Nonrenewal of lease,” even though the clause demanded certified mail to a post office box, received 60 days out; enforcing it hypertechnically would be unconscionable. The much-quoted observation that “it is unreasonable to suppose that ordinary people can regulate their lives in such a manner so as to conform to a sixty-day lease termination provision” comes from Meadowbrook, an earlier Eighth District case, quoted in Continental - it is not Continental's own words. Two reading notes. The asterisks inside the quotation are the opinion's own ellipses, marking wording the court left out. And this is Ohio, Eighth District only: substantial compliance is not a national rule, and nothing on this page should be read as promising it anywhere else.
One court, one lease, one state. That answer is not automatically yours, and your lease may be worded to land differently. Use this to know what to look for and what to ask - your state's tenant hotline or a local tenant attorney can answer it for your document.
Minnesota Law on Lease Renewal Clause
- The notice runs on the rent cycle, capped at three months. Section 504B.135 reads: "A tenancy at will may be terminated by either party by giving notice in writing. The time of the notice must be at least as long as the interval between the time rent is due or three months, whichever is less." A landlord collecting rent monthly therefore owes one month of written notice, and the same section sets the tenant's notice to end the tenancy on the same terms. Section 504B.161, subdivision 6 adds that an estate at will is "deemed to be renewed at the commencement of each rental period".
- A lease cannot give the landlord a shorter clock than the tenant. Section 504B.147 applies where a lease sets different notice periods for each side, and it says "notice to quit" includes "a notice of nonrenewal of a lease". Under subdivision 3 "The landlord may not give a notice to quit the premises or notice of a rent increase that is shorter than the time period the lease provides for the tenant to give notice of an intention to quit the premises", subdivision 2 lets the tenant use either period, and subdivision 4 makes any waiver "contrary to public policy and void".
- Automatic renewal clauses come with their own reminder duty. To enforce a clause that renews a lease of an original term of two months or more for another period of two months or more unless the tenant gives notice, § 504B.145 requires the landlord to give written notice directing the tenant's attention to the clause, served personally or by certified mail "at least 15 days, but not more than 30 days prior to the time that the tenant is required to furnish notice of an intention to quit." Separately, § 504B.144 bars a landlord from requiring a tenant to renew a lease longer than ten months "sooner than six months prior to the expiration of the current lease".
- A nonrenewal can be challenged as retaliation. Under § 504B.285, subdivision 2, it is a defense to an eviction following a notice to quit that the termination was intended in whole or part as a penalty for the tenant's good faith attempt to enforce rights or good faith report of a code violation, and "If the notice to quit was served within 90 days" of that act, the landlord carries the burden of proving the notice was not retaliatory. Where a property has gone through foreclosure, § 504B.285, subdivision 1a requires the successor to give a tenant under a bona fide lease at least 90 days' written notice to vacate, effective no sooner than the date the lease expires, subject to an owner-occupancy exception.
Sources include Minn. Stat. § 504B.135; Minn. Stat. § 504B.147; Minn. Stat. § 504B.145; Minn. Stat. § 504B.144; Minn. Stat. § 504B.285, subd. 1a; Minn. Stat. § 504B.285, subd. 2; Minneapolis Code of Ordinances § 244.2110; Minneapolis Code of Ordinances § 244.2130; Minneapolis Code of Ordinances § 244.2140 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
Start with Minn. Stat. § 504B.135: “A tenancy at will may be terminated by either party by giving notice in writing. The time of the notice must be at least as long as the interval between the time rent is due or three months, whichever is less.” Where rent is due monthly, the notice is one month, and it binds the tenant on the same terms.
The section counts in rent intervals, not days. § 504B.161, subd. 6 adds that an estate at will is “deemed to be renewed at the commencement of each rental period”, which describes a tenancy that rolls forward with each rent cycle until one side gives notice.
The first rule aimed at the lease is about symmetry. § 504B.147 applies where a lease sets different notice periods for each side, and it says “notice to quit” includes “a notice of nonrenewal of a lease”. Under subdivision 3 the landlord may not give a notice to quit or of a rent increase shorter than the period the lease gives the tenant.
Subdivision 2 lets the tenant use either period, and subdivision 4 makes a waiver “contrary to public policy and void”.
The second is a reminder duty. To enforce a clause renewing a lease of an original term of two months or more for another two months or more unless the tenant gives notice, § 504B.145 requires the landlord to send written notice directing the tenant's attention to the clause.
It must be served personally or by certified mail at least 15 days, but not more than 30 days, before the tenant's own deadline.
Two more sections frame the decision. § 504B.144 bars a landlord from requiring a tenant to renew a lease longer than ten months sooner than six months before it expires. Under § 504B.285, subd. 2, it is a defense to an eviction following a notice to quit that the termination was meant as a penalty for a good faith attempt to enforce rights or a good faith code report.
A notice served within 90 days of that act puts the burden of proof on the landlord.
After a foreclosure, § 504B.285, subd. 1a requires the successor to give a tenant under a bona fide lease at least 90 days' written notice to vacate, effective no sooner than the date the lease expires, subject to an owner-occupancy exception.
And the silence, scoped to what we read: outside § 504B.147 and that foreclosure rule, our record of Chapter 504B, read in full, finds no notice period a landlord must give before declining to renew a fixed-term lease at the end of its term.
Minnesota Tenant Protections
Notice on the rent cycle, both ways: under Minn. Stat. § 504B.135, either party may end a tenancy at will by written notice at least as long as the interval between rent due dates, or three months if that is less. Where rent is due monthly, that is one month.
No shorter clock for the landlord: § 504B.147 counts a notice of nonrenewal as a notice to quit, and subdivision 3 bars a landlord's notice shorter than the period the lease gives the tenant.
Subdivision 2 lets the tenant use either period, and subdivision 4 makes a waiver contrary to public policy and void. A reminder before automatic renewal: to enforce a clause renewing a lease of two months or more unless the tenant gives notice, § 504B.145 requires a written reminder at least 15 days but not more than 30 days before the tenant's deadline.
No early renewal demand: § 504B.144 bars requiring renewal of a lease longer than ten months sooner than six months before it expires.
A retaliation defense: under § 504B.285, subd. 2, a notice to quit served within 90 days of a good faith report or attempt to enforce rights puts the burden on the landlord. After foreclosure, § 504B.285, subd. 1a requires at least 90 days' written notice to vacate a bona fide lease.
Locally, Minneapolis § 244.2130 makes a new owner of an affordable housing building who refuses to renew without cause during the tenant protection period pay relocation assistance of three months of the current monthly contract rent.
What's Specific to Minneapolis
Figures are the state rule, or the stronger city ordinance where one exists. Verify the current law for your own situation before relying on it.
A Minneapolis lease is read against Minnesota's statutes first and the city's housing code second. On renewal, the city sections in our record set no general notice period and attach one targeted cost.
Our Minneapolis record is Title 12 (Housing) of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances, codified through Ordinance No. 2026-020, adopted June 25, 2026, read in full, plus a text search of the whole code. The Title 12 sections we read set no general nonrenewal notice period of their own.
For timing, start from § 504B.135, § 504B.147 and your own lease.
The cost belongs to one kind of sale. Under Minneapolis Code of Ordinances § 244.2130, if the new owner of an affordable housing building terminates or refuses to renew an affordable unit tenant's rental agreement without cause during the tenant protection period, the new owner must pay relocation assistance. § 244.2110 sets that payment at three months of the current monthly contract rent.
Two definitions in § 244.2110 decide whether it reaches you. An affordable housing building has five or more units, at least twenty percent of them renting at levels affordable to households at or below sixty percent of area median income.
The tenant protection period runs from the transfer of ownership through the end of the third calendar month after the month the new owner's written notice of sale is delivered.
That notice is the hinge. Under § 244.2140, it is due within thirty days of the transfer and must say whether the new owner will terminate or not renew rental agreements without cause during the period. The new owner may not do either without giving it.
What makes the rule usable is a dated file. Keep the notice of sale, the date it was delivered to you, and any letter declining to renew.
The protection period is counted from that delivery, and the relocation payment turns on whether the refusal fell inside it. We describe these sections as enacted and make no prediction about how a court would apply them to your facts.
Whatever the building, a refusal to renew that follows a complaint is also a state-law question. § 504B.285, subd. 2 puts the burden of proof on the landlord when the notice to quit was served within 90 days of a good faith report of a code violation or attempt to enforce rights, so keep the date of each report you make.
It should, and § 504B.147 backs you if it does not. A landlord's notice of nonrenewal may not be shorter than the period the lease gives the tenant, and subdivision 2 lets you use either period.
§ 504B.145 requires that reminder, served personally or by certified mail at least 15 days but not more than 30 days before your own notice deadline, as a condition of enforcing the renewal.
For a lease longer than ten months, § 504B.144 bars a landlord from requiring renewal sooner than six months before the current lease expires. Note the date the clause demands an answer.
§ 504B.147, subd. 4 makes a waiver of the lease-matching rule “contrary to public policy and void”, however clearly the lease words it.
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- Minn. Stat. § 504B.135; Minn. Stat. § 504B.147; Minn. Stat. § 504B.145; Minn. Stat. § 504B.144; Minn. Stat. § 504B.285, subd. 1a; Minn. Stat. § 504B.285, subd. 2; Minneapolis Code of Ordinances § 244.2110; Minneapolis Code of Ordinances § 244.2130; Minneapolis Code of Ordinances § 244.2140, read on revisor.mn.gov. The Revisor of Statutes prints this section in the 2025 Minnesota Statutes with a History line ending 2023 c 52 art 19 s 97, and its Chapter 504B page lists no 2026 session law amending it.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
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A renewal deadline with no reminder
To enforce an automatic renewal, § 504B.145 requires a written reminder at least 15 days but not more than 30 days before your notice deadline. Keep the envelope or note the date it was handed to you.
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A shorter clock for the landlord than for you
§ 504B.147, subd. 3 bars a landlord's notice to quit or of nonrenewal shorter than the period the lease gives the tenant. Put the two periods side by side.
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A renewal answer demanded far ahead
On a lease longer than ten months, § 504B.144 bars requiring renewal sooner than six months before it expires. A clause demanding your decision earlier is worth questioning in writing.
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A refusal to renew right after a complaint
Under § 504B.285, subd. 2, a notice to quit served within 90 days of a good faith code report or attempt to enforce rights puts the burden on the landlord. Keep the dates.
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A sale, then a nonrenewal with no notice
Minneapolis § 244.2140 bars a new owner of an affordable housing building from not renewing without cause during the tenant protection period without its sale notice, and § 244.2130 attaches relocation assistance.
Your Rights as a Minneapolis Tenant
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Notice on the rent cycle, both ways
§ 504B.135 lets either party end a tenancy at will by written notice at least as long as the rent interval, or three months if that is less.
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No shorter clock for the landlord
§ 504B.147 counts a notice of nonrenewal as a notice to quit and bars one shorter than the tenant's lease period. A waiver is void.
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A written reminder before automatic renewal
§ 504B.145 requires one, personally or by certified mail, at least 15 days but not more than 30 days before the tenant's notice deadline.
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Relocation pay after an affordable building sale
Minneapolis § 244.2130 requires a new owner who refuses to renew without cause during the tenant protection period to pay three months of the current monthly contract rent.
What To Do - Step by Step
Name your tenancy first
A tenancy at will runs on § 504B.135's rent-interval clock. A fixed term runs on your lease, read with § 504B.147 and § 504B.145. Settle which one you have before counting anything.
Find your own notice deadline
If the lease renews unless you give notice, write down the date your notice is due. § 504B.145's reminder must reach you at least 15 days but not more than 30 days before it.
Compare the two notice periods
Under § 504B.147, the landlord's notice of nonrenewal may not be shorter than the tenant's lease period, and subdivision 2 lets you give notice on either one.
Line up dates against any complaint
§ 504B.285, subd. 2 shifts the burden to the landlord where the notice to quit came within 90 days of a good faith report or attempt to enforce rights. Keep copies and dates.
Ask whether your building was just sold
If the building changed hands, look for the notice § 244.2140 requires within thirty days of the transfer, and check whether the building meets § 244.2110's affordable housing definition.
Read the current text, then get advice
Pull § 504B.135 and § 504B.147 on the Revisor of Statutes site before you rely on them, then take a disputed nonrenewal to a Minneapolis tenant attorney or legal aid office.