Tomorrow is October 1. In Minnesota that’s the day the Cold Weather Rule kicks in, and I’d bet it’s the most misunderstood consumer protection in the state.
Ask around and you’ll hear that the gas company can’t shut off your heat in the winter. That’s not what it says. It says the gas company can’t shut off your heat in the winter if you’ve made a payment deal and you’re keeping it. Skip that part and a utility can disconnect you in January, after the notices and the waiting periods, the same as it could in July. The Attorney General’s office says so on its own consumer page: “this protection does not prohibit utilities from disconnecting service”.
So the rule is a right to make a deal. You have to ask for it.
And while we’re clearing things up, the Cold Weather Rule isn’t a rule. It used to be, back when it lived in the Public Utilities Commission’s rulebook. The Legislature wrote it into a statute, Minn. Stat. § 216B.096, and repealed the commission’s old cold-weather rule parts in the same 2007 bill: “Sections 13, 41, and 42 are effective September 1, 2008.” It’s been a statute since that date. Everybody still calls it a rule, including the Revisor’s own headnote.
What does the Cold Weather Rule actually say?
The season comes first. The “cold weather period” means “the period from October 1 through April 30 of the following year.” § 216B.096, subd. 2(b). Then the rule itself, in subdivision 5:
(a) During the cold weather period, a utility may not disconnect and must reconnect utility heating service of a customer whose household income is at or below 50 percent of the state median income if the customer enters into and makes reasonably timely payments under a mutually acceptable payment agreement with the utility that is based on the financial resources and circumstances of the household; provided that, a utility may not require a customer to pay more than ten percent of the household income toward current and past utility bills for utility heating service.
The whole protection hangs on that “if”. You have to enter into a payment agreement, and you have to make “reasonably timely payments” under it, which the statute defines as “payment within five working days of agreed-upon due dates.” Subd. 2(f). Five working days of slack. Not a month.
Then the ten percent. For a household at or below the line, the utility can’t require you to pay more than ten percent of household income toward current and past heating bills. You can agree to more, though. Subdivision 5(b) lets a utility accept more than ten percent of household income as the payment arrangement amount “if agreed to by the customer.” So watch what you say yes to on the phone. “Household income” is figured on an annual basis using the property-tax-refund definition in § 290A.03, subd. 3, and it doesn’t count money you got for energy assistance. Subd. 2(e).
What’s 50 percent of the state median in dollars? The statute doesn’t put a number on it, and it doesn’t say whose estimate of the median to use. For scale: the federal Department of Health and Human Services set Minnesota’s median income for a family of four, for mandatory use in energy-assistance programs in federal fiscal year 2026, the most recent figure I could open, at $143,998. Half of that is $71,999. If you pictured this as a rule for the destitute, that number ought to change your mind.
The paperwork can be light, too. A utility “may” “accept the signed statement of a customer that the customer is income eligible”. Subd. 6(a)(1). And a customer getting energy assistance from a government program whose eligibility line is 50 percent of state median income “is deemed to be automatically eligible for protection under this section and no other verification of income may be required.” Subd. 6(b). The Attorney General’s office describes Minnesota’s energy assistance program as drawing its line at that same 50 percent. Getting signed up for energy assistance is the shortest road into the rule.
What if my household makes more than that?
You’re still covered. Less, but covered. Almost nobody knows this part. Subdivision 10:
During the cold weather period, a customer whose household income is above 50 percent of state median income:
(1) has the right to a payment agreement that takes into consideration the customer’s financial circumstances and any other extenuating circumstances of the household; and
(2) may not be disconnected and must be reconnected if the customer makes timely payments under a payment agreement accepted by a utility.
Two differences, and both cut against you. There’s no ten-percent cap. And the deal is one “accepted by a utility”, which gives the utility a bigger say in the terms. The same subdivision also turns off a fee protection. During the season, a utility may not charge a deposit or delinquency charge to a customer on a payment agreement or on appeal, § 216B.096, subd. 7(b), but “Subdivision 7, paragraph (b), does not apply to customers whose household income is above 50 percent of state median income.”
Still, that’s a statutory right to a payment agreement during a Minnesota winter, whatever you earn. Worth knowing before the past-due notice goes in the drawer.
How does a winter shutoff actually happen?
Slowly, and on purpose. Before a utility covered by § 216B.096 can cut your heat between October 1 and April 30, it has to clear a lot of hurdles.
It has to send a commission-approved notice, “in easy-to-understand language,” with the scheduled disconnection date, the amount due, and a summary of your rights. Subd. 4. Every customer was supposed to get that summary anyway, sometime between August 15 and October 1. Subd. 3. If you’re a customer of one of these utilities, it may already be sitting in your mail or your inbox.
Then it has to wait. No disconnection earlier than ten working days after it mails the notice, or seven working days after it hands it to you. Subd. 7(c)(2). Weekends and legal holidays don’t count as working days. Subd. 2(l).
Then subdivision 7(c) takes whole days off the board. No disconnection while an appeal is pending. None on a Saturday, Sunday, holiday, or the day before a holiday. None when utility offices are closed, when nobody from the utility is available to resolve disputes, enter into payment agreements, accept payments, and reconnect service, or when the commission’s offices are closed. And none “on a Friday, unless the utility makes personal contact with, and offers a payment agreement consistent with this section to the customer”. Subd. 7(c)(4). Somebody at the Capitol clearly pictured a family sitting in a cold house all weekend waiting for Monday, and wrote a sentence to stop it.
Then somebody has to knock. A utility “may not discontinue service until the utility investigates whether the dwelling is actually occupied.” Subd. 7(d). That means at least one visit during normal working hours, and if nobody answers and there’s reason to think somebody lives there, a second try outside business hours. If the utility’s representative does reach you, he has to hand you the notice and, if he can’t sign a payment agreement himself, give you the number to call for one.
And a limiter counts. Some utilities would rather throttle you than cut you off. The statute saw that coming: “Disconnection includes installation of a service or load limiter or any device that limits or interrupts utility service in any way.” Subd. 2(d). A box that lets through enough power for a lamp but not the furnace is a disconnection, and every step above applies to it.
One more protection that runs all year. Under the commission’s rules, a utility may not disconnect you for a previous occupant’s unpaid bill unless that person still lives there. Minn. R. 7820.1300, item A.
The fight is over the payment plan
The low-income deal is “mutually acceptable”, which means the utility has to agree to it too. So what happens when it won’t?
You appeal. The utility has to give you written notice of your right to appeal to the Public Utilities Commission in two situations: when it decides your household income is over the 50 percent line, and “when the utility and customer are unable to agree on the establishment or modification of a payment agreement.” Subd. 8(a)(2). The clock is short. Your appeal must be filed no later than seven working days after you receive a personally served appeal notice, or within ten working days after the utility mails one. Subd. 8(b). The commission decides informally, “within 20 working days of receipt of a customer’s written appeal.” Subd. 8(c). While the appeal is pending, the utility can’t disconnect you, subd. 7(c)(1), and, if your household is at or below the line, can’t charge you a deposit or delinquency charge, subds. 7(b), 10.
Nothing in subdivision 8 limits that second kind of appeal, the one over plan terms, by income. I read it to reach a customer above the line who can’t get the utility to agree to anything workable.
Lose the appeal and you still get one more notice and another wait: no disconnection for seven working days after a personally served disconnection notice, or ten working days after a mailed one. Subd. 8(d).
The deal can change mid-season. You, or a third party you’ve designated, may ask to modify it if your finances change or you can’t keep up. Subd. 5(c). And the deal “terminates at the expiration of the cold weather period unless a longer period is mutually agreed to by the customer and the utility.” Subd. 5(d). The winter deal expires with the winter.
Already shut off? The rule runs backward too: the utility “may not disconnect and must reconnect”. Subd. 5(a). Once a payment agreement is accepted, each utility “shall use reasonable efforts to restore service within 24 hours”, taking customer availability, employee availability, and construction-related activity into account. Subd. 5(e). And if the house turns out to be occupied after a disconnection, the utility must reconnect if you agree to a payment agreement or appeal because you can’t agree on one. Subd. 7(e).
If the problem is something else, say a bill you think is just wrong, the commission’s consumer affairs office takes complaints against public utilities. § 216B.172, subd. 2. While you pursue one, the utility must continue or promptly restore service if you agree to enter into a payment agreement, post the full disputed amount in escrow, show you receive public assistance or are eligible for legal aid, or show household income at or below 50 percent of the state median. § 216B.172, subd. 5.
Does it cover my co-op or my city utility?
Partly, and in a lighter version. “Public utility” in § 216B.02, subd. 4 leaves out a municipality and a cooperative electric association. Co-ops and municipal utilities get their own section, § 216B.097. (A co-op can elect commission regulation; the Attorney General’s office says only one in Minnesota has done so.)
The core is the same. From October 1 through April 30, a co-op or municipal utility must not disconnect, and must reconnect, a residential customer’s primary heat source if household income is at or below 50 percent of the state median household income, the customer enters into and makes reasonably timely payments under a payment agreement that considers the household’s financial resources, and the customer receives referrals to energy assistance, weatherization, conservation, or other programs likely to reduce the bills. § 216B.097, subd. 1(a).
Look at what’s missing. I don’t find a ten-percent cap anywhere in § 216B.097. The section gives you no commission appeal; you appeal “as provided by the utility’s established appeal procedure,” and the utility can’t disconnect until that appeal is resolved. Subd. 3(d). And the co-op or city may recover the reasonable costs of disconnecting and reconnecting you. Subd. 5.
A couple of things run the other way. The wait is longer: no disconnection until at least 30 days after the notice is mailed, or 15 days after it’s delivered personally. Subd. 3(a). There’s no subdivision 10 for customers above the line, but every utility, co-ops and city utilities included, “shall offer a payment agreement for the payment of arrears” that considers the household’s circumstances, § 216B.098, subds. 1, 3, though a co-op or municipal utility may set its own terms for it. And the occupancy check has gone digital. A co-op or municipal utility may confirm somebody lives there by looking at smart-meter data for energy usage “over at least a 24-hour period that indicates occupancy” instead of knocking. § 216B.097, subd. 3(b)(2).
What about propane and fuel oil?
Not covered. The statute protects “utility heating service”, which means “natural gas or electricity used as a primary heating source”. § 216B.096, subd. 2(k). The co-op and municipal section reaches only a municipal utility or a cooperative electric association. And chapter 216B says it outright in its own propane sections: “propane distributors are not public utilities.” § 216B.0991, subd. 4. The Attorney General’s office warns consumers that “the delivery and pricing of propane gas is not regulated under state law like other utilities in the State”.
So there’s no winter shutoff rule for propane, because there’s nothing to shut off. The truck just doesn’t come.
There is a floor, and it’s thin. A propane distributor “with an available supply of propane must not refuse to sell propane to a customer” who pays the distributor’s established price on delivery, in cash, by certified or cashier’s check, or by commercial money order or its equivalent, or who receives energy assistance from LIHEAP or a governmental or private agency that has funds available to pay for a delivery. § 216B.0995, subd. 1. Pay up front, or bring the energy-assistance money. A distributor that offers a budget payment plan has to make that same plan available to all customers, LIHEAP households included. § 216B.0993(a). And the Department of Commerce runs a propane prepurchase program through the local energy-assistance agencies, though the commissioner may limit it or skip it if prepurchasing isn’t likely to save money. § 216B.0951, subd. 1.
Fuel oil gets less. None of chapter 216B’s shutoff or propane protections mentions it. The one heating-oil protection I found for a household helps renters, and it’s next.
What if I rent and my landlord pays the heat?
Then the landlord is the customer, and the Cold Weather Rule is protecting the landlord’s account. You’ve got your own tools, though.
If a utility, or a company supplying home heating oil or propane, issues a final notice to cut service to the building because the landlord didn’t pay, it has to post notice in at least one conspicuous spot in or on the building, with the shutoff date, the utility’s phone number, and a description of tenants’ rights. § 504B.216, subd. 13(a). You have to give the landlord notice before you pay, generally 48 hours, or a shorter period that’s reasonable under the circumstances. Then, for gas or electricity, a tenant may pay the current charges for the most recent billing period, and the utility “must restore the service for at least one billing period”. In a building with fewer than five units, one tenant can take over the account in the tenant’s own name, if the tenant meets the requirements for establishing service. Subd. 13(b). “[C]urrent charges” don’t include the landlord’s arrears or late fees. Subd. 13(d).
And here’s where that statute reaches delivered fuel. For home heating oil or propane, “the tenant or tenants may order and pay for one month’s supply of the proper grade and quality of oil or propane.” Subd. 13(h). Document the payment to the landlord and you may deduct it from the next rent payment; the law treats it as rent paid. Subd. 13(i).
The commission’s rules point the same way. Where the utility knows the landlord is the customer, it may not disconnect until it offers the occupant service in the occupant’s own name, where that’s feasible. And “A utility shall not attempt to recover from a tenant, or condition service to a tenant with the payment of any outstanding bills or other charges due upon the outstanding account of the landlord.” Minn. R. 7820.1400.
If your landlord bills you for gas or electric separately from rent, the landlord may not file an eviction for unpaid gas or electric charges during the cold weather period, and any eviction already filed must be stayed. § 504B.216, subd. 12(d)(2)(i). The billing rules for that setup live in the same section, and I covered them at /news/minnesota-apartment-fees-total-monthly-payment-504b120/. A landlord who cuts your heat himself is a different problem with a treble-damages remedy, which I walked through at /news/minnesota-tenant-lockout-504b375/. And the landlord’s separate duty to keep your unit heated runs on the very same October-through-April calendar; that one’s at /news/minnesota-tenant-habitability-rent-escrow/.
Life-support equipment beats the calendar
This one runs all year. A utility “shall reconnect or continue service to a customer’s residence where a medical emergency exists or where medical equipment requiring electricity necessary to sustain life is in use”, once it gets written certification, or a phone certification followed by writing within five business days, that cutting service “will impair or threaten the health or safety of a resident of the customer’s household.” § 216B.098, subd. 5(a). A licensed medical doctor, physician assistant, or advanced practice registered nurse can certify, and a registered nurse can too, but only to verify a doctor’s current diagnosis or prescriptions. Subd. 5(b). A certification may not extend beyond six months, unless the utility, at its sole discretion, extends it for up to 12. Subd. 5(c)–(d). If you’re behind, you still have to enter into a payment agreement. Subd. 5(f). That section covers public utilities, municipal utilities, and co-ops alike. Subd. 1.
Summer has its own version for electricity: a public utility providing electric service, municipal utility, or co-op may not involuntarily disconnect residential service in an affected county while a National Weather Service excessive heat watch, heat advisory, or excessive heat warning is in effect. § 216B.0975.
I couldn’t find a published Minnesota appellate decision applying § 216B.096 or § 216B.097 to a household’s shutoff. I searched CourtListener’s Minnesota appellate collection by both section numbers, by “cold weather rule”, and by the statute’s own phrases “cold weather period” and “utility heating service”. The statute sends these fights to the commission, and that’s where they get decided.
If an old utility balance lands with a collection agency after you’ve moved, a different set of Minnesota rules governs the collector. I covered those at /news/minnesota-debt-collection-practices/.
The rule won’t keep your heat on. The deal will.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC handles consumer disputes and landlord–tenant disputes in Minnesota, including claims over unfair business practices and fights over property rights and obligations between landlords and tenants. More on that work is on our general litigation page. If a utility or a landlord is about to leave you in the cold, send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 216B.096 (2025), subd. 2(b) (cold weather period), 2(d) (disconnection includes limiters), 2(e) (household income), 2(f) (reasonably timely payment), 2(j) (utility), 2(k) (utility heating service), 2(l) (working days); subd. 3 (summary of rights, August 15 to October 1); subd. 4 (disconnection notice); subd. 5(a)–(e) (the rule; ten percent cap; customer may agree to more; modification; termination; 24-hour restoration); subd. 6(a)(1), 6(b) (income verification; automatic eligibility); subd. 7(b) (no deposit or delinquency charge), 7(c)(1)–(8) (when disconnection is barred, including Fridays), 7(d) (occupancy investigation), 7(e) (reconnection); subd. 8(a)–(d) (appeals to the commission); subd. 10 (customers above 50 percent of state median income). 2007 Minn. Laws ch. 57, art. 2, §§ 13, 42, 43 (enacting § 216B.096; repealing Minn. R. 7820.1500–.2300; effective September 1, 2008). Minn. Stat. § 216B.02, subd. 4 (public utility excludes municipalities and cooperative electric associations). Minn. Stat. § 216B.097, subd. 1(a) (cooperative and municipal cold weather rule), subd. 3(a), (b)(2), (d) (notice periods; occupancy by usage data; appeal under the utility’s procedure), subd. 5 (cost recovery). Minn. Stat. § 216B.098, subds. 1, 3 (payment agreements for arrears; all utility types), subd. 5(a)–(d), (f) (medical emergency and life-sustaining equipment). Minn. Stat. § 216B.0975 (extreme heat). Minn. Stat. § 216B.172, subds. 2, 5 (consumer affairs office complaints; service during a dispute). Minn. Stat. § 216B.0951, subd. 1 (propane prepurchase program); § 216B.0991, subd. 4 (propane distributors are not public utilities); § 216B.0993(a) (propane budget plans); § 216B.0995, subd. 1 (propane cash and assistance sales). Minn. Stat. § 504B.216, subd. 12(d)(2)(i) (no eviction for unpaid gas or electric charges during the cold weather period), subd. 13(a), (b), (d), (h), (i) (landlord default; posting; tenant payment; oil and propane; rent deduction). Minn. R. 7820.1300, item A (prior occupant’s bill); 7820.1400 (landlord–tenant rule). Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, “When Facing a Utility Disconnection” (cold weather rule does not prohibit disconnection; propane not regulated like other utilities; cooperative regulation). U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., Admin. for Children & Families, LIHEAP-IM-2025-02, Attachment 4 (Mar. 3, 2025) (Minnesota state median income, four-person family, FY 2026). This article is general 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.