Minnesota Has Four Construction Prompt-Payment Regimes. The Private One Does Not Make the Owner Pay You.

A subcontractor who has not been paid usually asks one question: does Minnesota have a prompt-payment law, and can I use it?

The answer is yes, but the follow-up question is the one that decides the case. Minnesota has four distinct payment regimes for construction work, and which one applies turns entirely on who owns the project. Get that wrong and you are quoting the wrong statute at the wrong party with the wrong remedy.

Worse, on private projects, the statute most people mean — § 337.10 — does not do what its reputation says. It is not a rule requiring owners to pay general contractors on time. It is a pass-through rule: it obligates contractors to pay downstream once money arrives, caps retainage, and attaches a mandatory fee shift. The general contractor’s remedy against a slow-paying private owner is the contract and the mechanic’s lien, not a statutory interest penalty.

Which statute governs my project?

Note the split: on public work, payment timing and retainage live in different statutes. Sections 15.71 to 15.74 govern retainage on public contracts for public improvements regardless of which public body is the owner; § 16A.124 or § 471.425 governs how fast the bills get paid. And § 337.10, subd. 4(g) says the private retainage rules “do[] not apply to a public agency as defined in section 15.71, subdivision 3” — which is “any agency of the state of Minnesota or any of its political subdivisions authorized by law to enter into public contracts.” The two systems do not overlap.

What does § 337.10, subd. 3 actually obligate — and against whom?

Here is the whole subdivision. Read who is named:

A building and construction contract shall be deemed to require the prime contractor and all subcontractors to promptly pay any subcontractor or material supplier contract within ten days of receipt by the party responsible for payment of payment for undisputed services provided by the party requesting payment, including payments under subdivision 4. The contract shall be deemed to require the party responsible for payment to pay interest of 1-1/2 percent per month to the party requesting payment on any undisputed amount not paid on time. The minimum monthly interest penalty payment for an unpaid balance of $100 or more is $10. For an unpaid balance of less than $100, the party responsible for payment shall pay the actual penalty due to the party requesting payment. A party requesting payment who prevails in a civil action to collect interest penalties from a party responsible for payment must be awarded its costs and disbursements, including attorney fees incurred in bringing the action. If an undisputed payment is not received within ten days, the prime contractor or subcontractor of any tier that has not received the undisputed payment may suspend work under the building and construction contract until the undisputed payment is received.

Four things follow.

The payment duty is deemed into the contract, not imposed on the owner. The parties the statute obligates to pay are “the prime contractor and all subcontractors.” The parties it protects as payees are “any subcontractor or material supplier.” The private owner is not named as an obligor of the ten-day duty. The trigger is downstream: the clock runs from “receipt by the party responsible for payment of payment” — that is, from when the payer gets paid.

The rate is 18% annualized. One and a half percent per month, on undisputed amounts, running from the eleventh day.

The floor is $10 a month. For an unpaid balance of $100 or more, the minimum monthly interest penalty is $10 — which is well above 1.5% on small balances. On a $200 unpaid invoice, the statutory penalty is $10 per month, not $3.

The suspension right reaches the prime contractor. The payment duty in the first sentence names contractors and subcontractors as obligors, but the last sentence extends the suspension remedy to “the prime contractor or subcontractor of any tier that has not received the undisputed payment.” A general contractor whose owner has gone quiet should read that sentence against its own contract before walking off a job; suspension of work under a construction contract has consequences (schedule, liquidated damages, default termination) that the statute does not address.

The real leverage is the fee clause, not the interest

Look again at the third-to-last sentence:

A party requesting payment who prevails in a civil action to collect interest penalties from a party responsible for payment must be awarded its costs and disbursements, including attorney fees incurred in bringing the action.

“Must be awarded.” Not may. This is a one-way, mandatory fee shift, and it attaches to an action to collect interest penalties — a claim that, standing alone, might be worth a few hundred dollars.

That asymmetry is the point. A general contractor sitting on a subcontractor’s $40,000 progress payment for four months is exposed to roughly $2,400 in statutory interest and to the subcontractor’s entire cost of litigating for it. The same structure appears in the two public-side pass-through provisions: § 471.425, subd. 4a (“A subcontractor who prevails in a civil action to collect interest penalties from a prime contractor must be awarded its costs and disbursements, including attorney’s fees, incurred in bringing the action”) and § 16A.1245, which uses identical language for state agency contracts.

A demand letter that prices the interest penalty and then names the fee provision is doing most of the work that a lawsuit would do.

What does “undisputed” mean?

The statute does not define it. Every operative duty in subdivision 3 — the ten-day payment, the interest, the suspension right — is keyed to amounts that are “undisputed,” and the statute supplies no standard for when a dispute is genuine as opposed to manufactured on receipt of a demand letter.

Section 337.10 is thinly construed. A keyword search of the published Minnesota appellate corpus returns no decision interpreting subdivision 3, and none is cited here because none was located. That does not mean no authority exists — unpublished court of appeals decisions are not comprehensively indexed in the archives used for this article, and unpublished opinions are not precedential in any event. It does mean that a party litigating “undisputed” in Minnesota is working largely from the statutory text.

Practically, that puts the weight on the paper trail: a payment application that was approved, a change order that was signed, a lien waiver that was exchanged, or a pay application the payer certified to the owner without objection is what makes an amount undisputed. A payer who first raises a backcharge in response to a collection letter is in a poorer position than one who documented it contemporaneously.

Retainage on private projects: 5%, and released in 60 days

Subdivision 4 is the most detailed part of the section, and it is where most money sits. In order:

• (a) Progress payments. “Unless the building and construction contract provides otherwise,” the owner or other person making payments “must make progress payments monthly as the work progresses,” based on estimates of work completed as approved by the owner or the owner’s agent. A progress payment is not acceptance or approval of work or a waiver of defects. Note the opening clause — this is a default rule the contract can displace.
• (b) The cap. “Retainage on a building and construction contract may not exceed five percent.” The owner may reduce or eliminate it if the work is progressing satisfactorily, and if the owner reduces retainage, “the contractor must reduce retainage for any subcontractors at the same rate.” Nothing requires that retainage be withheld at all.
• (c) The release. “The owner or the owner’s agent must release all retainage no later than 60 days after substantial completion,” subject to the rest of the subdivision.
• (d) The pass-down. A contractor “must pay all remaining retainage to its subcontractors no later than ten days after receiving payment of retainage.” If there is a dispute about work under a subcontract, the contractor must still pay out retainage to any subcontractor whose work is not involved in the dispute, and must provide a written statement detailing the amount and reason for the withholding to the affected subcontractor.
• (e) What may still be withheld after substantial completion. Two things, and only two: (1) 250 percent of the cost to correct or complete work known at the time of substantial completion; and (2) one percent of the contract value or $500, whichever is greater, pending completion and submission of all final paperwork. “Final paperwork” is defined to mean documents required to fulfill contractual obligations, “including, but not limited to, operation manuals, payroll documents for projects subject to prevailing wage requirements, and the withholding exemption certificate required by section 270C.66.” Withholding under this paragraph requires a prompt written statement detailing the amount and basis, a copy of which must be provided to any subcontractor who requests it. Clause (1) amounts must be paid within 60 days after completion of the work; clause (2) amounts within 60 days after submission of all final paperwork.
• (f) Warranty. “Withholding retainage for warranty work is prohibited.” Warranty claims themselves are preserved.

That is a tight regime. An owner holding 10% at 90% completion is over the cap. An owner holding the full retainage 90 days after substantial completion because of a $3,000 punch list is holding far more than 250% of the known correction cost. And an owner holding retainage as a warranty reserve is doing something the statute flatly prohibits.

When does the 60-day clock start?

On substantial completion — and subdivision 4(c) does not define it in place. It borrows:

For purposes of this subdivision, “substantial completion” shall be determined as provided in section 541.051, subdivision 1, paragraph (a).

That paragraph, which is otherwise the construction statute of repose, supplies:

Date of substantial completion shall be determined by the date when construction is sufficiently completed so that the owner or the owner’s representative can occupy or use the improvement for the intended purpose.

Occupancy or use for the intended purpose — not final completion, not punch-list closeout, not certificate of occupancy as such, and not the architect’s certificate. If the owner moved in, the retainage clock is probably running. (The same borrowed definition appears in the public-side retainage statute, § 15.72, subd. 2(f), with one addition: for streets and highways including bridges, “substantial completion means the date when construction-related traffic devices and ongoing inspections are no longer required.”) On the repose side of that same paragraph, see Minnesota’s construction statute of repose.

Who is not covered by § 337.10?

Four exclusions, each of which decides cases:

1. Public agencies. Subdivision 4(g): the retainage rules do not apply to “a public agency as defined in section 15.71, subdivision 3.”
2. Professional services. Subdivision 4(h): the retainage rules do not apply “to contracts for professional services as defined in sections 326.02 to 326.15” — the licensure statutes covering architecture, professional engineering, land surveying, landscape architecture, professional geoscience, and certified interior design. A design firm’s fee retention is not governed by the 5% cap.
3. Work that is not a “building and construction contract.” Subdivision 5 borrows the definition from § 337.01, subd. 2: “a contract for the design, construction, alteration, improvement, repair or maintenance of real property, highways, roads or bridges.” And it carves out a category that trips up industrial contractors — the term “does not include contracts for the maintenance or repair of machinery, equipment or other such devices used as part of a manufacturing, converting or other production process, including electric, gas, steam, and telephone utility equipment used for production, transmission, or distribution purposes.” Service work on a plant’s process equipment may sit outside the chapter entirely.
4. Incomplete or uninvoiced work. Subdivision 4(i): “Nothing in this section requires payment for a portion of a contract that is not complete or for which an invoice has not been submitted.” Submit the invoice.

Public projects: state agencies pay in 30 days — but construction claims are carved out

For a state agency, § 16A.124, subd. 3 sets the outside limit:

State agencies must pay each valid vendor obligation so that the vendor receives payment within the vendor’s early payment discount period. If there is no early payment discount period, the state agency must pay the vendor within 30 days following the receipt of the invoice for the completed delivery of the product or service.

Interest runs at 1-1/2 percent per month on undisputed billings not paid within 30 days (subd. 5(b)), the minimum monthly penalty for a balance of $100 or more is $10 (subd. 5(f)), and a “vendor who prevails in a civil action to collect interest penalties from a state agency shall be awarded its costs and disbursements, including attorney’s fees” (subd. 5(d)). Two construction-specific features are easy to miss.

The invoice can be a payment application. Subdivision 5(a) provides that “[f]or a construction contract utilizing partial payments based on an engineer’s estimate or a payment application approved by an architect, an invoice includes an engineer’s estimate or a payment application, as applicable, if made in regular intervals that are: (1) as specified in the contract, and (2) no less frequent than once per month.” The same subdivision requires that “[b]efore any interest payment is made, the vendor must invoice the state agency for such interest” — you must actually bill the interest to collect it.

And then the carve-out. The last sentence of subdivision 5(e):

No interest penalties accrue under this section against an agency for claims made by a contractor under a construction contract.

That is a real limit. A contractor’s claim against a state agency under a construction contract — the extra-work, delay, and differing-site-condition disputes that make up most construction litigation — does not generate § 16A.124 interest. The 30-day rule and its interest reach the ordinary vendor billing cycle; they are not a remedy for a contested construction claim.

The pass-through obligation is separate and unqualified. Section 16A.1245 requires every state agency contract to obligate the prime contractor to pay subcontractors within ten days of the prime’s receipt of payment from the state, with 1-1/2 percent monthly interest, a $10 monthly minimum for balances of $100 or more, and mandatory costs and attorney’s fees to a prevailing subcontractor.

Local government: 35 days, 45 days, and a bad-faith fee shift

Section 471.425 covers “any home rule charter or statutory city, county, town, school district, political subdivision or agency of local government,” plus the Metropolitan Council and chapter 473 boards and agencies. A municipality must pay each vendor obligation according to the contract terms or, absent applicable terms, within the “standard payment period,” which the statute sets by how often the governing board meets:

• 35 days from the date of receipt, for municipalities whose governing boards have regularly scheduled meetings at least once a month;
• 45 days after receipt of the goods, services, or invoice, whichever is later, for boards that do not regularly meet at least monthly;
• 45 days from the date of receipt, for joint powers organizations under § 471.59.

“Date of receipt” is itself defined: “the completed delivery of the goods or services or the satisfactory installation, assembly or specified portion thereof, or the receipt of the invoice for the delivery of the goods or services, whichever is later.”

Interest is 1-1/2 percent per month “or part of a month” on the outstanding balance (subd. 4(b)), with the same $10 monthly minimum for balances of $100 or more (subd. 4(d)). Bad invoices must be flagged within ten days (subd. 3). And subdivision 5 confirms the reach: the section “applies to all goods, leases and rents, and contracts for services, construction, repair and remodeling.”

The good-faith dispute rule here is worded differently from the private statute, and the difference is a remedy:

No interest penalties may accrue against a purchaser who delays payment of a vendor obligation due to a good faith dispute with the vendor regarding the fitness of the product or service, contract compliance, or any defect, error or omission related thereto. If such delay undertaken by the municipality is not in good faith, the vendor may recover costs and attorney’s fees.

So on a municipal project the fee exposure is not limited to an action to collect interest penalties — bad-faith delay itself carries costs and fees.

One thing § 471.425 does not do: excuse a contractor from an arbitration clause. In Community Partners Designs, Inc. v. City of Lonsdale, 697 N.W.2d 629 (Minn. Ct. App. 2005), a vendor argued that a city’s “disregard for the requirements of Minn.Stat. § 471.425 is evidence of appellant’s bad faith” sufficient to waive the contract’s arbitration provision. The court of appeals: “We disagree.” Id. at 635. It reversed and ordered arbitration, observing that nothing had stopped the vendor from demanding payment or initiating arbitration itself. The prompt-payment statute sets a payment obligation; it does not relocate the forum.

Retainage on public improvements: §§ 15.71 to 15.74

For any “public contract for a public improvement” — defined as “any construction of improvements on real property or highways by or for a public agency” — retainage is governed by § 15.72, and the substantive rules track the private statute closely:

• Monthly progress payments unless the contract provides otherwise (subd. 1).
• Retainage capped at five percent of the payment; the agency may reduce or eliminate it if work is progressing satisfactorily, and if it does, “the contractor must reduce retainage for any subcontractors at the same rate” (subd. 2(a)–(b)).
• All retainage released “no later than 60 days after substantial completion” (subd. 2(b)); the contractor pays subcontractors within ten days of receiving retainage, with the same dispute carve-out and written-statement requirement (subd. 2(c)).
• After substantial completion the agency may withhold no more than 250% of the cost to correct or complete known work, plus 1% of contract value or $500, whichever is greater, pending final paperwork — with the same 60-day payout deadlines and the same written-statement requirement (subd. 2(e)).
• Withholding retainage for warranty work is prohibited (subd. 2(g)).
• On federal- or state-aid projects, the agency “is not required to pay that portion of the contract funded by federal or state aid until the federal or state aid payments have been received” (subd. 2(h)) — a genuine cash-flow risk with no private-side analogue.

Two adjacent sections are worth knowing. Section 15.73 gives the contractor an option: deposit bonds or securities with the agency, a bank, or a trust company in lieu of cash retainage, in which case “the public agency shall reduce the retainage in an amount equal to the value of the bonds and securities and pay the amount of the reduction to the contractor,” with interest on the securities payable to the contractor as it accrues. The instruments must be of a character approved by the commissioner of management and budget, and the statute lists four examples: bills, certificates, notes or bonds of the United States; other obligations of the United States or its agencies; obligations of any wholly federally owned corporation; and indebtedness of the Federal National Mortgage Association. If the agency incurs additional costs from the substitution, it may recover them by reducing the final payment. Section 15.74 then applies §§ 15.71 to 15.73 “to all public contracts except those contracts in which receipt of federal financing is conditioned on adherence to terms and conditions which are inconsistent” with them.

Note also § 15.72, subd. 2(d): “Upon written request of a subcontractor, the public contracting agency shall notify the subcontractor of a progress payment, retainage payment, or final payment made to the contractor.” Which brings us to what changed this month.

New, effective August 1, 2026: the payment-information right

The 2026 Legislature added a new subdivision to § 15.72. 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 90, § 1 (S.F. No. 1714), “requiring payment transparency in public contracts,” creates § 15.72, subd. 1a. Its terms:

• Who may ask. “[A] contractor or subcontractor of any tier that can provide documentation of participating in the public improvement project,” on written request.
• What must be produced. Information regarding “any progress payment, retainage payment, final payment, or other payment made by the contracting agency,” and specifically (1) the amount of the payment, (2) the date the payment was made or approved, and (3) a copy of the payment application submitted by the contractor. For highway construction contracts, “a copy of the estimate or voucher generated by the public contracting agency meets this requirement.”
• How fast. “The public contracting agency must provide the requested information within seven calendar days of receipt of the request.”
• Findability. The agency must make its payment-information contact available to subcontractors, and if it has a website, post that contact “on its public website for solicitations or bids or on another apparent location on its website.” An agency with an automated internet-based system may direct requesters to it.
• Cost. “No cost or fees may be charged to the contractor or subcontractor for providing information required under this section.”

Effective date. The act contains no effective-date clause. Under Minn. Stat. § 645.02, “[e]ach act, except one making appropriations, enacted finally at any session of the legislature takes effect on August 1 next following its final enactment, unless a different date is specified in the act.” Chapter 90 was presented to the governor on May 11, 2026 and signed on May 12, 2026. August 1 next following final enactment is August 1, 2026 — so subdivision 1a is in force now.

For a lower-tier subcontractor on a public job, this is the practical upgrade. The existing subd. 2(d) notification right told you that a payment was made. Subdivision 1a entitles you to the amount, the date, and the prime’s own payment application — which is the document that shows whether your work was billed to the owner, at what value, and when. That is the evidence that converts “we haven’t been paid yet” into a ten-day § 471.425, subd. 4a claim with a mandatory fee shift behind it.

This is not a lien, and it is not a bond claim

Prompt-payment rights are contract-based statutory remedies against the party who owes you money. They run alongside, not instead of, security rights.

On private work, security is the mechanic’s lien under chapter 514, with its own notice and filing deadlines that are unforgiving and entirely independent of anything in § 337.10. Section 337.10, subd. 2 protects the lien right at the front end: provisions requiring a contractor, subcontractor, or material supplier “to waive the right to a mechanics lien or to a claim against a payment bond before the person has been paid for the labor or materials or both that the person furnished are void and unenforceable” — though the statute preserves the validity of such a waiver “as to any third party who detrimentally relies upon the waiver.” See Minnesota mechanic’s lien deadlines.

On public work, security comes from the payment bond required by the Public Contractors’ Performance and Payment Bond Act, §§ 574.26 to 574.32 — which is why the Act makes the bond a condition of the contract’s validity in the first place. A public contract is “not valid” unless the contractor gives both a performance bond and a payment bond, except as provided in §§ 574.263 and 574.264 or where the contract amount is less than the threshold in § 471.345, subd. 3 — currently $175,000. The bond deadlines are short and jurisdictional in practice:

• 120 days after the claimant’s last item of labor and materials to serve written notice of claim, personally or by certified mail, on both the surety and the contractor at the addresses stated in the bond, specifying the nature and amount of the claim and the date of last furnishing (§ 574.31, subd. 2(a)). The statute supplies the notice form.
• One year from the date of last furnishing stated in the notice of claim to commence the action against the surety (§ 574.31, subd. 2(c)).
• The one-year deadline can be extended two ways under subd. 2(d): a written stipulation with the surety executed before the year runs, or a claimant’s certified-mail notice sent 90 days before the deadline extending it by one year, which the surety does not object to by certified mail within 30 days of receipt.
• If the contractor failed to comply with § 574.28 by not stating both its own address and the surety’s address, no notice of claim is required at all (§ 574.31, subd. 2(b)), and the one-year suit deadline runs from the actual date of last furnishing.
• Reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs, and disbursements “may be awarded in an action to enforce claims under the act if the action is successfully maintained or successfully appealed” (§ 574.26, subd. 2).

A claimant with a strong prompt-payment case and a blown bond notice has a much weaker position than the merits suggest. Calendar the bond dates first.

Clauses that try to opt out

Section 337.10 opens with two anti-waiver rules that survive whatever the contract says.

Subdivision 1 voids out-of-state choice of law and forum: provisions in a building and construction contract to be performed in Minnesota “making the contract subject to the laws of another state or requiring that any litigation, arbitration, or other dispute resolution process on the contract occur in another state are void and unenforceable.” A national general contractor’s form agreement calling for Illinois law and Cook County venue on a Minnesota job does not survive contact with this sentence.

Subdivision 2 voids the pre-payment lien and bond waiver, as above. On the public side, § 15.72, subd. 3 separately makes certain indemnification agreements in public improvement contracts unenforceable, and declares against public policy any provision requiring a party to insure other parties “for the negligence or intentional acts or omissions of any of those other parties, including third parties,” subject to five carve-outs. For the broader map of clauses Minnesota will not enforce in a construction contract, see void provisions in Minnesota construction contracts.

Nothing in any of these statutes turns on whether the worker doing the job was properly classified — but a contractor who has misclassified its crew has a separate and larger problem. See Minnesota’s construction worker misclassification law.

The observation

The value in Minnesota’s prompt-payment statutes is not the interest rate. Eighteen percent annualized on a disputed retainage balance is real money, but it is rarely what changes behavior.

What changes behavior is the combination of three things the statutes do quietly: they deem payment terms into the contract whether or not the parties negotiated them; they cap retainage at five percent and put a 60-day fuse on it; and they attach a mandatory one-way fee award to a small-dollar claim, which makes it uneconomic to fight and cheap to bring.

So the sequence for an unpaid contractor or supplier is: identify the owner (private, state, or local), confirm the amount is undisputed on the documents, calculate the ten-day or thirty-day or thirty-five-day trigger, invoice the interest expressly where the statute requires it, and put the fee provision in the first letter. On a public job, send the § 15.72, subd. 1a request at the same time — seven calendar days, no charge, and it produces the prime’s own payment application.

Then check the lien and bond calendars, because those are the deadlines that do not forgive.

Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, and owners in construction payment disputes — prompt-payment and retainage claims, mechanic’s liens, public payment bond claims, contract and change-order disputes, and the fee-shifting demands that resolve most of them before suit. If you are owed money on a Minnesota project, or you are on the receiving end of a payment demand, send us a message or call 612-470-6529.

Related reading: Minnesota mechanic’s lien deadlines, void clauses in Minnesota construction contracts, the construction statute of repose, and construction worker misclassification under § 181.723.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 337.10 (Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes) — subd. 1 (out-of-state choice of law and forum provisions void and unenforceable); subd. 2 (pre-payment mechanics lien and payment bond waivers void, with the detrimental-reliance proviso as to third parties); subd. 3, quoted in full (ten-day pass-through duty deemed into the contract, running from receipt by the party responsible for payment; obligors identified as “the prime contractor and all subcontractors”; payees as “any subcontractor or material supplier”; 1-1/2 percent per month on undisputed amounts; $10 minimum monthly penalty for balances of $100 or more and actual penalty below $100; mandatory award of costs and disbursements including attorney fees to a prevailing party requesting payment; suspension right of “the prime contractor or subcontractor of any tier”); subd. 4(a) (monthly progress payments unless the contract provides otherwise; payment not acceptance or waiver of defects); subd. 4(b) (five percent retainage cap; owner reduction and the same-rate pass-down to subcontractors; no requirement that retainage be withheld); subd. 4(c) (release of all retainage no later than 60 days after substantial completion; substantial completion determined as provided in § 541.051, subd. 1(a)); subd. 4(d) (ten days to pass retainage to subcontractors; dispute carve-out and written statement); subd. 4(e) (250 percent of known correction/completion cost; one percent of contract value or $500, whichever is greater, pending final paperwork; the definition of “final paperwork” including operation manuals, prevailing-wage payroll documents, and the § 270C.66 withholding exemption certificate; prompt written statement of amount and basis and copy to requesting subcontractors; 60-day payout deadlines); subd. 4(f) (withholding retainage for warranty work prohibited); subd. 4(g) (inapplicable to a public agency as defined in § 15.71, subd. 3); subd. 4(h) (inapplicable to contracts for professional services as defined in §§ 326.02 to 326.15); subd. 4(i) (no payment required for incomplete or uninvoiced portions); subd. 5 (definition borrowed from § 337.01). Minn. Stat. § 337.01, subd. 2 (definition of “building and construction contract,” including the exclusion for maintenance or repair of machinery, equipment, or other devices used as part of a manufacturing, converting, or other production process, and utility production, transmission, and distribution equipment). Minn. Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(a) (quoted definition of date of substantial completion — “the date when construction is sufficiently completed so that the owner or the owner’s representative can occupy or use the improvement for the intended purpose”). Minn. Stat. § 326.02, subd. 1 (identifying the professions covered by §§ 326.02 to 326.15: architecture, professional engineering, land surveying, landscape architecture, professional geoscience, and certified interior design). Minn. Stat. § 15.71, subds. 2–5 (definitions of “public contract,” “public agency”/“public contracting agency” as any agency of the state or its political subdivisions authorized by law to enter into public contracts, “public improvement” as any construction of improvements on real property or highways by or for a public agency, and “retainage”). Minn. Stat. § 15.72, subds. 1, 2(a)–(h), 3 (monthly progress payments; five percent retainage cap and same-rate pass-down; 60-day release after substantial completion; ten-day pass-down to subcontractors with dispute carve-out; subd. 2(d) subcontractor’s right on written request to be notified of a progress, retainage, or final payment; the 250 percent and one percent/$500 post-substantial-completion withholding limits with 60-day payouts; subd. 2(f) borrowing § 541.051, subd. 1(a) and adding the streets-and-highways definition tied to construction-related traffic devices and ongoing inspections; subd. 2(g) prohibition on withholding retainage for warranty work; subd. 2(h) federal- and state-aid proviso; subd. 3 unenforceability of certain indemnification and insurance provisions). Minn. Stat. § 15.73, subds. 1–4 (contractor’s option to deposit bonds or securities in lieu of cash retainage; agency reduction and payment; interest payable to the contractor; the four enumerated categories of approved instruments; recovery of additional costs from the final payment). Minn. Stat. § 15.74 (application to all public contracts except where receipt of federal financing is conditioned on inconsistent terms). 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 90, § 1 (S.F. No. 1714), adding Minn. Stat. § 15.72, subd. 1a — verified from the Revisor’s official session-law text at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/2026/0/Session+Law/Chapter/90/ ; the act is titled “requiring payment transparency in public contracts”; it contains no effective-date clause; it was “Presented to the governor May 11, 2026” and “Signed by the governor May 12, 2026.” Effective date computed under Minn. Stat. § 645.02, first paragraph (“Each act, except one making appropriations, enacted finally at any session of the legislature takes effect on August 1 next following its final enactment, unless a different date is specified in the act”) = August 1, 2026. Minn. Stat. § 16A.124, subds. 3, 4, 5(a)–(f), 8 (30-day state agency payment obligation and early-payment discount period; ten-day invoice-error notice; the construction-contract invoice rule treating an engineer’s estimate or architect-approved payment application as an invoice if made at contract intervals no less frequent than monthly; the requirement that the vendor invoice the agency for interest before payment; 1-1/2 percent per month; mandatory costs and attorney’s fees to a prevailing vendor; the good-faith dispute rule and the quoted sentence “No interest penalties accrue under this section against an agency for claims made by a contractor under a construction contract”; the $10 minimum monthly penalty; applicability to construction and remodeling contracts). Minn. Stat. § 16A.1245 (state agency contracts must require ten-day payment to subcontractors, 1-1/2 percent monthly interest, $10 minimum monthly penalty, and mandatory costs and attorney’s fees to a prevailing subcontractor). Minn. Stat. § 471.425, subds. 1(b)–(d), 2, 3, 4, 4a, 5 (definitions of “date of receipt” and “municipality,” including the Metropolitan Council and chapter 473 boards; the 35-day and 45-day standard payment periods and the 45-day joint-powers period under § 471.59; ten-day invoice-error notice; 1-1/2 percent per month “or part of a month”; the good-faith dispute rule and the quoted sentence permitting recovery of costs and attorney’s fees where the delay is not in good faith; $10 minimum monthly penalty; subd. 4a’s ten-day subcontractor pass-through with mandatory costs and attorney’s fees; applicability to contracts for services, construction, repair and remodeling, with the public utility and telephone company exception). Minn. Stat. § 471.345, subds. 1–3 (uniform municipal contracting law; the $175,000 sealed-bid threshold referenced by § 574.26, subd. 2). Minn. Stat. § 574.26, subds. 1, 2 (the Public Contractors’ Performance and Payment Bond Act, §§ 574.26 to 574.32; definitions of “public body,” “labor and materials,” and “contract”; the requirement of both a performance bond and a payment bond, with the exceptions in §§ 574.263 and 574.264 and for contracts below the § 471.345, subd. 3 amount; the permissive award of reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs, and disbursements where an action under the act is successfully maintained or appealed). Minn. Stat. § 574.31, subd. 2(a)–(d) (120-day notice of claim on the payment bond served personally or by certified mail on the surety and contractor at the bond addresses; the statutory notice form; the excuse from notice where the contractor failed to comply with § 574.28’s address requirements; the one-year deadline to commence an action against the surety; the two methods of extending it — written stipulation before the year runs, or certified-mail notice 90 days before the deadline not objected to within 30 days; proration where the bond is insufficient). Case authority, verified from the Caselaw Access Project archive at static.case.law: Community Partners Designs, Inc. v. City of Lonsdale, 697 N.W.2d 629, 635 (Minn. Ct. App. 2005) (metadata confirming reporter cite, court, date, and docket No. A04-1919; the vendor’s argument that “appellant’s disregard for the requirements of Minn.Stat. § 471.425 is evidence of appellant’s bad faith,” the court’s response “We disagree,” and the reversal ordering arbitration; verified at https://static.case.law/nw2d/697/html/0629-01.html and https://static.case.law/nw2d/697/cases/0629-01.json). No published Minnesota appellate decision construing Minn. Stat. § 337.10, subd. 3 was located in the archival sources used for this article; the article says so rather than citing one. Whether a particular amount is “undisputed,” which statute governs a given project, and whether a bond or lien deadline has run are case-specific questions this article does not answer. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. No outcome is promised or implied.