Minnesota finally passed a price-gouging law in 2023. It has never been turned on.
That isn’t a figure of speech. The ban in Minn. Stat. § 325E.80 does nothing until the governor signs an executive order declaring an “abnormal market disruption”. I read every executive order Governor Walz issued from January 2023 through Executive Order 26-11, signed October 1, 2026. Floods, blizzards, wildfires, a storm that hit Beltrami County with winds around 120 miles an hour, and two orders about fuel. Not one of them flips the switch. Not one even mentions the statute.
So a gas station can triple its price the morning after a disaster, and unless the governor has declared that disruption, the gouging statute has nothing to say about it.
Here’s the part almost nobody knows, though. Buried in the same section is a second rule that needs no governor and no declaration. It switches itself on every time a Minnesota thunderstorm drops inch-wide hail. And it’s aimed at the guy with the ladder.
Is price gouging illegal in Minnesota?
Only during a declared abnormal market disruption. The prohibition reads:
If the governor declares an abnormal market disruption, a person is prohibited from selling or offering to sell an essential consumer good or service for an amount that represents an unconscionably excessive price during the period in which the abnormal market disruption declaration is effective.
— Minn. Stat. § 325E.80, subd. 4 (emphasis added)
Everything hangs on the first five words. The governor “may by executive order declare an abnormal market disruption if, in the governor’s sole determination, there has been or is likely to be a substantial and atypical change in the market for an essential consumer good or service caused by an event or circumstances that result in a declaration of a state of emergency by the governor.” § 325E.80, subd. 2(a). That’s two declarations stacked on each other: an emergency first, then a separate order saying the emergency has broken a market.
The second order has to say what it’s doing. It “must state that the declaration is activating this section and must specify the geographic area of Minnesota to which the declaration applies.” § 325E.80, subd. 2(b). It can run shorter than the emergency, and unless the governor picks an earlier date it ends “30 days after the date that the state of emergency for which it was activated ends.” § 325E.80, subd. 2(c).
And it can’t be a secret. When a declaration starts, renews, narrows, or ends, the governor “must immediately post notice on applicable government websites and provide notice to the media”, and the commissioner of commerce “must provide notice directly to sellers by any practical means.” § 325E.80, subd. 3. If the switch ever gets flipped, you’ll hear about it.
Twice in the past year, the trigger was sitting right there
Read the trigger again: “a declaration of a state of emergency by the governor.” Minnesota’s emergency-powers chapter doesn’t use those words for the governor’s disaster declarations. It calls them a “peacetime emergency” under § 12.31, subdivision 2, and defines a “declared emergency” as “a national security or peacetime emergency declared by the governor under section 12.31.” § 12.03, subd. 1e.
But the governor has another emergency statute, and it’s the one he reaches for when fuel gets tight. Section 221.0269 says “[t]he governor may declare an emergency and grant relief” from the trucking safety rules “to provide emergency relief during the emergency.” § 221.0269, subd. 1. Orders under it say, in so many words, that “a state of emergency exists in Minnesota”.
Two of those orders were about fuel.
On December 23, 2025, Executive Order 25-14 described demand for propane and diesel as “high across the country, resulting in low inventory throughout the Midwest”, and reported that “several terminals have reported a complete lack of no. 1 diesel fuel.” It declared a state of emergency and loosened hours-of-service rules for the drivers hauling propane and diesel.
On October 1, 2026, Executive Order 26-11 cited high diesel costs during harvest and declared that “[a] state of emergency exists in Minnesota.” It raised truck weight limits for hauling crops and timber and loosened the hours rules for fuel haulers through October 31, 2026.
Heating fuel in short supply in December. Diesel prices squeezing farmers at harvest. If you were writing a textbook example of an essential consumer good in an atypical market, you’d pick one of those. Both orders declare a state of emergency. Neither declares an abnormal market disruption.
Is a trucking-relief emergency under § 221.0269 the kind of “state of emergency” § 325E.80 has in mind? Fair question. It’s also a question nobody has to answer until a governor actually signs the second order.
When the governor did ban gouging, the rule was tougher
Minnesota had no price-gouging statute when COVID-19 hit. What it had instead was Emergency Executive Order 20-10, signed March 20, 2020, a week after the governor declared a peacetime emergency in Executive Order 20-01. It prohibited unconscionably excessive prices on essential goods and services starting at 5:00 p.m. on March 21, 2020, for as long as the emergency lasted.
Put that order next to the statute the Legislature eventually wrote, and the statute is the softer of the two.
The order had a bright line. A price was unconscionably excessive if it was “more than twenty percent (20%) greater than the price of the same good or service that was sold or offered for sale in the usual course of business during the thirty (30) days immediately prior to the peacetime emergency”, unless the seller “demonstrates that the disparity is substantially attributable to significant additional costs outside the control of the person”. EO 20-10, ¶ 2.c.ii. Twenty percent over, and the burden was on the seller. It also caught a price that “grossly exceeds the price at which the same or similar good or service is readily obtainable by other purchasers in the trade area”. EO 20-10, ¶ 2.c.iii. The penalty was “not more than $10,000 per sale or transaction.” EO 20-10, ¶ 4.
The statute has no bright line at all. The test is “a gross disparity compared to the seller’s average price” over the 60 days before the declaration. § 325E.80, subd. 1(f). The 25 percent figure in the statute is a safe harbor, not a trigger. A price “no more than 25 percent above the seller’s average price during the 60-day period before an abnormal market disruption is declared” is never gouging. § 325E.80, subd. 1(f)(2). Above 25 percent, you’re back to arguing about what “gross disparity” means. The “readily obtainable by other purchasers” comparison is gone from the general ban. And the penalty dropped to “not more than $1,000 per sale or transaction, with a maximum penalty of $25,000 per day.” § 325E.80, subd. 6.
The order got used, too. The Attorney General’s Office reported that it “received and investigated 2,600 complaints of price-gouging during the peacetime emergency”, entered six assurances of discontinuance, and sued a Minnesota egg producer it alleged had tripled its prices in March 2020. That case ended in a consent judgment requiring the company to donate 90,000 dozen eggs to Minnesota nonprofits. The emergency, and the order with it, ended when the Legislature terminated it on July 1, 2021. Minnesota Attorney General, press release (Oct. 25, 2021).
In that same release, the Attorney General’s Office called gouging “a problem Minnesotans in any part of the state can face at any time”. In May 2023 the Legislature passed a gouging ban that works at exactly no time, unless the governor says otherwise.
What counts as an “unconscionably excessive price”?
Start with what the statute covers. An “essential consumer good or service” is one “vital and necessary for the health, safety, and welfare of the public, including without limitation: food; water; fuel; gasoline; shelter; construction materials; transportation; health care services; pharmaceuticals; and medical, personal hygiene, sanitation, and cleaning supplies.” § 325E.80, subd. 1(b). “Including without limitation” means the list is a floor. The prohibition reaches “a person”, and the section separately defines “seller” to run the whole chain: “a manufacturer, supplier, wholesaler, distributor, or retail seller of goods and services.” § 325E.80, subd. 1(d).
Then come the four ways out. None of these is an unconscionably excessive price:
(1) a price that is substantially related to an increase in the cost of manufacturing, obtaining, replacing, providing, or selling a good or service;
(2) a price that is no more than 25 percent above the seller’s average price during the 60-day period before an abnormal market disruption is declared under subdivision 2;
(3) a price that is consistent with the fluctuations in applicable commodity markets or seasonal fluctuations; or
(4) a contract price, or the results of a price formula, that was established before an abnormal market disruption is declared under subdivision 2.
— Minn. Stat. § 325E.80, subd. 1(f)
Clause (1) is the one every seller will reach for. Compare it with the 2020 order. The order made the seller demonstrate that the disparity was “substantially attributable to significant additional costs outside the control of the person”. The statute asks only whether the price is “substantially related to an increase in the cost”. No “significant”. No “outside the control”. And no sentence putting the burden on the seller. Whether a court would put it there anyway is a question nobody’s had to answer.
Clause (4) matters more than it looks. A wholesale contract with a price formula built in before the declaration isn’t gouging, however the formula plays out.
The part that’s always on: storm contractors
Now the subdivision that doesn’t wait for anybody.
Upon the occurrence of a weather event classified as a severe thunderstorm pursuant to the criteria established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a residential building contractor, tree trimmer, or restoration and mitigation services provider operating within the geographic region impacted by the weather event and repairing damage caused by the weather event shall not:
(1) charge an unconscionably excessive price for labor in comparison to the market price charged for comparable services in the geographic region impacted by the weather event; or
(2) charge an insurance company a rate that exceeds what the residential building contractor, tree trimmer, or restoration and mitigation services provider would otherwise charge a member of the general public.
— Minn. Stat. § 325E.80, subd. 5
No executive order. No declaration. The trigger is NOAA’s definition, and NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center gives it in one sentence: a severe thunderstorm is one “producing hail that is at least 1 inch in diameter or larger, and/or wind gusts of 58 mph or greater, and/or a tornado.” That describes a lot of Minnesota summer afternoons.
The Legislature widened this net in 2024. The original 2023 version reached only residential building contractors. The 2024 amendment added tree trimmers (anyone registered under § 18G.07) and “restoration and mitigation services” providers, defined as businesses that prevent further damage after “a fire, smoke, water, or storm event”, including “boarding up property; water extraction; drying; smoke or odor removal; cleaning; and personal property inventory, removal, and storage.” § 325E.80, subd. 1(c), (e); 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 114, art. 3, §§ 40–41. So the water-extraction crew that shows up after the storm is covered. Note the fire and water language lives in the definition of who’s covered; the trigger in subdivision 5 is still a severe thunderstorm.
Clause (2) is the one I’d want every homeowner with a hail claim to know. It has no “gross disparity”, no percentage, no safe harbor. A covered contractor working in the storm’s footprint, on the storm’s damage, may not charge your insurer more than he would otherwise charge a member of the public. If he has an insurance price and a cash price for the same work, that gap is exactly what clause (2) forbids.
Clause (1) is messier. The statute’s definition of “unconscionably excessive price” measures against the seller’s average price “in the 60-day period before an abnormal market disruption is declared”. In a storm case nothing has been declared, so that yardstick has nothing to measure from. Subdivision 5 supplies its own comparison, “the market price charged for comparable services in the geographic region impacted by the weather event”, and I read that as the test. The 25 percent safe harbor is pegged to the same pre-declaration window, and I don’t see how it applies here either. The Legislature bolted a no-declaration rule onto a definition built around a declaration. A court will have to sort it out.
Who enforces it? The Attorney General “may investigate and bring an action using the authority under section 8.31” against a seller, residential building contractor, tree trimmer, or restoration and mitigation services provider “for an alleged violation of this section.” § 325E.80, subd. 7(a). Here the 2024 amendment did something odd. It rewrote subdivision 6 so the $1,000-per-sale penalty applies to a person “found to have violated subdivision 4”. 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 114, art. 3, § 42. That’s the declared-disruption ban. The storm rule in subdivision 5 lost its dedicated penalty. What’s left, as I read it, is the Attorney General’s general § 8.31 toolkit: an injunction, and “a civil penalty, in an amount to be determined by the court, not in excess of $25,000.” § 8.31, subd. 3.
The 2023 section took effect the day after final enactment, and the governor signed the bill May 24, 2023. 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 57, art. 4, § 12. The 2024 amendments carry no effective-date clause, so they took effect on the statutory default date, no later than August 1, 2024. § 645.02.
The deductible side of the storm-chaser business, where a contractor promising to “cover” your deductible can sink your claim, is its own statute. I wrote about it at /news/minnesota-storm-chaser-roofers-deductible-325e66/. And if a storm contractor signed you up at your front door, your cancellation rights are at /news/minnesota-home-solicitation-sales-cancellation-325g/.
Can I sue a business for price gouging in Minnesota?
Not under this statute. The Legislature said so in plain words:
(b) Nothing in this section creates a private cause of action in favor of a person injured by a violation of this section.
— Minn. Stat. § 325E.80, subd. 7(b)
Your remedy under § 325E.80 is a complaint to the Attorney General’s Office and the hope that it acts.
That isn’t the end of the road, though. The same 2023 bill that created § 325E.80 also amended the Consumer Fraud Act. Section 325F.69, subdivision 1 now reaches any “unfair or unconscionable practice” used with the intent that others rely on it in connection with the sale of merchandise, and subdivision 8 defines one as a practice that offends Minnesota public policy, “is unethical, oppressive, or unscrupulous”, or “is substantially injurious to consumers.” 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 57, art. 4, §§ 16–17. The Consumer Fraud Act has its own private action. I explained how it works, and where it stops, at /news/minnesota-consumer-fraud-act-deceptive-trade-practices/, and the private-attorney-general route behind it at /news/minnesota-private-attorney-general-831/.
So is a 300 percent markup on bottled water after a tornado, with no declaration in place, an “unconscionable practice”? It’s an argument. A seller will answer that the Legislature wrote a specific gouging statute, said exactly when it applies, and said no private suits, and that a general consumer-fraud clause shouldn’t be read to do what the specific one deliberately doesn’t. I couldn’t find a Minnesota appellate decision either way. I searched CourtListener for § 325E.80, for “abnormal market disruption”, for “price gouging”, and for the subdivision 8 test, and found nothing. CourtListener has real gaps for Minnesota and indexes no district court files, so all that tells you is what’s been published.
And where the seller lied about why the price went up (claiming its costs tripled when they didn’t), you’re no longer arguing about unconscionability. A misrepresentation made “with the intent that others rely thereon in connection with the sale of any merchandise” is squarely inside § 325F.69, subdivision 1, and a consumer injured by one in a personal, family, household, or agricultural purchase has a private action for damages and attorney fees. § 325F.70, subd. 3(a).
One more thing about gasoline
Minnesota has had a gasoline pricing law since 2001, and it’s on every day of the year. It just points the other way. A retailer’s posted price for gasoline “that is below cost” is a violation of the state’s unfair-competition statute, § 325D.04. § 325D.71(a). There are exceptions for matching a competitor’s posted price that day, for a promotion at one location “for no more than three days in any calendar quarter”, and for coupons and loyalty programs. § 325D.71(a)–(c).
So in Minnesota, a station that sells gas too cheap breaks the law on an ordinary Tuesday. One that sells it too high needs an executive order first.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota consumers in disputes over unfair business practices and deceptive advertising, and Minnesota property owners in insurance disputes after fire, wind, hail, and water losses, including fights with the contractors who show up after the storm. More on that work is on our general litigation page. If a storm contractor billed your insurer one price and quoted you another, or you think a seller used an emergency as a pricing opportunity, send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 325E.80 (2025), subd. 1(b) (essential consumer good or service), subd. 1(c) (restoration and mitigation services provider), subd. 1(d) (seller), subd. 1(e) (tree trimmer), subd. 1(f) (unconscionably excessive price; four exclusions), subd. 2(a)–(c) (governor’s abnormal-market-disruption declaration; contents; termination), subd. 3 (notice), subd. 4 (prohibition), subd. 5 (severe-thunderstorm pricing rule for residential building contractors, tree trimmers, and restoration and mitigation services providers), subd. 6 (civil penalty for violation of subd. 4), subd. 7(a) (Attorney General enforcement under § 8.31), subd. 7(b) (no private cause of action). 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 57, art. 4, § 12 (enacting § 325E.80, effective the day following final enactment; signed May 24, 2023), §§ 16–17 (amending § 325F.69, subd. 1; adding subd. 8). 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 114, art. 3, §§ 40–43 (amending § 325E.80, subds. 1, 5, 6, 7). Minn. Stat. § 645.02 (default effective date). Minn. Stat. § 12.03, subd. 1e (declared emergency); § 12.31, subd. 2 (peacetime emergency). Minn. Stat. § 221.0269, subd. 1 (governor may declare an emergency and grant motor-carrier relief). Minn. Stat. § 8.31, subd. 3 (injunction; civil penalty not in excess of $25,000). Minn. Stat. § 325F.69, subd. 1 (unfair or unconscionable practice; misrepresentation), subd. 8 (unfair or unconscionable act or practice defined); § 325F.70, subd. 3(a) (consumer private action). Minn. Stat. § 325D.71(a)–(c) (below-cost gasoline sales; exceptions). Minnesota Emergency Executive Order 20-10, ¶¶ 1, 2.b–c, 4 (Mar. 20, 2020) (Minnesota Legislative Reference Library); Minnesota Executive Orders 23-01 through 26-11 (Minnesota Legislative Reference Library), searched for “abnormal market disruption”, “325E.80”, “unconscionabl”, and “gouging”; Executive Order 25-14, ¶ 1 (Dec. 23, 2025); Emergency Executive Order 26-11, ¶¶ 2, 7 and closing paragraph (Oct. 1, 2026). Minnesota Attorney General, “Attorney General Ellison reaches settlement in price-gouging lawsuit against Sparboe Farms” (Oct. 25, 2021). NOAA Storm Prediction Center, SPC FAQ (definition of a severe thunderstorm). 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.