Data center laws in Minnesota

Rules in Minnesota

• H.F. 16 Statute

  Data center regulatory bill.

  Passed passed June 14, 2025. 94th Legislature 2025 1st Special Session. This status is read from the bill's own record, not written here.

  H.F. 16 of the 94th Legislature 2025 1st Special Session was signed on June 14, 2025. The legislature titles it: Data center regulatory bill.

  What it requires

  The act defines a data center as a facility designed to have a load of 100 megawatts or more whose primary purpose is storing, managing and processing digital data, the definition its water permit rules also use, and a qualified large scale data center as one or more buildings connected by fiber totaling at least 25,000 square feet, in one location or several, where the...

  The act defines a data center as a facility designed to have a load of 100 megawatts or more whose primary purpose is storing, managing and processing digital data, the definition its water permit rules also use, and a qualified large scale data center as one or more buildings connected by fiber totaling at least 25,000 square feet, in one location or several, where the facility and its tenants together spend at least $250,000,000 on construction or refurbishment, enterprise information technology equipment and computer software within a 60 month period beginning after June 30, 2025. A qualified large scale data center pays an annual fee the commissioner collects on a schedule the commissioner sets, by the peak demand the utility arranges to serve: $2,000,000 for 100 to 250 MW, $3,000,000 above 250 MW but below 500 MW, $4,000,000 at 500 MW but below 750 MW and $5,000,000 at 750 MW or greater. The fee goes to the energy and conservation account and may be spent only on low income energy conservation and weatherization programs chosen through a request for proposals, and a center that pays it is exempt from contributing to a utility's energy conservation optimization plan for electric service. Its electric sales are left out of a utility's gross annual retail energy sales and out of the solar standard's sales for a utility with fewer than 200,000 retail electric customers, which may not charge it for meeting that standard, and it counts as an industrial customer under the distributed solar standard. Where a data center proposes consumptive water use above 100,000,000 gallons a year and needs a new individual permit or a permit amendment, the department may ask it before it applies for a project description, water use rates and volumes for the maximum day, maximum month and average year, the source and any water quality or temperature needs, and the commissioner must answer in writing with the water availability constraints at each proposed site; those exchanges are nonpublic data, and none of them takes the place of environmental review, preliminary well construction approval, appropriation permit review or any other requirement of law. In issuing or modifying a permit for such a use, or for a permittee supplying a data center more than 100,000,000 gallons a year, the department must ensure that public health, safety and welfare are protected, that water conservation and efficiency measures are reasonably considered and that water use conflicts are addressed under Minnesota Rules, part 6115.0740, and the commissioner must require an aquifer test where the commissioner determines the results are needed to protect public health, safety and welfare. By December 15, 2026 the Public Utilities Commission must set by order a very large customer class or subclass for each public utility providing electric service, and in weighing a tariff or service agreement with a very large customer it must consider how best to achieve the outcomes the act requires: every cost of those customers not exempt assigned to that class, service that meets each quantitative benchmark of the state's electricity standards under a utility plan asking for no delay or modification of them, and protection of other customers from stranded costs; agreements already in place, renewed or extended, and customers taking service since before 2020, are outside it. The commission must also require every public utility to offer commercial and industrial customers an optional clean energy and capacity tariff under a special contract in which participants pay all proportional costs of the new resources and no cost shifts between them and other customers. The sales and use tax exemption for enterprise information technology equipment and computer software now reaches a qualified large scale data center, for purchases within 35 years of the first qualifying purchase, for facilities certified before July 1, 2042, and no refund issues until the commissioner of employment and economic development has certified the facility; the exemption for electricity is left as it was, for qualified data centers and qualified refurbished data centers. Workers building or refurbishing a qualified large scale data center must be paid the prevailing wage, and the facility is not certified unless the entity certifies that it complied for all covered work after June 30, 2025; within three years after it is placed in service it must certify to the commissioner of commerce that it holds one of the listed green building standards, or repay the exemption. The heads of four state agencies must also take reasonable steps so their permitting staff refer inquiries about permitting a data center to the Minnesota Business First Stop Program.

  Describes the act as enacted.

  The text: revisor.mn.gov (opens in a new tab) primary source

  Last verified September 24, 2026.