Minnesota delinquent property tax list — what it holds, what happens next

The delinquent property tax list Minnesota counties publish each spring is the most misread public record in distressed property. It looks like a list of properties in trouble; it is a list of owners who missed a payment. Most of them catch up. Govire reads two counties' lists in full — Hennepin's, 3,113 parcels as of September 18, 2026, and Olmsted's, 502 parcels published in January — and follows each parcel after publication. The finding: in Olmsted, 270 of the 502, 54%, had paid in full by September, and the ones still behind owe a median of $1,175. In Hennepin, 813 parcels are three or more years behind, which is where the list stops being a warning and becomes the start of forfeiture.

Every figure on this page carries its count and its read date. Parcel-level detail — address, years behind, balance — is on the data view.

The delinquent tax list in Minnesota: what Govire reads#

Figures as of September 18, 2026.

Two counties is not Minnesota. Hennepin is the largest county and Olmsted the largest outstate one Govire reads at parcel level; the other 85 publish the same list on the same statute, and the mechanics below apply to all of them. Anoka's list, which people search for by name, is not yet loaded.

How a parcel gets on the delinquent list, and off it#

Property taxes unpaid on January 1 of the year after they were due become delinquent. Under Minn. Stat. 279.03 penalty begins immediately and interest runs from that January. The county auditor publishes the delinquent list — typically in March, in the county's legal newspaper — and files it with the district court, which enters a tax judgment against each parcel that spring. That judgment starts the three-year redemption period under Minn. Stat. 281.17: the owner can pay everything owed and keep the property at any point in those three years, or confess judgment and pay it off in instalments over five to ten years. Only if nothing is paid through the whole period does title pass to the state.

A parcel leaves the list by paying. It leaves the county's records by forfeiting. The gap between those two exits is three years, and the Olmsted figures below show how the first one dominates.

Olmsted County: what happened to January's list by September#

Olmsted County published 502 delinquent parcels on January 2, 2026, all first delinquent for the 2025 tax year. Govire re-reads each parcel's tax status from the county portal on a schedule. By September 15, 270 had paid in full — 54% of the list, cleared within eight months of publication. The 232 still delinquent owe a median of $1,175; these are not properties collapsing under debt, they are households a season behind on a tax bill. 190 of the 502 are homesteads. None has a confession-of-judgment plan on file and none is in bankruptcy, and every one carries an estimated forfeiture date of May 2029 — three years from the 2026 judgment, and a long way off.

That is the shape of a delinquent list read properly: half gone in a year, the remainder owing four figures, forfeiture a distant possibility. A buyer treating it as inventory is three years early. An owner on it has more time and more options than the letter from the county suggests.

Hennepin County: how many years behind#

Hennepin's list is larger and older, and it carries something Olmsted's cannot yet: age. Each parcel's first delinquent year is on the roll, and against 2026 it reads: 1,726 parcels one year behind, 574 two, 377 three, 161 four to five, and 275 six or more. The first two bands, 2,300 parcels, are the ordinary churn — most will pay, as Olmsted's did. The 813 at three years or more are the ones inside the forfeiture window, where the redemption period from the tax judgment is running out or has run out, and the county's next step is the tax-forfeited land process.

What is on that list is not what most people expect. 1,569 are single-family homes, median assessed value $300,100. 261 are commercial buildings at a $459,500 median, 55 agricultural parcels at $568,000, 108 townhouses. The 180 entries classed as condominiums carry a $13,500 median value — garage and storage units, almost certainly, not homes. Across all 3,113 the median assessed value is $273,400: houses, at Hennepin prices.

After the delinquent list: the tax-forfeited inventory#

When a parcel does forfeit, it moves from the delinquent list to the county's forfeited inventory and, eventually, a public sale. Govire's Hennepin forfeited inventory holds 180 parcels; Ramsey County's March 2026 tax-forfeited list carries 34, with a median assessed value of $25,000 — vacant lots and slivers, not the houses on the delinquent list three years earlier. Since Tyler v. Hennepin County (2023) a former owner is entitled to the sale proceeds above what was owed; the glossary entry covers the change. The statewide process is in the Minnesota tax-forfeited land guide.

What this page does not show#

Eighty-five counties. Hennepin and Olmsted are read at parcel level; the rest publish the same list and Govire does not yet read them. Anoka's list, with its own search term, is planned and not loaded. When a county is added, this page will say so with a date.

Parcel-level detail. Address, years behind and balance owed for each parcel are on the data view, beside the parcel record and the owner-of-record, and are updated as the counties publish and as Govire re-reads status.

Anyone's name. The delinquent list is a public record and Govire does not republish owner names on this page. Behind on property taxes yourself? The homeowner guide explains the three-year clock and the free help available.

See the current delinquent and forfeited parcels#

See the current lists →

For the county pages, see Hennepin County tax-forfeited land and Rochester and Olmsted County foreclosures.