Minnesota fixes every PA fee in statute at Minn. Stat. 147A.28 — $120 to apply, $115 annual renewal, $25 for a locum tenens permit, $50 late fee, $25 verification. Statutory fees cannot be changed by the board, only by the legislature, which makes them unusually stable and unusually slow to adjust.
Most states delegate fee-setting to a board. Minnesota wrote the amounts into law, and the consequences run in both directions.
What the statute fixes
Minn. Stat. 147A.28 names every one of them. $120 to apply. One hundred and fifteen to renew, annually rather than biennially. Twenty-five for a locum tenens permit. Fifty for a late fee. Twenty-five for a verification.
Nothing is delegated. Nothing is left to a schedule the board can revise. The numbers are in the law, and they stay there until a legislature amends the law.
What that buys you
Certainty. You can budget a Minnesota license years in advance and be right, which is not true of a state where a department can revise a schedule between your planning and your filing.
You can also cite it. When a fee is in statute, there is no ambiguity about what the correct amount is, and no aggregator can be confidently wrong about it in a way that survives a thirty-second check.
What it costs the state
Responsiveness. Regulatory costs rise; a statutory fee does not. When the gap becomes untenable, the board has to persuade a legislature to amend a statute, competing for floor time with everything else.
North Carolina, by contrast, raised its PA application fee from $250 to $325 through the state budget — a 30% increase in one move, possible because the mechanism allowed it. Minnesota cannot do that quickly, which is good for planning and awkward for funding.
The annual cycle is the thing to notice
$115 a year is close to the same money as a $230 biennial renewal. But it is twice as many deadlines, and deadlines are where multi-state PAs actually lose licenses.
A PA holding Minnesota alongside four biennial states has one license demanding attention every year and four demanding it every other year, on five different calendar anchors. That asymmetry is worth a calendar entry rather than a memory.
$25 for a locum permit
It is the cheapest bridge instrument in the country and it is fixed in law, which means it will still be $25 next year. For a locum PA, that makes Minnesota unusually easy to work in on short notice.
Minnesota is also a compact member, so the $120 application supports privileges across the membership from 2027. Cheap, stable, portable and locum-friendly is a rare combination.
Common questions
- How much is a Minnesota PA license?
- $120 to apply and $115 to renew annually, set in Minn. Stat. 147A.28. A locum tenens permit is $25 and verification is $25.
- Why does Minnesota set PA fees in statute?
- It is a legislative choice favoring transparency and predictability over agency flexibility. The trade-off is that adjusting a fee requires amending a law rather than revising a schedule.
- What is the Minnesota locum tenens permit?
- A $25 permit for temporary assignments, fixed in the same statute. It is among the cheapest bridge instruments in the country and is aimed squarely at locum work.
- Does Minnesota renew annually or biennially?
- Annually, at $115. Most states run biennial cycles, so a Minnesota license needs a yearly reminder rather than a two-year one.
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