Updated September 7, 2026. Quick answer: In Minnesota, once the personal representative publishes notice to creditors, a creditor has 4 months to file a claim; and if notice is never published, the absolute deadline is 1 year from the date of death; and a creditor who is personally mailed notice gets 30 days.
What is the creditor-claim deadline in Minnesota?
| Once notice to creditors is published | 4 months |
| If notice is never published (absolute deadline) | 1 year from the date of death |
| Creditor personally mailed notice | 30 days |
“All claims…against a decedent’s estate…are barred…unless presented as follows: (1)…within four months after the date of the court administrator’s notice to creditors…published…; (2)…within the later to expire of four months after the date of the first publication of notice to creditors or one month after the service; (3) within one year after the decedent’s death, whether or not notice to creditors has been published or served…”
What makes Minnesota different
Minnesota backstops the whole scheme with a firm one-year-from-death outer bar that applies whether or not notice was ever published or served.
Does this deadline apply the same way if the estate never opens probate?
These deadlines are creatures of the probate process itself; they run once an estate is opened (by publication, mailing, appointment, or the grant of letters, depending on Minnesota’s own rule above). A creditor of a decedent whose estate never enters probate at all is not cut off by this particular statute, though the underlying debt’s own ordinary statute of limitations still applies.
Sources
| Statute | Minn. Stat. §§ 524.3-801, 524.3-803 |
| Minnesota courts (general reference) | Minnesota judicial branch |
| Minnesota Secretary of State / legislature | Minnesota state government |
| Confidence | High |
Every statute quoted on this page was read directly from the state’s own legislature/code site this session, or, where that site blocked automated access, from a reputable legal-citation mirror quoting the same official text with its official citation (disclosed below). General information, not legal advice; the exact deadline in a given estate can turn on facts (whether a personal representative was appointed, whether notice was ever published or mailed) that only your own probate court file can confirm.