Minnesota Crash Reporting Requirements
Minnesota sets no dollar threshold for reporting a crash. Deadline to file: Immediately. Submit to: Local police, the State Patrol, or the county sheriff.
- Damage threshold
- No dollar threshold
Minnesota used to require the driver to file a report when apparent property damage reached $1,000. That rule was repealed in 2021. Today a crash is reportable if it causes a death, an injury that needs medical treatment at or away from the scene, disabling damage that has a vehicle towed away, or damage to fixtures or infrastructure on or beside the road — and it is the investigating officer, not you, who files the report.
- Deadline to file
- Immediately
No filing window, because there is no longer a driver's written report. What the driver owes is immediate: stop at the scene, give your name, date of birth, address and plate number, and — if anyone was hurt or killed — notify the police "by the quickest means of communication". If you did not give your insurer's name and agent at the scene, you have 72 hours to give it on request. Willfully failing to report can cost you your license.
- Submit to
- Local police, the State Patrol, or the county sheriff
Notify the local police department if the crash is inside a municipality, the State Patrol if it is on a trunk highway, otherwise the county sheriff. The officer who investigates then submits the report to the commissioner of public safety within ten days. For a fatal crash the agency must pass on the basic circumstances within two business days; the full report still follows on the ten-day clock.
How Minnesota compares with every other state
What this means after a crash
Minnesota does not use a dollar figure at all, which trips up drivers who have moved from a state that does. There is no repair estimate to compare against. What matters is the kind of crash — injury, death, a vehicle towed away — and the table above is the whole test.
The deadline is not a number of days. Minnesota wants the report immediately, which in practice means from the scene or as soon as you are able. A clock that starts and ends the same day leaves no room to "get to it later", and that is the most common way an ordinary crash turns into a charge of its own.
Who receives it matters as much as when. In Minnesota the report goes to Local police, the State Patrol, or the county sheriff. An officer writing a report at the scene is not automatically the report the state is waiting for — where the two are separate, the table above says who receives yours.
Every statute cited for Minnesota
What changed
July 1, 2024
Statute now spells out which crashes are reportable — tow-away or medical treatment, not a dollar figure
Laws 2024, chapter 104, article 1, section 31 (H.F. 3436, signed May 15, 2024) rewrote Minn. Stat. § 169.09, subd. 8. For the first time since the old driver's report was repealed, the statute lists what makes a crash reportable: a fatality; bodily injury for which someone immediately receives medical treatment at or away from the scene; disabling damage that requires a vehicle to be towed from the scene; or damage to fixtures, infrastructure or other property alongside or on a highway. The same amendment extended the rule to crashes on sidewalks, shoulders, shared use paths and public lands and trail systems. Guides that still describe Minnesota's reporting duty in dollars are quoting a test the legislature removed. The act carries appropriations, so it took effect on the July 1 after enactment under Minn. Stat. § 645.02.
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of StatutesJuly 1, 2021
The driver's own crash report was abolished, and with it the $1,000 threshold
Laws 2021, First Special Session, chapter 5, article 4, section 151, paragraph (c) (signed June 26, 2021) repealed Minn. Stat. 2020, § 169.09, subd. 7. That subdivision had required the driver of a vehicle involved in a crash causing injury, death, or total property damage to an apparent extent of $1,000 or more to forward a written report to the commissioner of public safety within ten days. Minnesota drivers no longer file any such report; the investigating peace officer files it instead. Sites that still tell Minnesota drivers to send DPS a report within ten days when damage tops $1,000 are describing a rule that has not existed since 2021. The act carries appropriations, so it took effect on the July 1 after enactment under Minn. Stat. § 645.02.
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes
Why the rule looks like this
- What Changed in 2026Liability minimums doubled in Hawaii, two states dropped pure comparative fault, New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, and three crash reporting thresholds moved — a dated account of the 2026 changes, and the ones already signed for 2027 and beyond.
- The Crash You Are Required to Report Is Smaller Than You ThinkCrash-report triggers start at $500 in Georgia and New Jersey and reach $3,000 for a Virginia police report; Florida's is $500 before 1 October 2026 and $2,000 from that date, and Pennsylvania and Maryland use no dollar figure at all.
More on Minnesota
Checked against the primary sources above on September 27, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.