State veteran benefits · MN
Minnesota Veteran Benefits
Minnesota excludes up to $300,000 of a home's market value from property taxes for veterans rated 100 percent permanent and total, and $150,000 for ratings of 70 percent or higher.
By Mario Bailey, U.S. Air Force veteran · current Air National Guard member. Data updated 2026-07-10.
What Minnesota adds, benefit by benefit
Your federal VA benefits travel with you to any state. Everything below is the second stack: what Minnesota itself offers, each item checked against the state's own official source on the date shown.
Market Value Exclusion for veterans with a disability
Veterans with a 100 percent permanent and total rating, including permanent individual unemployability, get up to $300,000 of their homestead's market value excluded from property taxes. Veterans rated 70 percent or higher but not permanent and total get a $150,000 exclusion. The property must be homestead-classified, and the program is administered by county assessors.
Surviving spouses of P&T veterans can keep the $300,000 exclusion until they remarry or sell the property, and primary family caregivers of eligible veterans can also qualify on the veteran's behalf.
SOURCE: Minnesota Department of Revenue · retrieved 2026-07-10
Military pensions are subtracted from Minnesota taxable income
Minnesota allows a full subtraction for military retirement pay, including survivor benefit plan payments, from both taxable income and alternative minimum taxable income, claimed on Schedule M1M. VA disability compensation is never taxed, by Minnesota or by the IRS.
You cannot take the subtraction and the Credit for Past Military Service in the same year; run both numbers before filing. Divorced spouses receiving a share of a military pension under a settlement can subtract that income too.
SOURCE: Minnesota Department of Revenue · retrieved 2026-07-10
The Minnesota GI Bill, up to $15,000 per veteran
Minnesota's own GI Bill pays a lifetime maximum of $15,000 per eligible Minnesota resident, usable three ways: higher education in a Title IV certificate, diploma, undergraduate, or graduate program; on-the-job training or apprenticeship at up to $2,000 per fiscal year; or license and certification reimbursement up to $3,000 per state fiscal year. FAFSA filing is required, and you reapply each year.
SOURCE: Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs · retrieved 2026-07-10
Veterans Preference Act points in public hiring
On open competitive exams for Minnesota counties, cities, school districts, and other political subdivisions, veterans who pass can elect a 10-point credit, and disabled veterans a 15-point credit. A disabled veteran applying for a first promotion after entering public employment can claim 5 points.
SOURCE: Minnesota Statutes, section 197.455 · retrieved 2026-07-10
Eight state veterans homes across Minnesota
Minnesota operates eight veterans homes: Bemidji, Fergus Falls, Hastings, Luverne, Minneapolis, Montevideo, Preston, and Silver Bay. The Bemidji, Montevideo, and Preston homes are the newest, opened together as purpose-built facilities, giving the state one of the broadest geographic home networks in the country.
SOURCE: Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs · retrieved 2026-07-10
Four state veterans cemeteries
The Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs runs state veterans cemeteries at Little Falls (opened 1994), Preston (2015), Duluth (2018), and Redwood Falls (2023). All four offer casket gravesites, cremation gravesites, and columbaria.
SOURCE: Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs · retrieved 2026-07-10
Understand what Minnesota’s headline benefit is and is not. The Market Value Exclusion does not zero out a property tax bill; it removes up to $300,000 of market value from the calculation. On a $280,000 house in Luverne, that is effectively a full exemption. On a $550,000 house in Edina, a 100 percent P&T veteran still pays tax on $250,000 of value. The two-tier design is the underrated part: a veteran rated 70, 80, or 90 percent, who gets nothing in most full-exemption states because those programs start at 100 percent, gets $150,000 excluded here. If you are near a rating threshold, check the combined-rating math before assuming which tier you land in.
The state education benefit is built to layer, not replace. The Minnesota GI Bill’s $15,000 works best wrapped around Post-9/11 GI Bill entitlement: federal months first, state dollars for the gap semesters, the license and certification reimbursement for the CDL, nursing boards, or FAA tickets that Chapter 33 users often pay for out of pocket. The on-the-job training track at $2,000 a year is the piece almost nobody uses, and it pays veterans who never set foot in a classroom.
Minnesota also quietly leads on infrastructure. Eight state homes and four state cemeteries mean a veteran in Bemidji or Luverne is not facing a five-hour drive for long-term care or a family burial decision, which is exactly when distance hurts most. The federal burial benefits sit underneath all four cemeteries.
Who does best here: a military retiree rated 70 percent or higher who owns a mid-priced home. The pension comes out of Minnesota taxable income entirely, the VA check was never taxable to begin with, and the exclusion takes a large bite out of one of the higher property tax burdens in the Midwest. The commonly missed detail is who else can claim the property benefit: surviving spouses keep the full $300,000 exclusion until remarriage or sale, and a primary family caregiver of an eligible veteran can qualify the homestead too. Caregivers almost never know that, and county assessors do not volunteer it. Ask.
Where to apply
State benefits are administered by the state, not by VA, so the applications above run through Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs or the specific agency named in each source link. A free VA-accredited representative or VSO in Minnesota will know both stacks, the federal claim and the state paperwork, and charges nothing to help with either.