Home / Dual Pricing / Minnesota
Minnesota allows dual pricing, caps the difference at 5%, and requires mandatory fees to appear in the price you advertise. Here is what that means on a real menu, and what it actually saves.
Minnesota permits merchants to charge a different price for card payments. The state caps the difference at 5% of the transaction and assesses penalties per violation, so this is not a rule to be casually wrong about.
The clause that shapes everything is the advertised-price requirement. A mandatory fee has to be included in the price you advertise unless the customer can reasonably avoid it. A percentage that appears at the register, after the guest has already read the menu and ordered, is close to the exact structure that language is aimed at.
Dual pricing solves it by inverting the order. Both prices are printed before the guest orders. The card price is the advertised price, the cash price is the lower one, and the discount is something the customer can choose. Nothing is added at the end.
Where Minnesota stands
Last reviewed 1 September 2026. General information about how we configure systems, not legal advice. Confirm your position with your attorney before launching.
Three things have to line up: what the guest sees before ordering, what is posted where they pay, and what prints on the receipt. Get all three right and the program runs itself.
On the menu
Every item carries two prices. Card price first, because under Minnesota's rule that is the advertised price, with the cash price beside it. Not a footnote, not a line at the bottom of the page, and not a sign by the door.
At the point of sale
Clear signage where the guest actually pays, stating that a lower price applies to cash. The POS shows both figures on the screen the customer can see.
On the receipt
The price paid, the payment type, and the cash price they could have had. This is the document that settles a dispute six months later, so it has to be unambiguous.
An illustrative example for a Minnesota full-service room. Your own numbers will differ, and we model them from your last three statements before recommending anything.
Worked example · Minnesota
Model it
We run your last three statements against a dual-price structure so you see the number before you commit, not after.
File the notice
The card networks require notice before a merchant begins. Your processor files it. We make sure it actually happens.
Reprice and reprint
Menus, price tags, online ordering and the POS item file all have to carry both prices. This is the part that takes the longest, and skipping any one of them creates the gap.
Train the counter
Staff need one clear sentence they can say when a guest asks. We write it, and we practise it with them before you go live.
Both prices on the menu is the structure we build in Minnesota. A sign alone leaves the menu showing a single advertised price that is not the price a card-paying guest ends up at, which is exactly the situation the advertised-price rule addresses.
Minnesota caps it at 5% of the transaction, and the card networks separately require that it not exceed your cost of acceptance. In practice most operators land between 3% and 4%, because that is what acceptance actually costs.
Tips are not part of the card price difference and should not have it applied. This is a POS configuration question, and getting it wrong is one of the more common errors we find on systems we inherit.
The operators who have trouble are the ones who surprise people. The ones who print both prices up front, train staff on a single clear sentence, and put honest signage at the counter mostly report that it becomes invisible within a month.
Sometimes. Pecan has it built in. SkyTab and Square can be configured for it with varying degrees of elegance. We will look at what you have before recommending a replacement, because sometimes the answer is that your current system is fine.
Send us your last three statements and we will show you what this looks like for your Minnesota business before you commit to anything.
