Minnesota program
Medical expenses on your Minnesota tax return
Minnesota may let you deduct part of your medical expenses on the state tax return.
What it is
Minnesota may let you deduct part of your medical expenses on the state tax return.
A treatment year can bring costs beyond the hospital bill. Minnesota lets you itemize the state return separately from the federal return. Whether that saves money depends on your expenses, income and filing-year rules.
Who can qualify
- This concerns Minnesota residents filing a state return.
- For tax year 2025, the medical-expense floor is 10% of federal adjusted gross income.
What you get
- A possible reduction in state taxable income for qualifying medical and dental costs.
What the help includes
- State itemizing can help even if you do not itemize on the federal return. The preparer compares the options.
If you decide to apply
- Ask a tax preparer whether medical itemizing or a Minnesota family tax credit would help.
- If you decide to pursue it, the preparer needs eligible medical receipts, reimbursement details and mileage, parking and lodging records.
Your tax preparer and Minnesota Department of Revenue. · Official page ↗
After you ask
- The preparer calculates whether the state deduction changes the tax owed.
Good to know
This is a deduction, not reimbursement of the expenses. The filing year determines which rules apply.
Other details
- For 2026 planning, current Minnesota law uses a medical-expense floor of 10% of federal adjusted gross income. The preparer confirms the final filing-year instructions and qualifying costs. Reimbursed amounts and costs already paid tax-free cannot be deducted again. Itemizing still needs to be compared with the state standard deduction.
- For tax year 2025, Minnesota’s Working Family Credit earned-income component is up to $379. Separate older-child credits are $1,000 for one, $2,270 for two or $2,710 for three or more qualifying older children. The Child Tax Credit is up to $1,750 per qualifying child under 18 before phaseout. These are separate components, not one flat award for every family.
- The normal 2025 return deadline was April 15, 2026. A tax preparer confirms any remaining filing, refund-claim or special-extension options, along with the qualifying children, income phaseout and filing status.
Official sources
“Could our treatment expenses reduce the Minnesota tax bill even if we do not itemize federally? What are the tradeoffs, and could you help us identify the records a preparer needs?”
Why I’m asking: I want the treatment-year return to include the expenses that qualify.
More background and detailed requirements
Additional program information and published rules
Who does what
The three parts, side by side. The agency decides; nobody on this page does.
You
Keep the records and raise it at filing time.
Your social worker
Whoever prepares the return works out whether itemising helps.
The care team
Records and letters when the application asks for them.
- Who decides
- Minnesota Department of Revenue, on the return.
- Ask the agency
- “We had a year of cancer treatment costs. Can we itemise medical expenses on the Minnesota return?”
How to apply
First step: Start a folder of medical receipts, mileage and parking now.
- Keep receipts, mileage, parking and lodging records through the year.
- Raise it with whoever prepares the return.
- Ask what the rule is for the year you are filing.
Official application / program page ↗
Where it starts: Keep the receipts and raise it when the return is prepared.
What to gather
- Receipts for medical costs
- Mileage, parking and lodging records
How long: At filing time for the year.
What a yes looks like
A lower state tax bill or a refund.
What a no looks like, and the next move
If the costs are under the floor, nothing is lost by having kept the records.
Watch out
- Keep mileage, parking and lodging records: those are the ones families forget.
- The floor on the 2025 schedule is a tenth of federal income; ask what applies to your filing year.
The numbers and the rules
The arcane layer, kept on purpose. Checked September 11, 2026.
What it is worth
Medical and dental costs above a tenth of federal adjusted gross income can be itemised on the 2025 Minnesota return.
Legal protection: The state return can be itemised separately from the federal one
What it costs the family: None.
The eligibility facts, as published
- Filer
- Minnesota resident filing a state return
The trap: Keep mileage, parking and lodging records through the year: they are the part families forget.
Where I read this
- Schedule M1SA — Minnesota itemized deductions — Minnesota Department of Revenue, read September 10, 2026