The economy of Minnesota produced US$472 billion of gross domestic product in 2023.

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

headquartered 15 Fortune 500 companies in 2023, the largest of which were

UnitedHealth Group UnitedHealth Group Incorporated is an American Multinational corporation, multinational for-profit company specializing in health insurance and health care services based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Selling insurance products under UnitedHealth ...

(5th) and

Target Target may refer to: Warfare and shooting * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artille ...

(33rd). The per capita personal income in 2022 was $60,785, ranking ninth in the nation. The median household income in 2023 was $82,338.

Industry and commerce

Minnesota's economy has transformed in the past 200 years from one based on

raw materials A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials/Intermediate goods that are feedstock for future finished ...

to one based on finished products and services. The earliest industries were

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

and agriculture. Agriculture is still a major part of the economy even though only a small percentage of the population, less than 1%, are employed in the farming industry. In The Blufflands, cheese, wine, honey, milk, apples, and maple syrup are produced. Minnesota is the U.S.'s largest producer of sugar beets,

sweet corn Sweet corn (''Zea mays'' convar. ''saccharata'' var. ''rugosa''), also called sweetcorn, sugar corn and pole corn, is a variety of maize grown for human consumption with a high sugar content. Sweet corn is the result of a naturally occurring rec ...

, and green peas for processing and farm-raised

turkeys The turkey is a large bird in the genus ''Meleagris'', native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey (''Meleagris ocell ...

. State

agribusiness Agribusiness is the industry, enterprises, and the field of study of value chains in agriculture and in the bio-economy, in which case it is also called bio-business or bio-enterprise. The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit ...

has changed from production to processing and the manufacturing of value-added food products by companies such as

General Mills General Mills, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded ultra-processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in ...

Cargill Cargill, Incorporated is an American multinational food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill, it is the largest privately held c ...

, Hormel Foods Corporation (prepackaged and processed meat products), and the McDonald Food Company.

Forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and Natural environment, environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and ...

, another early industry, remains strong with logging, pulpwood processing, forest products manufacturing, and paper production. The amount of forested land in the state is declining, from 16.7 million acres (68,000 km²) in 1990 to in 2004; however, the average forest is maturing. From 1999 to 2004 the average annual growth within the state was 550 million board-feet (1,300,000 m³) of timber, while the average amount harvested was only 330 million board-feet (780,000 m³) per year. Minnesota was famous for its soft-ore iron mines which produced a significant portion of the world's iron ore for over a century. Although the pure ore is now depleted,

taconite Taconite () is a variety of banded iron formation, an iron-bearing (over 15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name ''taconyte'' was coined by Horace Vaughn Winchell (1865– ...

mining remains strong using processes developed locally to save the industry. In 2004 the state produced 75 percent of the usable iron ore in the country. 3M (formerly Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co.) today is a diversified manufacturer of industrial and consumer products. The port of

Duluth Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...

was created by the mining boom and today continues to be an important shipping port for the Midwest's agricultural and ore products. Manufacturing was not left out, either. The

brass era The Brass Era is an American term for the early period of automotive manufacturing, named for the prominent brass fittings used during this time for such features as lights and radiator (engine cooling), radiators. It is generally considered to ...

automobile maker Dan Patch was founded in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

in 1911. Retail is represented by

Target Corporation Target Corporation is an American retail corporation that operates a chain of discount department stores and hypermarkets, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the seventh-largest retailer in the United States, and a component of th ...

Best Buy Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was r ...

, and Supervalu, all headquartered in the Twin Cities. Southdale Center, the first fully enclosed and completely climate-controlled shopping mall in the United States opened on October 8, 1956, in the suburban city of

Edina EDINA is a centre for digital expertise, based at the University of Edinburgh as a division of the Information Services Group. Services EDINA front and back ends, front-end services (those accessed directly by the user) are available free at ...

. The largest shopping mall in the United States, the

Mall of America Mall of America (MoA) is a large shopping mall located in Bloomington, Minnesota. Located within the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, the mall lies southeast of the junction of Interstate 494 and Minnesota State Highway 77, north ...

, is located in Bloomington. St. Jude Medical represents a growing biomedical industry spawned by university research, and Rochester is the headquarters of the world-famous

Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic () is a Nonprofit organization, private American Academic health science centre, academic Medical centers in the United States, medical center focused on integrated health care, healthcare, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science ...

is the second largest health insurance company in the U.S. Financial institutions include U.S. Bancorp, Ameriprise and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. As might be expected in state with a love of the outdoors, boats and other recreational products are manufactured by a number of Minnesota companies, including

Polaris Industries Polaris Inc. is an American automotive manufacturer headquartered in Medina, Minnesota, United States. Polaris was founded in Roseau, Minnesota, where it still has engineering and manufacturing facilities. The company manufactured motorcycles th ...

and

Arctic Cat Arctic Cat is an American brand that makes snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles (ATV's) manufactured in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. The company was formed in 1960. Arctic Cat designs, engineers, manufactures, and markets all-terrain vehicle ...

, who make

snowmobiles A snowmobile, also known as a snowmachine (chiefly Alaskan), motor sled (chiefly Canadian), motor sledge, skimobile, snow scooter, or simply a sled is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. Their engines normally ...

and ATVs, Alumacraft Boat Company, and Lund Boats. Today, the most salient characteristic of the economy is its diversity; the relative outputs of its business sectors closely match the United States as a whole.

The digital state

Minnesota attracted entrepreneurs and engineers, especially in the computer industry, and became a leading center of computer manufacturing after the war.

Engineering Research Associates Engineering Research Associates, commonly known as ERA, was a pioneering computer firm from the 1950s. ERA became famous for their numerical computers, but as the market expanded they became better known for their drum memory systems. They were ...

was formed in 1946 to develop computers for the Navy and the intelligence agencies. It merged with

Remington Rand Remington Rand, Inc. was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington ...

, and soon became a division of

Sperry Rand Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Sperry ceased to exist in 1986 following a prolonged hostile takeover bid engineered by Burroughs ...

. William Norris,

Seymour Cray Seymour Roger Cray (September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996)
– was an American

Control Data Corporation Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, the Burroughs Corporation, and the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), the N ...

(CDC).

Cray Research Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed i ...

was formed when

Cray Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed ...

left CDC to form his own company. "Minnesota was the undisputed epicenter of top-secret digital computing for decades." Medical device maker

Medtronic Medtronic plc is an American-Irish medical device company. The company's legal and executive headquarters are in Republic of Ireland, Ireland, while its operational headquarters are in Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Medtronic rebased to I ...

also was founded in the Twin Cities in 1949.

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building automation, industrial automa ...

was a national force in computing until selling its computer division to

Groupe Bull Bull SAS (also known as Groupe Bull, Bull Information Systems, or simply Bull) is a French computer company headquartered in Les Clayes-sous-Bois, in the western suburbs of Paris. The company has also been known at various times as Bull General ...

in 1989, remaining a prominent military and aerospace concern headquartered in Minnesota until 1999 when, after a merger, it moved to New Jersey. National firms, such as

International Business Machines International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, moved manufacturing and R&D operations to Minnesota. State government and powerful politicians such as

Hubert Humphrey Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American politician who served from 1965 to 1969 as the 38th vice president of the United States. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 19 ...

maintained a favorable climate. The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium brought state-wide networked computing in the 1970s and developed educational software such as the popular "

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what ...

" game. The

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States, covers the 9th District of the Federal Reserve, which is made up of Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, North and South Dakota ...

combined computing power with financial clout across its region from Montana to upper Michigan. The University of Minnesota trained many computer specialists who decided to stay in the Minnesota rather than move to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. Minnesota thus preceded the better-known industrial districts of Route 128 around Boston and Silicon Valley. An active high-technology sector is represented today by

Alliant Techsystems Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) was an American Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and arms industry, arms manufacturer headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia. The company operated across 22 states, Puerto Rico, and internationally. ATK reven ...

Ceridian Dayforce, Inc., formerly Ceridian, is a provider of human resources software and services with employees across its global footprint in the United States, Canada, Europe, Middle East, Latinamerica, Africa ( EMEA), and the Asia Pacific Japan (A ...

, Digi International, Digital River,

Geek Squad Geek Squad, Inc. is a subsidiary of American and Canadian multinational consumer electronics corporation Best Buy, headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. The subsidiary was originally an independent company founded by "Chief Inspector" Robert Ste ...

, Hutchinson Technology, Imation, IBM Rochester, Lawson Software,

MacSoft MacSoft was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1993 by Peter Tamte as a subsidiary of WizardWorks, specializing in the production of video game ports from Microsoft Windows to Macintosh operating systems, as well as prod ...

, MTS Systems, St. Jude Medical,

Stratasys Stratasys, Ltd. is an American-Israeli manufacturer of 3D printers, software, and materials for polymer additive manufacturing as well as 3D-printed parts on-demand. The company is incorporated in Israel. Engineers use Stratasys systems to mod ...

, SPS Commerce, 3M, and more than 400 smaller software companies.

Minnesota's largest companies

Nonprofits

The following table lists the Minnesota-based non-profit organizations among the largest 400 in the U.S. by 2006 private donations.

Private companies

The following table lists the privately held companies headquartered in Minnesota with 2007 revenues over $1 billion.

Public companies

The following table lists the public companies headquartered in Minnesota with 2010 revenues placing them in the 1000 largest U.S. companies.

By employment in Minnesota

As of 2025, Minnesota's largest employers were:

Energy use and production

The state does not produce any petroleum of its own but boasts the largest

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial processes, industrial process Factory, plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refining, refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, Bitumen, asphalt base, ...

of any non-oil-producing state, the Pine Bend Refinery. As of 2001, Minnesotans were using a total of of gasoline per day, and fuel use rises in the region by about 2% annually. About 70% of the gasoline fuel used in the state comes from Pine Bend and the nearby St. Paul Park Refinery, while most of the rest comes from a combination of the Mandan Refinery in

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

, and the Superior Refinery in

Superior, Wisconsin Superior (; ) is a city in Douglas County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. The population was 26,751 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located at the western end of Lake Superior in northwestern Wisconsin, the city l ...

. 40 to 50% of Pine Bend's output is used within the state. Flint Hills is currently planning a $100 million expansion to increase capacity at the plant to about . Petroleum from the north comes to the state through one of the longest pipelines in the world, the Lakehead Pipeline and the Minnesota Pipeline. Additional crude comes from the south via the Wood River Pipeline. Minnesota electricity production by type

Minnesota electricity production by type

Ethanol fuel Ethanol fuel is fuel containing ethyl alcohol, the same type of alcohol as found in alcoholic beverages. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. Several common ethanol fuel mixtures are in use aro ...

is produced in the state, and consumer gasoline is required to contain 10% ethanol ( E10). As of 2006, Minnesota is the only U.S. state with such a mandate. 20% ethanol (E20) will be mandated in 2013. Minnesota has the highest number of fuel stations offering E85 fuel, with 300 statewide. A 2%

biodiesel Biodiesel is a renewable biofuel, a form of diesel fuel, derived from biological sources like vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled greases, and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made from fats. The roots of bi ...

blend has also been required in

diesel fuel Diesel fuel, also called diesel oil, heavy oil (historically) or simply diesel, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a re ...

since 2005. Electricity-producing

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s have become popular, particularly in the windy southwest region on the Buffalo Ridge. As of November 2006, the state is the country's fourth-largest producer of

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

, with 812

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s installed and another 82 megawatts planned. Like other Midwestern states that experience cold winters, Minnesota is heavily dependent on natural gas for home heating. Just over two-thirds of homes use the fuel.

State taxes

Minnesota's income tax is progressive with four rates, 5.35%, 7.05%, 7.85%, and 9.85%. The

sales tax A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a govern ...

in Minnesota for most items is 6.875% effective July 1, 2009. The state does not charge sales tax on clothing, some services, or food items for home consumption. The

state legislature A state legislature is a Legislature, legislative branch or body of a State (country subdivision), political subdivision in a Federalism, federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of ...

may allow municipalities to institute local sales taxes and special local taxes, such as the 0.5% supplemental sales tax in Minneapolis. The cities of St. Paul, Rochester, Duluth and St. Cloud have similar taxes.

Excise taxes file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...

are levied on alcohol, tobacco, and motor fuel. The state imposes a

use tax A use tax is a type of tax levied in the United States by numerous state governments. It is essentially the same as a sales tax but is applied not where a product or service was sold but where a merchant bought a product or service and then conv ...

on items purchased elsewhere but used within Minnesota. Owners of

real property In English common law, real property, real estate, immovable property or, solely in the US and Canada, realty, refers to parcels of land and any associated structures which are the property of a person. For a structure (also called an Land i ...

in Minnesota pay

property tax A property tax (whose rate is expressed as a percentage or per mille, also called ''millage'') is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or Wealth t ...

to their county, municipality, school district, and special taxing districts. The overall state and local tax burden is calculated to average 11.9% in 2006, ranking 4th highest in the country.

References

External links

Business
Start a Business in MinnesotaSmall Business Community of MinnesotaSmall business Administration of MinnesotaMinnesota Office of the Secretary of State forms and documents
* Thomas J. Misa, ''Digital State: The Story of Minnesota's Computing Industry''
University of Minnesota Press
2013 an
JSTOR
an
OpenLibrary
{{Economy of the United States by jurisdiction