What the Court Administrator (District Court Administrator's Office) charges to file an eviction or a small claims case, what the sheriff charges to serve it, and how to ask the court to waive the fees.
Everything the clerk charges on an eviction or small claims case in Waseca County. The figures set by state statute are verified and apply here. A dash means we have not yet read this county’s own schedule — not that the fee is zero.
| Fee | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Eviction filing — possession + rent claim | — | |
| Eviction filing — possession only | — | |
| Appearance fee — eviction defendant | — | Minnesota does not charge a tenant to answer or appear in an eviction case. We checked the statewide district court fee schedule and 13 individual county fee pages and found no defendant filing or appearance fee for an eviction action anywhere. |
| Appearance fee — small claims defendant | — | Minnesota does not charge a defendant to appear in a Conciliation Court (small claims) case either. The statewide fee schedule and every county page we checked lists a claim and counterclaim fee for the party filing, but nothing for the party responding. |
| Jury demand — 12 jurors | — | There is no twelve-person jury option in a Minnesota eviction or small claims case. Minn. Stat. 546.10 seats six jurors in a district court civil trial, and that is the only size used. |
| Jury demand — 6 jurors | $100 | $100.00 to demand a jury trial, the same figure whether the case is an eviction or an ordinary civil matter, set by Minn. Stat. 357.021, subd. 2(1). Unlike the filing fee itself, we found this held flat at $100.00 in every county we checked, with no local law library fee added on top. |
| Jury demand — small claims | — | Conciliation Court itself does not hold jury trials. A party who wants one has to remove the case to district court before judgment or appeal a Conciliation Court judgment to district court, where the same $100.00 jury fee applies on top of the regular district court filing or appeal fee, not a separate small-claims-specific jury charge. |
| Mediation fee | — | We found no statewide court fee for mediation in an eviction or small claims case. Where mediation is offered, such as through Hennepin or Ramsey County's housing calendars, it is typically run by a legal aid or nonprofit program rather than billed by the court. |
| E-filing surcharge | — | No e-filing surcharge appears on Minnesota's statewide district court fee schedule. A self-represented filer using the eFS e-filing system pays the same filing fee as filing on paper, with nothing added for filing electronically. |
The filing fee is not the whole bill. Somebody has to serve the defendant, and in Minnesota the sheriff sets that price county by county — it is the most variable number on this page. We could only confirm one county's own sheriff fee schedule: Hennepin charges $100.00 per person to serve the eviction summons and $200.00 to post and execute the writ of recovery of premises, current as of January 1, 2026. Minn. Stat. § 357.09, subd. 8 puts that decision in the hands of each of the 87 county boards individually, and most do not appear to publish a schedule online, so we cannot give a statewide range the way we can for Georgia or Florida.
Minnesota courts will waive court fees, costs, and charges for people below certain income levels, under Minn. Stat. § 563.01 and Minn. Stat. § 563.01. There is one statewide form — you do not need a Waseca County version of it.
| The court waives | If your available income is |
|---|---|
| Full | You are presumed to qualify if you receive public assistance, are represented by a legal aid or volunteer attorney program based on need, or have household income at or below 125% of the federal poverty line. If the court finds the case is not frivolous, it must let you proceed without paying fees, costs, or security for costs. |
| Partial | If you do not meet the presumptive test above but the court still finds you cannot pay all of the fees and costs, the court may order a reduced flat payment of $75.00, or some other partial amount, instead of the full fee. |
| None | If neither of the above applies, the regular filing fee is due in full. |
Minnesota is graduated rather than all-or-nothing. Georgia and Florida each offer a single yes-or-no poverty waiver; Minnesota adds a middle tier where a judge who does not find you fully indigent can still knock the fee down to a flat $75.00 or another partial amount instead of making you pay the full $320.00-plus eviction filing fee.
Fee waiver information verified August 1, 2026 against the Illinois General Assembly statute text and the Illinois Courts approved-forms library. We report what the statute and the form say. We cannot tell you whether you qualify — that is the court's decision.
Waseca County Circuit Court
Court Administrator (District Court Administrator's Office)
No clerk website found. Contact the county courthouse directly.
eFS (Electronic Filing System)
E-filing through eFS is required for attorneys but stays optional for a self-represented landlord or tenant, who may still file on paper at the court administrator's counter in every county. eFileIL →
We publish the court's and clerk's own contact information and link to their pages. We do not take your information, route you to anyone, or file anything on your behalf. For questions about court procedure — as opposed to what it costs — use the Illinois Courts self-help center.
Minnesota sits between Georgia and Florida. The eviction filing fee is not a single number the way Florida's $185 is, but it does not swing wildly by county the way Georgia's does either. Minn. Stat. § 357.021, subd. 2(1) sets one statewide base fee of $310 for the first paper filed in any civil action, including an eviction, and every county's district court charges that base plus its own county law library fee, which each county's law library board sets with its county board's approval under Minn. Stat. § 134A.09. We checked that add-on in 13 counties spanning the state's biggest metro courts and some of its smallest rural ones — Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, Washington, Olmsted, Stearns, Wright, Cook, Traverse, Kittson, Beltrami, Lyon, and Rock — and the total eviction filing fee we found ran from $320.00 (Cook, Wright, Beltrami, Lyon and Rock, each adding a $10 library fee) to $325.00 (Ramsey, Olmsted, Traverse, Anoka, Dakota and Washington, each adding $15), with Hennepin at $322.00 (a $12 library fee) and Stearns at $324.00 (a $14 library fee) in between. Because that variation is real and driven by county-level decisions, not a printing quirk, we are calling Minnesota's filing fee varying rather than fixed, even though the spread of $5 is far narrower than what a filer sees in Georgia or Indiana.
These are the statewide base amounts set by statute, before any county's own law library fee is added. We confirmed the $55 writ-issuance fee and the $100 separate jury-demand fee hold at that flat amount with no local add-on in every county we checked (Cook and Ramsey among them), which is different from the $310 filing fee, the $65 conciliation fee, and the $310/$410 appeal fees, all of which do pick up a local library fee on top of the numbers shown here.
Statutory backbone: Minn. Stat. § 357.021, subd. 2(1); § 134A.09; § 134A.10 — District court filing fees; county law library fees. Minn. Stat. § 357.021, subd. 2, as most recently amended by 2025 c 35 art 1 s 20; § 134A.09 (county law library boards) has no year-specific dollar figure because it delegates the amount to each county. $310 is the base fee printed in Minn. Stat. § 357.021, subd. 2(1) for the first paper filed in any civil action, and Minnesota does not carve out a separate, lower number for an eviction the way some states do — it is the same base as an ordinary civil lawsuit. Layered on top, county by county, is the law library fee: Minn. Stat. § 134A.09 lets "the law library board of trustees" set that amount "with the approval of the board of commissioners," and we could not find any statewide dollar cap on it. In the 13 counties we checked it ran from $10 to $15, for eviction totals of $320 to $325, but nothing in the statute stops a county from setting it higher. Statute text checked August 1, 2026.
Compiled and verified by David Scott. We re-check every source document monthly and re-read any county whose schedule has changed. If the clerk quotes you something different from what is on this page, tell us and we will fix it. Read the full methodology.