By Minneapolis Senior Advisor Care Team · August 3, 2026
Minnesota rewrote how it licenses assisted living in 2021. Here is what Chapter 144G actually requires, why it matters on a tour today, and what changes again in 2027, explained for families touring Twin Cities communities right now.
The building looks the same. The rules underneath it changed.
A family touring a community in Edina or Woodbury this month will hear the phrase "assisted living" used the same way it has been used for twenty years: a building with apartments, a dining room, and staff who help with medication and bathing. What has actually changed is not the marketing. It is the legal ground underneath it.
Since August 1, 2021, every assisted living community in Minnesota has been licensed directly by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) under a single state law, Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 144G. If you are touring communities in Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, or Washington County right now, this is the law that determines what the building is legally allowed to promise you, and what it is required to disclose before you sign anything.
Before 2021: Housing with Services
For years before the change, Minnesota regulated most of what people called "assisted living" through a looser system known as Housing with Services registration. A building registered its housing arrangement with the state, and home care services delivered inside it were licensed separately, but there was no single, enforceable assisted living license tying the two together in the way most other states already required. Standards for staffing, training, and resident protections were thinner, and enforcement tools were limited.
Chapter 144G, enacted in 2019 and amended in the 2020 Seventh Special Session, replaced that model. Licensure became mandatory statewide on August 1, 2021. Older directories, and even a few older marketing materials still circulating, sometimes reference the Housing with Services framework. That model no longer exists for how a community is actually licensed today, so if a brochure or website still describes itself that way, ask directly which MDH license it currently holds.
What Chapter 144G actually created
The law does three things a touring family should understand before comparing buildings. First, it puts one regulator, MDH's Health Regulation Division, in charge of the whole picture, rather than splitting housing and services oversight across different systems. Second, it requires every facility to employ an assisted living director who is licensed or permitted by the Board of Executives for Long Term Services and Supports, under Minn. Stat. 144G.10, subdivision 1a, so there is a named, credentialed person responsible for the operation. Third, it creates enforceable survey and complaint tools that did not exist under the old registration model, which is what makes today's inspection records worth pulling before you sign.
Notably, Minnesota does not tier its assisted living license by resident acuity or evacuation capability the way some states do. There is no equivalent of a "low-acuity" versus "high-acuity" license category here. Instead, the law draws its line somewhere else entirely: around dementia care.
The two license categories, and why the difference matters on a tour
Minn. Stat. 144G.10, subdivision 2 creates exactly two categories. An assisted living facility is the base license, covering housing plus assisted living services, health-related and supportive services delivered where the resident lives. An assisted living facility with dementia care is required for any building operating a secured dementia care unit, and required before a facility may market or advertise dementia or memory care services at all.
This matters directly on a tour. If a community you are considering in Bloomington or Maple Grove has a locked memory care wing but is only licensed as a base assisted living facility, something is wrong, and you should ask about it before touring further. We cover exactly what that second license requires, and what questions to ask about it, in a companion piece on memory care licensure in Minnesota.
One license per building, and what that means for a multi-level campus
MDH generally issues one license per building address, with a narrower provision allowing a single campus license to cover multiple buildings operated by the same licensee on one shared campus, under Minn. Stat. 144G.10, subdivision 1(c)-(e). In practice, this is why some Twin Cities communities can offer independent living, assisted living, and memory care within what looks like one address or campus, while others require a resident to physically move buildings as their needs change.
Abiitan Mill City in downtown Minneapolis is a useful example of the single-building model: it combines independent living, assisted living, and memory care in one Mill District building, which the operator markets as allowing residents to move between levels of care without leaving the community. When you tour a campus that spans several buildings, ask directly whether they operate under one license or several, since that affects how a move between care levels actually works administratively.
How to verify a license before you tour or sign anything
A community's own website is not a primary source. Before touring, or at minimum before signing an admission agreement, check the community's actual license status directly with the state. The MDH Health Care Provider Directory is free, updated regularly, and searchable by provider type, city, county, or name, and it will show you whether a building is licensed as a base assisted living facility or as an assisted living facility with dementia care.
Pair that with the Minnesota Assisted Living Report Card, which publishes Resident Health, Safety, and Staffing ratings drawn from MDH survey results. A facility can carry glowing online reviews and an open licensing correction order at the same time, so cross-check both rather than relying on reviews alone. If something in the record concerns you, MDH's Office of Health Facility Complaints takes calls at 651-201-4200 in the Twin Cities metro, or 1-800-369-7994 elsewhere in Minnesota, during normal business hours.
One more practical note: license status can change between visits, including through a change in ownership, so if you tour a building in spring and do not sign until fall, it costs nothing to re-check the license before move-in day rather than relying on what you confirmed months earlier.
What changes again on January 1, 2027
One more detail worth knowing if you are comparing Twin Cities communities heading into next year: starting January 1, 2027, the words "assisted living" become a legally protected term in Minnesota. A community will not be permitted to advertise, market, or describe itself using that phrase unless it actually holds an MDH assisted living license under Chapter 144G, per Minn. Stat. 144G.10, subdivision 5. Today, ahead of that date, it is still worth verifying the license directly rather than assuming the marketing language is doing that work for you.
Questions to bring on your next tour
Once you know the framework, the tour conversation gets more specific. Ask which of the two license categories the building holds, and ask to see the license posted or produced on request. Ask who the licensed assisted living director is and how long they have been in that role. Ask whether the building operates under a single license or a campus license covering multiple structures, and what that means if your parent needs to move between assisted living and memory care later. And ask, directly, when the most recent MDH survey was conducted and whether there are any open correction orders, since that is public information the community is not permitted to hide from you.