Are Non-Competes Enforceable for Dentists and Dental Staff in Minnesota?

Minnesota is a statutory-ban state, and its ban is categorical.

Minnesota Statutes §181.988 makes any covenant not to compete contained in a contract or agreement void and unenforceable, and the ban took effect July 1, 2023, applying to contracts and agreements entered into on or after that date — so it governs every associate agreement, hygiene offer letter and assistant hire your practice signs today.

It does not sort your staff by role or pay.

There is no income threshold and no health-care exception in the statute, and its definition of “employee” includes independent contractors — so an associate engaged on a 1099 basis is covered the same as a W-2 employee.

The exceptions are easy to count: covenants agreed during the sale of a business, and covenants agreed in anticipation of a business dissolution.

For how other states handle this — income thresholds, dentist-specific statutes, case-law reasonableness tests — see our guide to non-competes for dental staff nationally.

This is a statute, not a judge-made doctrine, so the starting point is the text.

Minnesota Statutes §181.988, subdivision 2(a) reads: “Any covenant not to compete contained in a contract or agreement is void and unenforceable.”

The effective date — July 1, 2023, for contracts and agreements entered into on or after that date — comes from 2023 Minnesota Laws chapter 53, article 6, section 1.

The statute also closes the obvious workaround.

Under subdivision 3, an employer may not require an employee who primarily resides and works in Minnesota to litigate a Minnesota claim elsewhere or to give up the substantive protection of Minnesota law — so for an employee who primarily resides and works in Minnesota, you cannot route around the ban by pointing the contract at another state's law or courthouse.

Agreements signed before July 1, 2023 are an open question the effective-date language does not resolve.

How those older covenants are treated was outside the scope of this research; if your files still hold pre-2023 paper, have Minnesota employment counsel review the specific agreements before you rely on them or assume they are void.

The statute has no dentist-specific rule to draft around — in either direction. §181.988 contains no income threshold and no exception for health-care employers; its only exceptions are the sale and dissolution of a business.

That is the full statute text, not a summary of it, and it means the ban cannot be priced around: no salary level makes a covenant valid for an associate, and no licensing status exempts a hygienist or assistant.

Three practical consequences for a dental practice:

• Associate dentists. Covered like any other employee — there is no dentist-specific buyout formula, mileage rule or salary gate to opt into, and nothing in the statute treats a dental license differently from any other job.
• Hygienists, assistants and front-office staff. The same statute applies to every hire, with no wage band where the analysis changes.
• 1099 associates. The statute defines “employee” to include independent contractors, so contractor status does not move an associate outside the ban.

For agreements entered into on or after July 1, 2023, there is no reasonableness test to pass.

A Minnesota court is not asked to weigh the restricted time, the geographic area or your legitimate business interest, because the statute voids the covenant outright and offers no route back through drafting.

A six-month, one-mile clause in a hygienist's offer letter is as void as a three-year, statewide one in an associate agreement.

The classic time-and-area language survives only in the statute's exceptions: a covenant agreed during the sale of a business, or in anticipation of a business dissolution.

On the sale side, the person selling the business, its partners, members or shareholders, and the buyer may agree on a covenant that is temporary and geographically restricted — which is why a sale covenant is still written with a defined term and territory, and why that work happens at the deal table rather than in an employment packet.

Two more provisions matter if a dispute ever starts.

A void covenant does not void the rest of the contract — subdivision 2(c) preserves your other provisions.

And a court may award an employee who is enforcing rights under §181.988 reasonable attorney fees, so sending a demand letter over a covenant the statute kills is not a free swing.

This is where Minnesota leaves a dental practice real protection.

The statute's definition of a covenant not to compete excludes nonsolicitation agreements, nondisclosure and trade-secret agreements, and agreements restricting the ability to use client or contact lists or to solicit customers of the employer.

Those clauses are not what §181.988 voids.

Mapped onto a practice, that means a clause restricting a departing hygienist or associate from soliciting your patients and your staff sits outside the ban — as does a confidentiality agreement covering your patient lists, fee schedules and practice information.

The distinction worth holding onto: a non-solicit restricts who the person may contact, not where they may work.

Excluded from the ban is not the same as self-enforcing.

These clauses still need to be drafted to fit the practice and reviewed like any restrictive covenant, and the drafting details matter — our guide to patient and staff non-solicits covers how they are structured and where they meet your duties to patients.

The work shifts from enforcing covenants to building the protection the statute leaves standing.

• Clean the templates. Strip non-compete clauses from the agreements you sign on or after the effective date. The clause would not survive contact with a court, and a court may award the employee attorney fees for enforcing rights under the section.
• Layer the tools that are left. A patient and staff non-solicit plus a confidentiality agreement covering patient lists and practice information is the package the statute expressly leaves outside its ban.
• Keep the agreement useful without the covenant. Notice periods, records handling and schedule-continuity terms stand on their own — subdivision 2(c) means one dead clause does not sink the document.
• Price training separately. If the real concern is recovering the cost of specialized training, training repayment agreements are a different tool — see our guide to training repayment agreements.
• Confirm licensure at hire. A covenant is not the only gate between a recruit and the first day — our guide to dentist licensure in Minnesota covers what the state requires.
• Use the exceptions deliberately. If you sell the practice, the person selling the business and the buyer may agree on a temporary and geographically restricted covenant; a covenant agreed in anticipation of a business dissolution is the statute's other exception. Both are agreed as part of that transaction rather than added to ordinary employment paperwork.