Where to Buy a Business in Minnesota
The Opportunity
Buyable Businesses
18,183
1.8% of the U.S. total
Per 100k Residents
313.9
#22 of 51 states by buyable count
SBA Acquisition Loans
1,382
$1.11B since FY2020, 212 of them in FY2025
Median SBA Deal
$475k
FY2020 through FY2025
Minnesota holds 18,183 businesses a searcher could realistically buy across the trades this site covers: establishments with 5 to 99 employees, big enough to have something to sell, small enough to finance. That is 1.8% of the country's buyable market and ranks Minnesota #22 among the states. The number that decides a search, though, is not the state total but where inside the state those businesses sit.
The Deepest Counties in Minnesota
Nobody searches Minnesota. They search a metro they can drive across to meet an owner. These are the counties with the most buyable targets in the covered trades, Hennepin deepest among them.
| Hennepin | 4,491 | 24.7% |
| Ramsey | 1,619 | 8.9% |
| Dakota | 1,341 | 7.4% |
| Anoka | 1,039 | 5.7% |
| Washington | 741 | 4.1% |
| St. Louis | 611 | 3.4% |
| Olmsted | 529 | 2.9% |
| Stearns | 527 | 2.9% |
| Scott | 404 | 2.2% |
| Wright | 392 | 2.2% |
What Trades Run Deepest in Minnesota
- Limited-Service Restaurants3,037 buyable
- Full-Service Restaurants2,961 buyable
- Gasoline Stations with Convenience Stores1,529 buyable
- Offices of Dentists1,351 buyable
- Child Day Care Services987 buyable
- Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars776 buyable
Each trade's pricing, licensing, and diligence live in its Industry Buy Guide. The financing side is in Minnesota's SBA acquisition-lending profile. The same counts industry by industry across every state are in Where the Businesses Are, and several of these trades restrict who can own at all: the Ownership & License Rules table names which.
Before You Close in Minnesota
The successor notifies the commissioner of the transfer and its terms at least twenty days before taking possession or paying, and a successor who does not is liable for the unpaid tax up to the purchase price. Minnesota publishes this under Minn. Stat. section 270C.57, and what releases the buyer is the Notice of Business Transfer, Form C50.
Read at source on revisor.mn.gov. Every state runs a version of this rule and the wording decides what a closing has to do, so treat it as the question to put to a lawyer in Minnesota rather than as the answer.
Next Door to Minnesota
Nobody buys a state. These are the states Minnesota touches, with the buyable businesses each holds in the same 29 trades.
- Iowa10,699 buyable
- North Dakota2,939 buyable
- South Dakota3,273 buyable
- Wisconsin18,933 buyable
Method & Source
Buyable counts are establishments with 5 to 99 employees in the 29 covered trades, summed from the Census County Business Patterns (2023). A county total is a lower bound: Census suppresses cells thin enough to identify a single business, and a trade we have not written a guide for is not counted. SBA figures are change-of-ownership 7(a) approvals (FY2020 through FY2025), approvals rather than closings.