Are Non-Competes Enforceable for Therapists and Behavioral Health Staff in Minnesota?

No. Under Minnesota Statutes section 181.988, subdivision 2(a), any covenant not to compete contained in a contract or agreement is void and unenforceable.

The statute took effect July 1, 2023 and applies to contracts and agreements entered into on or after that date.

The ban is profession-blind.

It contains no income threshold and no exception or special rule for health care or mental health employers, so it reaches everyone a Minnesota practice hires — therapists, counselors, social workers, psychologists, BCBAs, RBTs, psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners alike.

It also reaches the therapist or BCBA you pay on a 1099 basis: the statute's definition of "employee" expressly includes independent contractors.

Only two situations escape the ban: a covenant agreed during the sale of a business, and one agreed in anticipation of a business's dissolution.

How the states compare is covered in our guide to non-competes nationally.

The rule a Minnesota practice works with is a statute.

Minnesota Statutes section 181.988, subdivision 2(a), states that any covenant not to compete contained in a contract or agreement is void and unenforceable, and the session law that added it (2023 Minnesota Laws, chapter 53, article 6, section 1) made it effective July 1, 2023 for agreements entered into on or after that date.

Because the statute applies by signing date, it does not reach agreements your practice entered into before July 1, 2023.

Whether one of those older covenants still holds up is a separate legal question — have Minnesota employment counsel review any pre-2023 agreement before you rely on it.

Three more mechanics matter.

A void non-compete does not void the other provisions of the contract, so your confidentiality and pay clauses survive (subdivision 2(c)).

A court may award an employee who is enforcing rights under section 181.988 reasonable attorney fees (subdivision 2(d)) — a cost to weigh before sending a demand letter over a clause the statute voids.

And an employer may not require an employee who primarily lives and works in Minnesota to litigate or arbitrate a Minnesota claim elsewhere or give up the substantive protection of Minnesota law (subdivision 3), so the choice-of-law or forum clause in your template cannot move a Minnesota employee's dispute to another state.

There are none in the statute.

Minnesota Statutes section 181.988 contains no income threshold and no exception or special rule for health care or mental health employers; its only exceptions remain the sale and dissolution of a business.

That has two practical consequences.

Paying a clinician more does not buy enforceability, because compensation level is simply not part of the statute — a psychiatrist's covenant is as void as an RBT's.

And hiring a prescriber does not change the analysis: physicians and APRNs get no separate lane here.

If you engage BCBAs or RBTs as independent contractors, the ban reaches those agreements the same way, because the definition of employee includes independent contractors.

For agreements entered into on or after July 1, 2023, a Minnesota court never gets to that analysis.

The statute declares a covenant not to compete void and unenforceable, so there is no duration to shorten, no radius to trim and no legitimate-business-interest balancing — the covenant is void whatever its terms.

Drafting choices such as a narrower specialty or a shorter term do not make a Minnesota covenant enforceable, because the statute has no reasonableness test for them to satisfy.

The only covenants a Minnesota practice can still reach for are the statutory exceptions: one agreed during the sale of a business, or in anticipation of a business's dissolution.

What limits a Minnesota court would apply to such a covenant's time and area was outside this page's research, so have counsel draft it rather than adapting an old employment clause.

Read the definition twice, because it is where your protection lives.

Under Minnesota Statutes section 181.988, subdivision 1(a), a covenant not to compete does not include a nonsolicitation agreement, or an agreement restricting the ability to use client or contact lists or to solicit customers of the employer.

The ban also does not touch nondisclosure or trade-secret agreements.

So when a Minnesota therapist, BCBA or social worker resigns, the statute leaves your client non-solicitation clause, your confidentiality agreement and your trade-secret protections in place.

The clinician can take a job across the street, but the statute does not void a clause restricting their use of your client list or their solicitation of your clients.

How far such a clause can reach under Minnesota common law was not researched for this page, so scope it with counsel rather than assuming any width is safe.

One more restraint rule covers staffing arrangements.

Since 2024, Minnesota Statutes section 181.9881 has provided that a service provider — a staffing or contracting firm — may not restrict a customer from directly or indirectly soliciting or hiring the service provider's employees, and existing contract provisions to that effect are void.

If you staff school-based or ABA programs through an agency, the agency cannot bar you from hiring its clinicians; if your practice supplies staff to other organizations, your customer contracts cannot carry a no-hire clause.

For how to scope these clauses, and how ethics codes expect a clinician's departure to be handled, see our guide to non-solicitation clauses.

Minnesota leaves a practice real protection; it just is not a non-compete.

Draft to what the statute preserves:

• Strip non-competes from every Minnesota template. Offer letters, onboarding packets and any multi-state agreement you reuse — the covenant is void for agreements entered into on or after July 1, 2023, and trying to enforce it anyway risks an attorney-fee award to the employee.
• Keep the tools that survive. Client non-solicitation clauses, confidentiality agreements and trade-secret protections sit outside the ban; make sure every employment and contractor agreement actually contains them.
• Check the contractor paper too. Independent contractors are covered by the ban, so the agreement for a BCBA you pay on a 1099 basis should be rebuilt on the same rules as an employed clinician's.
• Anchor clients in the practice. Intake, scheduling and care coordination that run through the practice, rather than through one clinician's personal relationships, are what a non-solicitation clause is meant to back up.
• Do not route around the statute. A choice-of-law or forum clause cannot move a claim by an employee who primarily lives and works in Minnesota away from Minnesota's protections.
• Use the sale exception deliberately. A covenant agreed during the sale of a practice — one of the statute's two exceptions — is the lane left open for a true non-compete; have counsel draft it.
• For a clinician you trained, consider a different tool. Our guide to training repayment agreements covers where they stand.