Landscaping crews and the construction test's edge

Landscaping sits outside the construction presumption

For most construction trades, Minnesota law presumes the helper is your employee. Landscaping is the trade the statute deliberately left outside that presumption.

The construction classification section applies only to building construction or improvement services, and its scope clause carves landscaping out twice: landscaping for maintenance or removal of existing plants, shrubs, trees and other vegetation is excluded even when it rides on a construction contract, and all other landscaping services are excluded unless they are provided as part of a contract for building construction or improvement services.

A lawn crew, a spring cleanup crew and a tree-removal crew all stand outside. That is the whole reason a landscaping owner cannot borrow the construction checklist from a builder friend: the fourteen requirements never reach this trade, in most jobs, at all.

Minnesota Statutes 181.723 excludes landscaping for maintenance or removal of existing vegetation from the construction law, even when it rides on a construction contract. — Minnesota Revisor of Statutes, retrieved 2026-09-29

The carve-out closes on a construction contract

The exclusion has a door in it, and the door opens from the customer's side of the job.

When your landscaping is provided as part of a contract for building construction or improvement services, the carve-out closes and the construction law's employee presumption applies to that work. The line follows the contract, not the plants: grading and seeding a new build's lot as part of the builder's contract is inside; mowing the finished lawn two years later is outside.

Owners who straddle both kinds of work should expect to run both tests on different crews in the same week. A crew on the builder's punch list needs the fourteen-requirement file from the construction test page. A mowing route crew does not.

Under Minnesota Statutes 181.723, other landscaping services are excluded from the construction law unless provided as part of a contract for building construction or improvement. — Minnesota Revisor of Statutes, retrieved 2026-09-29

Outside construction, the five factors apply

With the construction presumption out of the way, landscaping crews are judged the way most Minnesota trades are: the common-law five-factor weighing.

The unemployment insurance rules weigh who controls the means and manner of the work, who can discharge the worker without liability, the mode of payment, who furnishes materials and tools, and control over the premises. The first two carry the most weight. The general misclassification statute points to these same tests for every industry.

Applied to a mowing route: a sub with their own mower and truck, their own route customers and a per-cut price reads toward contractor. A helper who drives your truck, runs your mower on your schedule and is paid hourly reads toward employee, and the route's shape, not the crew's label, is what the state measures.

Minnesota Rules 3315.0555 weighs five factors for employee or contractor status, led by control of the work and the right to discharge the worker without liability. — Minnesota Revisor of Statutes and Rules, retrieved 2026-09-29

Minnesota Statutes 181.722 determines employment relationships under the same tests as the applicable workers' compensation and unemployment insurance laws. — Minnesota Revisor of Statutes, retrieved 2026-09-29

Licensing expectations shift with the job's scale

Landscaping itself holds no DLI trade license, but the edge of the trade brushes two licensing systems, and both bite at contract size.

Residential work that offers more than one special skill to improve a dwelling falls under the residential contractor and remodeler licensing law, and the specialty contractor who provides only one special skill is exempt from it. A landscaping contract that adds construction services can pull the job into territory where a licensed builder is the one who should hold it, not the lawn crew.

None of the licensing decides the classification question. But a crew working outside the licenses its work requires gives an investigator a reason to look closer at everything else, including the 1099 file.

Minnesota's residential contractor licensing law applies to those who improve dwellings by offering more than one special skill; single-skill specialty contractors are exempt. — Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, retrieved 2026-09-29

What the excluded test still owes the state

Being outside the construction law is not being outside the law. The general misclassification statute carries its own teeth for any industry.

The penalties mirror the construction ones: compensatory damages, up to $10,000 for each individual the person failed to classify as an employee, up to $10,000 for each violation of the prohibited activities, and $1,000 for each day a person delays or obstructs an investigation. The Department of Labor and Industry states that misclassification is illegal in all industries, intentional or not.

So a landscaping owner inherits the same record-keeping habit without the construction statute's explicit three-year rule. Keep the contract, the invoices, the helper's own-business evidence and the payment basis for every crew member, as the checklist page lays out, and read the review guide before a season of 1099s turns into a letter.

up to $10,000 per workerMinnesota Statutes 181.722 allows compensatory damages plus up to $10,000 for each misclassified individual and up to $10,000 for each violation of the prohibited activities. — Minnesota Revisor of Statutes, retrieved 2026-09-29

Run the season's crews through both tests in spring

The practical move for a mixed landscaping business is an annual pass over the crew list before the season starts.

Sort each job into maintenance and construction-improvement, because the sorting decides the test. For the maintenance crews, weigh the five factors per helper, and put the ones who fail on payroll. For the construction-contract crews, run the fourteen requirements and keep the file current for three years of work under those contracts.

Wage rules follow the answer either way. Minnesota's state minimum wage applies to all employers, and state overtime is owed past 48 hours worked in a seven-day period. A seasonal surge that runs a mowing crew past 48 hours owes the overtime premium regardless of how short the season is, so the workers' comp page and the payroll calendar belong in the same spring review.

48 hours per weekThe Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry states that employers must pay overtime, at 1.5 times the regular rate, for all hours worked over 48 in a seven-day workweek. — Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, retrieved 2026-09-29

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