Refusing the test in Minnesota: which refusals are a crime, and what it costs your license

What the statute says

"It is a crime for any person to refuse to submit to a chemical test: (1) of the person's breath under section 169A.51 (chemical tests for intoxication), or 169A.52 (test refusal or failure; revocation of license); or (2) of the person's blood or urine as required by a search warrant under sections 171.177 and 626.04 to 626.18."

Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2

The breath-versus-blood distinction comes from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Birchfield v. North Dakota (2016), which held that a breath test may be required as a search incident to a DWI arrest, but a blood test needs a warrant or consent. Minnesota rewrote its refusal statute to match.

The license consequence

Separately from any criminal charge, a refusal revokes your license for "not less than one year" if you have no qualifying prior incident in the past 20 years (§ 171.178, subd. 3). With a prior, the revocation runs until you complete the ignition-interlock program. Compare a first-time test failure at 0.08: not less than 90 days. That gap is why the decision matters, and why the law gives you a moment to call an attorney first.

Before you decide

• The advisory the officer reads tells you that refusing a breath test is a crime (§ 169A.51, subd. 2(2)). That is not a threat; it is the statute.
• You are entitled to a reasonable time to reach a lawyer by phone before answering. Use it.
• "I want to talk to a lawyer" is not a refusal. Silence and stalling past a reasonable time can be treated as one.

Nothing here tells you what to decide — that depends on facts only you and an attorney know. DWI attorneys by county →