# Mineral Rights Laws by State and Dormancy Risk Index, 2026 edition (United States) A state by state dataset of US mineral rights dormancy law, covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with a 0 to 100 Dormancy Risk Index that rates how easily an absent owner can lose a severed mineral interest through nonuse. Published by American Mineral Registry. Openly licensed under CC BY 4.0. Landing page: https://americanmineralregistry.com/research/mineral-rights-by-state --- ## What this is In the United States, mineral rights can be severed from the surface and owned separately. About half of US states have a dormant mineral statute that lets an unused severed interest revert to the surface owner after a set period of nonuse unless the owner preserves it. The period, the trigger, and the preservation step vary by state. This dataset consolidates that landscape into one machine readable reference and scores it. Coverage: 51 jurisdictions (50 states plus the District of Columbia), one row each. ## The Dormancy Risk Index (how the score is built) The Dormancy Risk Score rates each jurisdiction from 0 to 100 on how easily an absent owner can lose a severed mineral interest through nonuse. Higher means easier to lose. - No dormant act: score 0. A severed interest does not lapse through nonuse. 31 of the 51 jurisdictions score 0. - Special mechanism: score 45. A trust or registration system that reaches unlocated or unregistered owners without a simple nonuse reversion. - Lapse by nonuse: score 60 to 100, rising as the dormancy clock shortens. Louisiana, at a 10 year liberative prescription, tops the scale. The scoring is transparent and rule based, derived only from the presence and length of the state's dormancy mechanism, so any user can reproduce it from the columns provided. ## Column dictionary - state: jurisdiction name (50 states plus District of Columbia). - abbr: two letter postal abbreviation. - category: dormancy regime type (no dormant act, lapse by nonuse, or special mechanism). - unused_minerals: what happens to an unused severed interest in that state. - lapse_period: length of the dormancy clock, where one applies (for example 10 years, 20 years), or none. - surface_damages_act: whether the state has a surface damages act (yes or no). - forced_pooling: whether the state has forced or compulsory pooling (yes or no). - risk_score: the Dormancy Risk Score, 0 to 100 (see methodology above). - rank: rank by risk_score, 1 is highest risk. - statute: the key governing statute citation, where one applies. - source_status: provenance and confidence note for the row (see sources below). - source_url: link to the statute or source, where available. - preservation: the action an owner takes to preserve the interest and stop the clock. - note: a short plain language note for the jurisdiction. ## Sources and provenance Entries are compiled from national statutory surveys of US dormant mineral and severed mineral law. The source_status column records the basis for each row: - Where surveys show no dormant act, the default position applies: a severed mineral interest does not lapse through nonuse. - Where surveys name a state as having a dormant or severed mineral statute, the statute is cited, but the exact period and procedure should be confirmed against the current state code before reliance. This is a research reference, not legal advice. Confirm any specific position against the current statute before acting on it. ## Files in this record - mineral-rights-by-state.csv: the dataset, one row per jurisdiction. - mineral-rights-by-state.json: the same data as JSON. - dormancy-risk-index.svg: the ranked visualization of the index. - CITATION.cff: citation metadata. ## License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You may share and adapt the data, including commercially, with attribution to American Mineral Registry and a link to the landing page. ## How to cite American Mineral Registry (2026). Mineral Rights Laws by State and Dormancy Risk Index, 2026 edition (United States) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/PASTE_DOI_AFTER_PUBLISH ## Edition and refresh 2026 edition. The index is refreshed annually. Cite the concept DOI (the all versions DOI Zenodo issues alongside the version DOI) so future editions inherit the same citation.