Mineral rights by state
Checked July 29, 2026 Updated July 29, 2026 no external claim on this page
Jul 29 2026
The short answer
Mineral rights are governed by state law, and the differences between states decide almost everything that matters: whether a severed interest can lapse for non-use, whether an unleased owner can be forced into a pooled unit, what the operator owes the surface owner, and what the state taxes on production. Every state has a row below, whether or not its page has been written yet, and each row says where it stands.
Checked against the sources named below on .
The status of every state
Three states of knowledge, and the map on the front page uses the same three. A state that is lit has a page. A state being researched has someone reading its statutes. A state marked planned has neither yet, and clicking it brings you here rather than to an empty page dressed up as an answer.
| Code | State | Status | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| AL | Alabama | planned | not read yet |
| AK | Alaska | planned | not read yet |
| AZ | Arizona | planned | not read yet |
| AR | Arkansas | planned | not read yet |
| CA | California | planned | not read yet |
| CO | Colorado | on the record | On the record since 2026-07-29. Twelve rules, the severance tax and the regulator, each dated and sourced. One rule is published at partial confidence with its caveat visible, because the opinion behind its affirmative half is not reachable on any source this site is allowed to cite. |
| CT | Connecticut | planned | not read yet |
| DE | Delaware | planned | not read yet |
| FL | Florida | planned | not read yet |
| GA | Georgia | planned | not read yet |
| HI | Hawaii | planned | not read yet |
| ID | Idaho | planned | not read yet |
| IL | Illinois | planned | not read yet |
| IN | Indiana | planned | not read yet |
| IA | Iowa | planned | not read yet |
| KS | Kansas | planned | not read yet |
| KY | Kentucky | planned | not read yet |
| LA | Louisiana | planned | not read yet |
| ME | Maine | planned | not read yet |
| MD | Maryland | planned | not read yet |
| MA | Massachusetts | planned | not read yet |
| MI | Michigan | planned | not read yet |
| MN | Minnesota | planned | not read yet |
| MS | Mississippi | planned | not read yet |
| MO | Missouri | planned | not read yet |
| MT | Montana | planned | not read yet |
| NE | Nebraska | planned | not read yet |
| NV | Nevada | planned | not read yet |
| NH | New Hampshire | planned | not read yet |
| NJ | New Jersey | planned | not read yet |
| NM | New Mexico | planned | not read yet |
| NY | New York | planned | not read yet |
| NC | North Carolina | planned | not read yet |
| ND | North Dakota | planned | not read yet |
| OH | Ohio | planned | not read yet |
| OK | Oklahoma | being researched | Being researched. Corporation Commission records and the forced-pooling statute are the first reads. |
| OR | Oregon | planned | not read yet |
| PA | Pennsylvania | planned | not read yet |
| RI | Rhode Island | planned | not read yet |
| SC | South Carolina | planned | not read yet |
| SD | South Dakota | planned | not read yet |
| TN | Tennessee | planned | not read yet |
| TX | Texas | on the record | On the record since 2026-07-30. Nine rules, the production tax and the Railroad Commission, each dated and sourced. The three case-law topics come from opinions the Supreme Court of Texas publishes itself, and the dormancy negative records the search that establishes it so a reader can repeat it. |
| UT | Utah | planned | not read yet |
| VT | Vermont | planned | not read yet |
| VA | Virginia | planned | not read yet |
| WA | Washington | planned | not read yet |
| WV | West Virginia | planned | not read yet |
| WI | Wisconsin | planned | not read yet |
| WY | Wyoming | planned | not read yet |
What a state page has to answer before it ships
The build refuses to publish a state until it answers the four questions every reader arrives with, each with its own source and its own date:
- Severance. Can the mineral estate be split from the surface in this state, and what is it once it has been?
- Dormancy. Does this state have a statute that lapses or extinguishes a mineral interest nobody has used?
- Surface use. What does an operator owe the owner of the surface it drills on?
- Records. Where is ownership recorded in this state, and how is it searched?
A state with three of those four is not published with the fourth left blank. It waits, and its row above says so.
Why the order is what it is
Colorado first, because the primary-source pass on Colorado is already done and because it is a split-estate state with a hard accommodation rule worth getting exactly right. Then Texas and Oklahoma, which have the largest mineral markets and the best public records feeds in the country.
The 50 rows above will not fill in alphabetical order. They fill in the order that puts a real answer in front of the most people.