A 1941 case about what the word minerals meant in the 1890s now decides who owns the lithium under your Arkansas land. And if you are married, your spouse has to sign the deed even if they own nothing.
This is the whole guide, on one page, free, with nothing gated. It covers what you own, the Arkansas law that decides what lands in your bank account, whether your minerals can be taken from you, what happens if a well is drilled and you are not leased, what you owe when you sell, and the questions worth asking any buyer including us.
Almost every confusing thing in oil and gas comes from the fact that the mineral estate is not one thing. It is a bundle of five rights that can be split apart and sold separately:
A mineral interest is all five. A non-participating royalty interest is only the fifth, with no say in leasing and no share of bonus. An overriding royalty interest is carved out of a particular lease and dies when that lease dies. A working interest takes revenue net of costs and, unlike all of the above, can lose you money.
Which one you hold changes the value, the tax treatment, and who has to sign what. Start here: NPRIs, overriding royalties, and the glossary.
It turns on your exact clause, and Arkansas leans owner-favorable. In *Hanna Oil & Gas Co. v. Taylor*, 297 Ark. 80, 759 S.W.2d 563 (1988), under a clause paying one eighth of the proceeds received at the well, the court held the lessee could **not** deduct compression costs, and held that ambiguities in a lease are construed **in favor of the lessor**. Being candid, *Hanna* is narrow and much criticized, and Arkansas has no clean marketable product holding.
Your first move if the deductions look wrong is a written demand by certified mail, keeping the receipt, because the certification is what starts the clock. Our free letter templates have the wording and the statement decoder explains every line on the stub.
First payment is due within **6 months** for a first purchaser or 180 days for an operator. Ongoing is 60 days after the month of sale. Late payment carries **12 percent per year** unless a written agreement sets another rate. The statutes are **Ark. Code §§ 15-74-601 and 15-74-604**.
| Minimum payment rule | $10 to $150 annually; request payment once over $50. |
| Time limit to sue over an underpayment | 5 years |
A stopped check very often is not a stopped well. The usual causes are a balance under the minimum threshold, a title change putting the interest in suspense, an unprobated death in the chain, an address the payor could not deliver to, or a change of payor after an acquisition. That money does not disappear; it sits in suspense and eventually goes to state unclaimed property. See unclaimed royalties.
No dormant mineral act. What can move an Arkansas mineral interest is **adverse possession**, requiring actual possession plus color of title plus payment of ad valorem taxes: 7 years for unimproved and unenclosed land under Ark. Code § 18-11-102. Paying taxes on the surface does **not** reach a severed mineral estate, per *Claybrooke v. Barnes* (1929) and *Jones v. Brown* (1947).
Yes, called **integration**, through the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission under Ark. Code §§ 15-72-302, 303 and 324, implemented through General Rules B-43 and B-44. You get three options: lease to the unit operator on terms the Commission finds fair, participate in costs, or go nonconsent and receive a **1/8 royalty** until the other 7/8 equals drilling and equipping costs times a multiplier, typically **400 or 500 percent**, plus 100 percent of operating costs. The election window is set in your order, not by statute. Read the order.
The reason any of this exists is the rule of capture: a well on the tract next to yours can legally drain oil and gas from under your land, and you cannot sue anyone for it. Pooling is what converts being drained into having a share. The expensive mistake is almost never the pooling itself. It is missing the election deadline, which turns a real choice into a default nobody picked.
Severance tax. Oil is 5 percent of market value where production averages more than 10 bbl per well per day and 4 percent at 10 or less. Gas is 5.0 percent, 1.5 percent for high cost gas wells for 36 months, or 1.25 percent for marginal high cost wells under 100 Mcf per day.
When you sell. Arkansas has a graduated income tax with a top rate of 3.9 percent for 2026 and taxes nonresidents on Arkansas source income. **No withholding at closing.** No state estate or inheritance tax.
See taxes when you sell mineral rights, and if you inherited the interest, understand the stepped-up basis before you sell anything: your basis is generally the value at the date of death, not what your grandparents paid, which frequently means far less taxable gain than owners expect.
**Arkansas still enforces dower and curtesy** under Ark. Code § 28-11-301. A married grantor's mineral deed is defective unless the non-owning spouse also signs to release. This is a live generator of Arkansas title defects and we cure it at our cost.
The single most common thing we see is an interest still sitting in the name of someone who died twenty or forty years ago. It is fixable, it is cheaper to fix than to leave, and we pay for the curative work as part of a purchase. See inherited mineral rights, selling before probate is done, and transferring inherited minerals.
Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission Data Explorer for well records, and the Circuit Clerk and Recorder in each of 75 counties for land records.
Our well records by state page links every state's free public search, and our operator directory covers more than 38,000 operators with contact information refreshed weekly.
Producing royalties are priced off cash flow and decline. Non-producing minerals are priced off location and activity. Almost every offer you receive is built the same way: take your last twelve months of royalty income and apply a multiple.
That method has one predictable failure, and it is worth understanding because it is where most owners lose money. It assigns a value of zero to anything that has not happened yet. A permit next door. An undrilled bench under your section. A refrac on an old wellbore. A unit being formed. None of that is in last year's income, so none of it is in the offer.
Ask any buyer, including us, to show you their remaining location count and the reasoning behind it. If they will not break it out, they are pricing your check rather than your minerals. See how mineral rights are valued.
You are welcome to use every one of these on us. That is the point of publishing them.
A check stub, an old deed, a division order, a pooling order, or just the county. We will identify the interest, value it with the arithmetic shown, and tell you honestly if you should keep it. Free, no obligation, and no mailing list.
Get a Free Valuation Ask a LandmanLast reviewed August 2026. Statutes, rates, and case law change, and where Arkansas law is genuinely unsettled we have said so rather than filling the gap. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a tax advisor, and this guide is general information rather than advice about your interest. For a dispute worth real money, hire a lawyer in Arkansas.