# Sell Mississippi Mineral Rights | 5% Nonresident Withholding, Pooling | Berlin Royalties > Sell Mississippi mineral rights and royalties. The 5 percent nonresident withholding at closing under Miss. Code 27-7-308, the 20-day pooling election and 300 percent penalty, Smackover and Tuscaloosa Marine Shale. Source: https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mississippi/ Publisher: Berlin Royalties, a veteran-owned oil and gas mineral and royalty buyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, buying for its own account since 2014. Call or text 918-984-1645. License: free to quote and cite with attribution to Berlin Royalties and a link to the source URL. Where We Buy · Mississippi ## Sell your Mississippi mineral rights and royalties. Two Mississippi facts decide most outcomes here. A pooling order gives you twenty days and can cost you three hundred percent if you miss it. And if you live out of state, five percent of your sale price is withheld at closing, which almost nobody warns sellers about. [Get a Free Valuation](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) or call or text [918-984-1645](tel:9189841645) Mississippi rewards owners who move quickly and punishes owners who do not, more sharply than any other state we buy in. The two mechanisms are a twenty day pooling window and a withholding rule at closing that most sellers never see coming. Berlin buys Mississippi minerals and royalties, with a focus on the Smackover trend in the southeast and the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale counties along the Louisiana line. ## The 5 percent that comes out of your closing If you live outside Mississippi and you sell Mississippi minerals, **money will be held back at closing**. This is the fact we most often have to break to sellers, and it is not in most published guidance. **Miss. Code Ann. § 27-7-308** requires that on a sale of real property, and associated tangible personal property, producing **gross proceeds greater than $100,000**, where the property is owned by a **nonresident**, the buyer withhold and remit **5 percent of the amount realized**, or the net proceeds if those are less. Minerals are real property in Mississippi, so a mineral or royalty deed is within it. The transaction has to be a sale rather than an exchange, and a **1031 exchange exemption** is available by affidavit. Forms 89-386 and 89-387 are the mechanics. Two things to be clear about: - This is a **prepayment of your Mississippi income tax**, not an additional tax. You reconcile it on a Mississippi nonresident return and get back whatever was overwithheld. - It still changes your **cash at closing**, and if you were planning around a number, plan around the right one. Mississippi's income tax is a **flat 4.0 percent for 2026** on taxable income over $10,000, down from 4.4 percent, under H.B. 1 signed in March 2025. The schedule continues down: 3.75 percent in 2027, 3.5 percent in 2028, 3.25 percent in 2029, and 3.0 percent in 2030, with further trigger-based reductions toward eventual phase out. See [taxes when you sell mineral rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mineral-rights-capital-gains-tax/) and [out of state mineral owners](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/out-of-state-mineral-owners/). ## Twenty days, and 300 percent Mississippi's compulsory pooling statute is **Miss. Code Ann. § 53-3-7**, and it is the most aggressive in this part of the country. | | | | **Election period** | **20 days** after the pooling order is filed for record with the Board || **How you elect** | A written acceptance agreeing to participate on the same cost basis as consenting owners || **Surface equipment beyond the wellhead** | **100%** of your share || **Drilling and operating costs and in-hole equipment** | **250%** of your share || **Where the mineral interest is severed from the surface or subject to a lease** | **300%** || **Operating costs from first production** | **100%** || **If the well is not productive in paying quantities** | **No charge is payable** under § 53-3-7(3) || **Operations must commence** | Within **one year** of the order | Read that third row again. **A severed mineral interest, or one subject to an oil and gas lease, draws the 300 percent number.** That describes most mineral owners. The 250 percent figure that gets quoted in summaries is the lower of the two. The Fifth Circuit illustrated the bite in a case where a nonconsenting owner received **no royalty or production payment at all** until 250 percent of its share of costs had been recovered. Not a reduced check. No check. Two mitigations worth knowing. If the well does not produce in paying quantities, nothing is owed. And once the operator recovers the charges, the nonconsenting owner holds the same interest in the well, equipment, and production it would have had by participating. Cost disputes are determined by the Board after notice and hearing, and are appealable. **If a Mississippi pooling order arrives, treat it as urgent.** Twenty days runs from the filing, not from when the envelope reaches you. See the [rule of capture](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/rule-of-capture/) for why the state can do this at all. ## Deductions from your check Mississippi is treated as an **at the well** state. The controlling authority is ***Piney Woods Country Life School v. Shell Oil Co.***, 726 F.2d 225 (5th Cir. 1984), applying Mississippi law, and it is the case every state-by-state survey cites for putting Mississippi in the at-the-well column. We will be candid about the weakness there: **that is a 1984 federal circuit decision, not a Mississippi Supreme Court holding.** The rule is settled by practice more than by the state's highest court. *Piney Woods* did impose a real limit, allowing processing facility costs to be allocated to lessors **only up to the point the facility had been paid for**, which is a line worth checking on an old facility. Your lease language still governs first. Our [royalty statement decoder](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/royalty-statement-decoder/) explains the lines on your stub, and [royalty payment laws by state](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/royalty-payment-laws/) sets out the deadlines and interest rates. ## Severance tax, styled a privilege tax **Oil**, under Miss. Code Ann. § 27-25-503: **6 percent** of value at the point of production. **Reduced to 1.3 percent** for oil from a **horizontally drilled well or horizontal recompletion** that commenced production on or after July 1, 2013, for **30 months** from first sale or until well cost payout, whichever comes first. That horizontal provision is repealed from and after July 1, 2028, but wells commencing before then keep the rate. **Gas**, under Miss. Code Ann. § 27-25-703: **6 percent** of value at the point of production. Excluded are gas lawfully injected for cycling, repressuring, or enhanced recovery; gas lawfully vented or flared incident to oil production; and gas condensed to liquids on which the 6 percent oil tax is paid. The horizontal reduction matters to valuation. A Tuscaloosa Marine Shale well inside its 30 month window carries a very different tax burden than the same well after payout, and a valuation that ignores where a well sits in that window is off. ## Dormancy, receivership, and escheat Mississippi has **no dormant mineral act**. Your interest does not lapse because you did nothing with it. A bill in the 2011 session would have created a severed mineral registration and assessment regime; it was not enacted. The real Mississippi risk is being **unfindable**: - **Miss. Code Ann. § 11-17-33** lets a chancery court appoint a **receiver** for mineral interests of nonresident or unknown owners, and the receiver may lease the interest. Section 11-17-34 governs escheat of funds held by such a receiver. - **Miss. Code Ann. §§ 89-11-1 et seq. and 89-11-31** provide for **escheat** of severed minerals to the state, with a courthouse door sale within six months of a final escheat decree. **No mineral interest may be sold while it is still producing income**, and the surface owner may match the high bid. The practical protection is simple and cheap: keep a current address on file with every payor, and make sure something is recorded in your name at the county. See [unclaimed royalties](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/unclaimed-royalties/) and [transfer inherited minerals](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/transfer-inherited-minerals/). ## Probate, and the one convenience Mississippi offers Mississippi has **no small estate affidavit that transfers real property**. A mineral interest passing at death generally needs a **chancery court proceeding**, either probate of a will or a **determination of heirship** suit. That is more formal than a Uniform Probate Code state. The offsetting convenience is real: the **Chancery Clerk** holds both the probate records and the land records, in the same office. A Mississippi mineral title chain and the estate file behind it are in one building, which makes the work faster once you are there. Mississippi is a **race notice** state under Miss. Code Ann. § 89-5-1, meaning a subsequent purchaser who records first without notice takes priority. Recording promptly matters here. Mississippi has **no state estate or inheritance tax**. We cure title at our own cost as part of a purchase, including the chancery work. See [selling inherited minerals before probate is done](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/sell-inherited-minerals-probate/). ## Finding your Mississippi wells The regulator is the **Mississippi State Oil and Gas Board** in Jackson. - Free public search at ogb.state.ms.us covering well search, scout card and log search, permit search, **production search**, annual production, operator list, and orphan wells, plus downloadable field, county, and operator map files - MSOGB also publishes to the free **GWPC WellFinder** app, updated monthly The tools open in nested windows and the back button misbehaves, but the searches themselves work well, and Mississippi's public production data is better than several larger states'. Land records are county by county with the **Chancery Clerk**. There is no statewide portal. See [well records by state](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/well-records/). ## What we do with a Mississippi interest Send a check stub, a deed, a pooling order, or just the county and operator name. We will identify what you own, tell you where you sit on the Smackover and Tuscaloosa trends, work out your withholding exposure before you commit to anything, and value the interest with the reasoning shown. We have no minimum interest size and we pay all closing costs. If a pooling order is in your hand, tell us that first. Twenty days is not long. Free, no obligation, no mailing list, and if keeping it is the right answer we will say so. ## Statutes and primary sources - Miss. Code Ann. § 27-7-308 (nonresident withholding); Forms 89-386, 89-387 - Miss. Code Ann. § 53-3-7 (compulsory pooling) - Miss. Code Ann. §§ 27-25-503, 27-25-703 (severance) - Miss. Code Ann. § 11-17-33, § 11-17-34 (receivership); §§ 89-11-1 et seq., 89-11-31 (escheat) - Miss. Code Ann. § 89-5-1 (race notice recording) - *Piney Woods Country Life School v. Shell Oil Co.*, 726 F.2d 225 (5th Cir. 1984) Last reviewed August 2026. Mississippi's income tax is on a declining schedule and the horizontal severance provision sunsets in 2028. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a tax advisor, and this page is general information rather than advice about your interest. If you are holding a pooling order, act now and get a lawyer if the acreage is meaningful. Formations & Plays ## What produces here ### Smackover Formation The Upper Jurassic carbonate that has produced across south Mississippi for generations, and the same formation now at the center of the lithium brine story one state west. ### Tuscaloosa Marine Shale The oil-bearing shale across southwest Mississippi and the Louisiana line. Drilled hard for a few years, quiet since, and the acreage is still real. ### Wilcox, Frio, and Cotton Valley The conventional section that carries most of the state's long-lived legacy production, much of it in small interests split several times by inheritance. ### Black Warrior Basin coalbed methane The northeastern corner shares the Black Warrior with Alabama, including shallow coalbed gas. Counties ## Where we're most active Jasper Smith Wayne Jones Clarke Amite Wilkinson Pike Adams Lamar Marion Yazoo Our primary focus is the Smackover trend in Jasper, Smith, Wayne and Clarke and the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale counties along the Louisiana line, but we buy statewide. ### The Mississippi mineral owner's guide Everything a Mississippi owner needs in one place: who owns what under state law, how royalties must be paid and by when, what a buyer can and cannot deduct, the tax treatment of a sale, and the deadlines that quietly cost people their minerals. Free, and no sign-up. [Read the Mississippi guide](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/guide/mississippi/) Questions ## Straight answers for Mississippi owners Will money be withheld from my check at closing if I live out of state? Yes, and this is the single most important Mississippi fact for a nonresident seller. Under Miss. Code Ann. 27-7-308, on a sale of real property producing gross proceeds greater than $100,000 where the property is owned by a nonresident, the buyer must withhold and remit 5 percent of the amount realized, or the net proceeds if that is less. Minerals are real property in Mississippi. Forms 89-386 and 89-387 handle it, and there is a 1031 exchange exemption available by affidavit. The withholding is a prepayment against your Mississippi income tax, not an extra tax, so you reconcile it on your Mississippi nonresident return. But you should know before closing that it is coming, because most sites do not mention it and most sellers are surprised. How long do I have to respond to a Mississippi pooling order? Twenty days after the pooling order is filed for record with the Board, under Miss. Code Ann. 53-3-7. You file a written acceptance agreeing to participate on the same cost basis as the consenting owners. Twenty days is the shortest window in any state we buy in, and it runs from the filing rather than from when you happen to open your mail. What happens if I miss the twenty days? Mississippi has the harshest nonconsent structure of any state we work in. Under 53-3-7 the charges are 100 percent of surface equipment costs beyond the wellhead, 250 percent of your share of drilling and operating costs and in-hole equipment, and 300 percent where the mineral interest is severed from the surface or subject to an oil and gas lease, plus 100 percent of operating costs from first production forward. Since a severed or leased interest is exactly what most mineral owners hold, 300 percent is the number that usually applies. Two things soften it. If production is not obtained in paying quantities, no charge is payable at all. And once the operator recovers the charges, you hold the same interest you would have had by participating. Can deductions be taken from my Mississippi royalty? Generally yes. Mississippi is treated as an at the well state, where the controlling authority is Piney Woods Country Life School v. Shell Oil Co., 726 F.2d 225 (5th Cir. 1984), applying Mississippi law. Worth being candid: that is a 1984 federal circuit decision rather than a Mississippi Supreme Court holding, so the rule is well settled by practice rather than by the state's highest court. Piney Woods did impose one limit, allowing processing facility costs to be allocated to lessors only up to the point the facility had been paid for. Does Mississippi have a dormant mineral act? No. Nonuse alone does not extinguish a Mississippi mineral interest, and a bill that would have created a severed mineral registration regime was introduced in 2011 and not enacted. But an untraceable owner can still lose control. Miss. Code Ann. 11-17-33 lets a chancery court appoint a receiver for the mineral interests of nonresident or unknown owners, and that receiver can lease the interest. Miss. Code Ann. 89-11-1 et seq. and 89-11-31 provide for escheat of severed minerals to the state, with a courthouse door sale within six months of a final escheat decree, though no mineral interest may be sold while it is still producing income and the surface owner may match the high bid. So the risk in Mississippi is not lapse for nonuse, it is being unfindable. My family never probated the estate. Can I still sell? Usually yes, but Mississippi makes it more formal than most states. There is no small estate affidavit that transfers real property, so a mineral interest passing at death generally requires a chancery court proceeding, either probate of the will or a determination of heirship suit. One convenience: the Chancery Clerk holds both the probate records and the land records in the same office, so the title work and the estate file are in one building. We handle and pay for the curative work as part of a purchase. Mississippi has no state estate or inheritance tax. ## Before you sign anything in Mississippi The things owners here most often wish they had read first. All free, none of it gated. - [How mineral rights are valued](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mineral-rights-value/), including the rule of thumb people quote and why it is usually wrong - [Selling mineral rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/sell-mineral-rights/) and [selling oil and gas royalties](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/sell-oil-and-gas-royalties/), with the real process and timeline - [The Pugh clause](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/pugh-clause/), the single most valuable sentence you can negotiate into a lease - [What a farm out is](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/farmout-agreements/), and why your operator suddenly changed - [The rule of capture](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/rule-of-capture/), and why a neighbor's well can legally drain your minerals - [Non-participating royalty interests](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/non-participating-royalty-interest/), if your deed carved one out - [Executive rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/executive-rights/), if somebody else signs the lease that binds your minerals - [Surface owner rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/surface-owner-rights/), if you own the ground and someone else owns what is under it - [Questions to ask a buyer](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/questions-to-ask/) and [what happens if you want out after signing](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/can-i-back-out-of-a-mineral-rights-sale/) Free Valuation ## Find out what your Mississippi minerals are worth. Free, no obligation, and no pressure. We reply within one business day, usually faster. Prefer the phone? Call or text [918-984-1645](tel:9189841645) and you will get Stephen, the owner, not a call center. If we miss you, we text back the same day. Your Name Phone Number Email Address Where are your minerals located? OklahomaTexasNew MexicoLouisiana ArkansasKansasNorth DakotaMontana WyomingColoradoUtahCalifornia West VirginiaOhioPennsylvaniaKentucky MichiganMississippiAlabamaAlaska Sand/Gravel/AggregateOther / Not sure County (if known) Interest type Select an option Minerals and Royalties Working Interest Overriding Royalty Interest An Entity (LLC, Partnership, Trust) Not Sure Are you currently receiving royalty checks? Select an option Yes No I Used To But They Stopped Not Sure Have you received offers for your minerals before? Select an option Yes No What best describes your situation? Select an option I'm ready to sell now I'm exploring my options I'm just curious what they're worth Anything else? (optional) Get My Free Valuation No cost, no obligation, and we never share your information.