# North Dakota vs Montana: Royalty Owner Rights Compared

> Same rock, different law. Montana royalty owners pay 14.8 percent severance while the working interest gets a holiday. North Dakota pays 18 percent automatic interest on late royalties and has an ombudsman. Side by side.

Source: https://www.berlinroyalties.com/north-dakota-vs-montana-royalties/
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.

Williston Basin

## North Dakota versus Montana

The Bakken does not stop at the state line, but your rights do. Two owners with identical acreage on either side of it are protected very differently, and the gap is wider than almost anyone realises.

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Same formation, same operators in several cases, and two quite different deals for the person receiving the check. If you own on both sides, or you are comparing an offer on Montana acreage with one on North Dakota acreage, these differences are worth more than a negotiation.

## The three that matter most

### 1. Montana royalty owners pay far more severance tax

Montana taxes non-working interests, which means royalty, at **14.8 percent** across essentially every category, under M.C.A. 15-36-304. The working interest gets a **0.5 percent** holiday for the first eighteen months of a horizontal well. The royalty owner does not.

North Dakota royalty owners pay a 5 percent gross production tax plus a 5 percent oil extraction tax, so 10 percent, with relief available in some categories.

On the first eighteen months of a Montana horizontal Bakken well, the royalty owner is carrying a severance rate roughly thirty times the working interest's. That is not a loophole anyone is exploiting. It is how the statute is built, and it comes straight off your check.

### 2. North Dakota pays interest on late royalties automatically

Under N.D.C.C. 47-16-39.1, North Dakota royalties are due **150 days** after production is marketed, and late payments carry **18 percent per annum** until paid. The statute is explicit that this runs "without the requirement that the mineral owner ... request the payment of interest." You do not have to ask.

Montana pays faster after the first check, at 60 days for oil and 90 for gas under M.C.A. 82-10-103, against North Dakota's flat 150. Its late payment interest is the maximum rate under M.C.A. 31-1-107, which is a formula rather than a fixed number: the greater of 15 percent or six points above the Federal Reserve prime rate.

So Montana is quicker when things go right and North Dakota is more forceful when they go wrong.

### 3. North Dakota gives you four tools Montana does not

- **An ownership interest statement.** Within 120 days of first sale, or of any change in the spacing unit or decimal, the operator must tell you the spacing unit, the effective date, your net mineral acres, the gross acres in the unit and your decimal. N.D.A.C. 43-02-06-01.1. See [how to use it](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/north-dakota/ownership-interest-statement/).

- **A records inspection right.** N.D.C.C. 47-16-39.2 lets you inspect and copy production and royalty records on written notice, sue to compel if you are refused or ignored for 30 days, and recover costs and attorney's fees if you prevail.

- **A bar on withholding for an unsigned division order.** N.D.C.C. 47-16-39.3 says royalty payments may not be withheld because an interest owner has not executed a division order, and that a division order may not alter the lease.

- **An ombudsman.** The North Dakota Royalty Oversight Program, free, confidential, two business day response, at (701) 328-5110.

We looked for Montana equivalents of all four in Title 82, Chapter 10, Part 1, which contains only five sections, and did not find them. Montana's own mineral owner guidance directs royalty disputes to district court. We should be precise about what that means: this is our finding from reading the sections that exist, not a statute affirmatively saying Montana has no such rights.

## The full comparison

| | North Dakota | Montana |

| First payment due | 150 days after marketing | 120 days after initial marketing || Ongoing payments | 150 days | 60 days oil, 90 days gas || Late payment interest | 18% per annum, automatic | Greater of 15% or prime plus 6 points || Small balance rule | Under $50 may be paid semiannually | Under $50 semiannually, under $10 annually || Check stub detail | Twelve required items | Eleven required items, plus every charge itemised by line || Stub violation | Class B misdemeanour | Misdemeanour, fine to $1,000 || Severance borne by royalty | 10% | 14.8% || Ownership interest statement | Yes, within 120 days | None located || Records inspection right | Yes, with fee shifting | None located || Division order cannot be forced | Yes, expressly | No such bar located || Ombudsman | Yes | None located || Unclaimed mineral proceeds | Three years | Reported as five, worth confirming || Nonresident withholding | Applies, confirm the current rate | 6% on net royalty |

## Where each state is heading

Worth knowing if you are weighing which side of the line to hold.

**Montana is the growth side in percentage terms.** EIA figures through May 2026 show Montana crude production rising from about 51,964 barrels a day in 2021 to about 78,036 in 2025, up roughly 50 percent, with the first five months of 2026 running 4.6 percent ahead of the same period in 2025. North Dakota over the same stretch has been flat to slightly down.

**In absolute terms Montana is still small**, at roughly seven percent of North Dakota's volume. The activity is concentrated in Richland and Roosevelt Counties, where Kraken, Continental, White Rock and EMEP have been filing Bakken and Three Forks spacing and pooling.

Neither of those facts changes the severance arithmetic. A growing Montana well still hands its royalty owner a 14.8 percent bill.

### Own on both sides of the line?

Send us what you have. We will tell you what each side is actually worth after the tax that applies to it, which is not the same comparison most offers make. Free, no obligation, and we buy in both states.

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## Related

- [The statement your North Dakota operator owes you](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/north-dakota/ownership-interest-statement/)

- [Flared gas royalty in North Dakota](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/north-dakota/flared-gas-royalty/)

- [Where Bakken drilling is moving](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/bakken/where-the-drilling-is-moving/)

- [Royalty payment laws for all twenty states](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/royalty-payment-laws/)

- [North Dakota](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/north-dakota/) and [Montana](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/montana/) mineral rights

- [How land is surveyed in North Dakota](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/land-survey/north-dakota/) and [in Montana](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/land-survey/montana/)

Statutes cited: N.D.C.C. 47-16-39.1, 47-16-39.2, 47-16-39.3 and 38-08-06.3; N.D.A.C. 43-02-06-01 and 43-02-06-01.1; M.C.A. 82-10-103, 82-10-104, 82-10-110, 15-36-304 and 31-1-107. Production figures from EIA through May 2026. Several Montana entries above read "none located," which means we did not find a provision in the sections that exist rather than that a statute says none exists. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a tax advisor, and tax treatment turns on facts we cannot see from here.