# Oklahoma's Royalty Interest Rate Changes November 1 > HB 1371 moves Oklahoma's late royalty interest from 12% compounded to 15% simple on November 1, 2026. Higher is not always better, and here is where it flips. Source: https://www.berlinroyalties.com/oil-scout/oklahoma-royalty-interest-changes-november-1/ 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. ## Oklahoma's Royalty Interest Rate Changes November 1 By **Stephen Clayman** ยท September 1, 2026 For thirty-four years, Oklahoma has owed royalty owners 12% per year, compounded annually, on late oil and gas payments. That number is in 52 O.S. Section 570.10(D)(1), it has been the single most useful sentence a royalty owner could say out loud on a phone call with owner relations, and on November 1 it goes away. House Bill 1371 replaces it. Governor Stitt signed the bill on May 6, 2026, at the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma's Sine Die celebration, after it cleared the Senate 44 to 0 and came back through the House 88 to 3. It was written as a negotiated deal between mineral owners and producers rather than a fight one side won, which is unusual enough in this business to be worth noting. The headline is that the rate goes up, from 12% to 15%. The headline is also incomplete, and if you have money sitting in suspense right now, the incomplete part is the part that matters to you. ## What actually changes on November 1? Three things, and the third one is the one nobody is talking about. **The interest rate moves from 12% compounded annually to 15% simple.** That is the change everyone is reporting. **Interest stops accruing during certain delays.** Probate proceedings, lien disputes, holds the owner asked for, and some uncashed or returned checks are carved out. Under current law, an operator that suspends your money has one lawful excuse, unmarketable title, and interest keeps running the whole time anyway. That is changing. **There is now a place for your money to go, and a deadline attached to it.** HB 1371 creates the State Managed Mineral Owner Fund, an escrow account under the State Treasurer. After proceeds have sat unpaid for 36 months, an operator can remit them plus accrued interest to the fund and be released from further liability. The fund is searchable online and gets published in newspapers twice a year, similar to how Oklahoma's unclaimed property system works. The bill also sets up an alternative dispute resolution path meant to keep these fights out of court. ## Is 15% actually better than 12%? Not always, and the reason is that "compounded" was doing real work in the old statute. Compounding grows on itself. Simple interest does not. So the new rate wins early and the old rate wins late, and they cross at **about four years and nine months**. | How late the payment is | Old: 12% compounded | New: 15% simple | Better for the owner | | 6 months | 5.8% | 7.5% | New || 1 year | 12.0% | 15.0% | New || 3 years | 40.5% | 45.0% | New || 4 years | 57.4% | 60.0% | New || 5 years | 76.2% | 75.0% | Old || 8 years | 147.6% | 120.0% | Old || 10 years | 210.6% | 150.0% | Old | On $50,000 of suspended royalty, one year late, the new rule pays you about $1,500 more. On the same $50,000 ten years late, the old rule would have paid about $30,000 more. So if your money has been in suspense since 2016 because your grandmother's estate was never probated, the change is not in your favor. If your operator is simply running two months behind, it is. ## Does this help owners or operators? Honestly, it depends on which owner you are, and anyone who tells you it is a clean win in either direction is selling something. Short delays got more expensive for operators, which is a real deterrent and the part owners should like. Long delays got cheaper, and the 36-month remittance option means the very long delays that produced the biggest interest awards may stop existing at all, because the money leaves the operator and goes to the state. Consider what that would have meant in *Cline v. Sunoco*. Sunoco refused to pay an owner who had not signed a division order. The court held that was no excuse, because Oklahoma has never required a signature, and the actual damages award, computed with 12% compounded interest, came to roughly $103.8 million. Under 15% simple, with a 36-month off-ramp to a state fund, a case like that looks very different. That is not a criticism of the bill. Predictability has value for everybody, and the escrow fund solves a genuine problem, which is that money for owners nobody can find used to sit on an operator's books indefinitely. But it is worth being clear-eyed that the negotiated part of a negotiated deal usually means both sides gave something up. ## What should I do before November 1? If you are owed money now, the most useful thing you can do in the next two months is start the clock and put it in writing. - **Find out whether you are actually in suspense.** Call owner relations and ask for the specific reason and the specific curative requirement. Get it in writing. Our [free letter templates](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/letter-templates/) include the request. - **Cure the title if that is the holdup.** In Oklahoma the two accepted cures are title becoming marketable under the Oklahoma Bar Association's title examination standards, or an acceptable affidavit of death and heirship under 16 O.S. Section 67. Be warned that the affidavit route usually requires the affidavit to have been of record for ten years, which is why operators ask for probate after a recent death. - **Remember they cannot withhold your money for refusing to sign a division order.** That was true before this bill and it is still true. *Hull v. Sun Refining and Marketing Co.*, 1989 OK 168, settled it. Read the [division order page](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/division-order/) before you sign anything. - **Know that partial suspense is not allowed.** If part of your interest is clean, they owe you that part. None of this is urgent in the manufactured sense. The statute is not a trap door and nothing expires on you at midnight on October 31. But interest accrues under the rule in force at the time, and the arithmetic above is a reason to understand which rule that is. ## What we could not confirm We read every public source we could find on this bill, including the official Oklahoma Senate release, and the reporting is consistent on the rate change, the effective date, the carve-outs, and the fund. We were not able to pull the enrolled bill text directly from the Legislature's server, which blocks automated retrieval, so we have not read the new subsection numbers against the codified statute with our own eyes. We are telling you that rather than papering over it. When the November codification lands we will read it and update this post, and if anything here turns out to be off, we will say so plainly on this page rather than quietly editing it. If you have money in suspense and want a second set of eyes on it, [call or text 918-984-1645](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) or send us what you have. Free, and you do not have to be selling anything. ## Related reading - [I Got a Pooling Order. Now What?](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/oil-scout/i-got-a-pooling-order-now-what/) - [The Division Order](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/oil-scout/the-division-order/) - [Royalty payment laws by state, with the statute for each](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/royalty-payment-laws/) - [Money sitting in operator suspense](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/unclaimed-royalties/) ### Thinking about selling your minerals? Berlin Royalties buys Oklahoma minerals and royalties, and we show you the work behind every offer. Free, no obligation, and if keeping them is the right answer we will tell you that too. [Get a Free Valuation](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) or call or text **[918-984-1645](tel:9189841645)** More From The Oil Scout [August 21, 2026 ### Nine Billion Dollars Changed Hands and Nobody Told the Mineral Owners Oklahoma had eight upstream deals in one quarter, the most in three years. Diversified is now the largest operator in the state. Thousands of royalty owners are about to get a name they do not recognize on a check.](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/oil-scout/nine-billion-dollars-changed-hands/) [August 21, 2026 ### The Curve and the Headline Data centers are contracting for gas directly at the wellhead. That changes the long end of the forward curve, which is the only part of it that matters to a royalty you will hold for twenty years.](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/oil-scout/the-curve-and-the-headline/) [August 20, 2026 ### What the Ohio Permits Are Saying There are nine rigs running in Ohio and they are all in six counties. But EOG has filed twelve permits in a seventh county that has no rig at all, and permits come first.](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/oil-scout/what-the-ohio-permits-are-saying/) [August 17, 2026 ### The Cherokee Nobody Is Writing About Roger Mills County is tied for the most active county in Oklahoma. There are no headlines about it, and that is exactly the problem for mineral owners out there.](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/oil-scout/the-cherokee-nobody-is-writing-about/)