YZ Canis Minoris is a red-hued star in the equatorial constellation of Canis Minor. With an apparent visual magnitude of 11.15, it is much too faint to be viewed with the naked eye. The distance to YZ CMi can be estimated from its annual parallax shift of , yielding a value of 19.5 light-years (5.97 parsecs). Presently the star is moving further away with a heliocentric radial velocity of +25.7 km/s. It made its closest approach some 162,000 years ago when it made perihelion passage at a distance of . YZ CMi is a potential member of the Beta Pictoris moving group.
This is a red dwarf star, or M-type main-sequence star, with a stellar classification of M5 V. It is a flare star, so called due to its stellar flares being more powerful than those of Earth's star, and is roughly three times the size of jupiter. A "megaflare" was observed on 16 January 2009, lasting for more than 7 hours. This was one of the most energetic flares observed on an isolated low-mass star. The radio emission from the star is in a 50 mHz bandwidth and is centered on 1464.9 mHz. The X-ray surface flux is . It has a coronal temperature of .
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