By the end of 2025, nearly half of all Wisconsinites will be required to pay a fee to their municipality or county to register their vehicle.
Statewide revenues from local option vehicle registration fees – commonly called wheel taxes — totaled more than $70 million in fiscal year 2025. This marks a dramatic increase from a decade ago, when such fees raised less than $10 million for local governments throughout Wisconsin.
These revenues underwent a very rapid period of growth from 2015 through 2021, during which time the number of municipalities, towns and counties with wheel taxes more than tripled. After 2021, total statewide revenue growth from wheel taxes began to slow. But then in fiscal year 2025, total statewide wheel tax revenues increased 12%, their largest annual increase since 2019.
Wisconsin local governments have the authority to charge a registration fee on nearly any vehicle kept in their jurisdiction. Heavy trucks over 8,000 pounds are generally excluded. The fees can be imposed by a simple vote of the local governing body, and rates are not limited. Funds from wheel taxes must be spent to pay for transportation-related services.
These fees have been an option for municipalities in some form since 1967, and for counties since 1979. However, until 2010, relatively few governments utilized the option. In more recent years however, a confluence of factors — including stagnant state aid, strict levy limits, plus the limited number of revenue alternatives — has caused an increasing number of communities to consider this fee. More recently, since 2021, high rates of inflation imposed an additional fiscal pressure on local governments.
Since 2010 — when just four local governments in Wisconsin collected wheel taxes — the number of communities doing so has skyrocketed, as detailed in our 2021 report. As of Nov. 1, 2025, 63 Wisconsin municipalities, towns and counties were collecting wheel taxes, Wisconsin Department of Transportation data show. Five more had adopted them and are set to begin collecting wheel taxes in 2026.
Municipal fees range from $40 on the high end, in communities like Shawano in northeastern Wisconsin, Madison and Janesville, to $10 on the low end in Boscobel and River Falls, among other municipalities. County fees range from $30, charged by Eau Claire, Milwaukee and Portage counties, to $15 in Langlade County.
In most places, either a municipality or county has imposed a wheel tax, but not both. There are notable exceptions, including in three of the state’s 10 most populous cities, Milwaukee, Madison and Eau Claire, where both the city and county collect a wheel tax.
Wheel taxes are one of only a few revenue-raising options that state law permits local governments to adopt. In some places, they are adding significant costs for motorists. Still, such fees remain just one small part of the overall cost of vehicle ownership. The Wisconsin DOT’s cost-to-own calculator shows that in most circumstances, the cost for Wisconsin motorists to own and drive a vehicle falls below that of our neighboring states.
This information is provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members as a service of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. Learn more at wispolicyforum.org.
