More Counties and Municipalities in Wisconsin Turning to Wheel Tax

Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 -- 8:00 AM

(Evan Casey, Wisconsin Public Radio) More counties and municipalities in Wisconsin are turning to a local wheel tax to help pay for repairs to roads and public transit.

According to Evan Casey with the Wisconsin Public Radio, state law allows communities to collect vehicle registration fees, known as a wheel tax, on top of the state’s annual vehicle registration fee, which is $85 for automobiles.

The revenue collected from the local wheel tax must be used for “transportation related purposes,” according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. In 2011, only four Wisconsin communities had a local wheel tax, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report.

Currently, 51 municipalities and 14 counties have a local wheel tax. Tyler Byrnes, a senior research associate at Wisconsin Policy Forum, said 10 municipalities have implemented a local wheel tax in the past year alone.

Wisconsin communities are still turning to the wheel tax even after a sweeping measure to send more money to local governments was passed in 2023. “This is further evidence of the few opportunities municipalities have to fund critical local services beyond, say, the property tax,” said Zach Vruwink, chief operating officer at the League of Wisconsin Municipalities.

Counties and municipalities rely heavily on the property tax to provide services for residents. But state law limits how much local governments can raise their property tax levies without voter approval.

“So every dollar that a city or a county raises from its wheel tax is a dollar that they don’t have to raise from somewhere else to pay for the roads, to pay for transit, some of these transportation priorities,” said Jason Stein, president of Wisconsin Policy Forum.

Local wheel tax collections currently range from $10 to $40 per vehicle across the state. In 2024, counties and municipalities collected $66.7 million from the local wheel tax, according to research from Wisconsin Policy Forum.

At least two cities, Eau Claire and Milwaukee, are currently looking to increase their local wheel tax. In Eau Claire, the tax would increase from $24 to $50 under city manager Stephanie Hirsch’s proposed 2026 city budget.

In a city update message from Hirsch, she wrote that the increase would generate over $1 million for the city next year. In that message, she also wrote that she knows the increase will “impact our residents.”

“Knowing this, we continue to work to spend every dollar with as much care as possible to maximize the impact on local services and minimize the impact on residents,” Hirsch wrote.

If the increase goes into effect in Eau Claire, residents would pay $165 in vehicle registration fees per vehicle every year because Eau Claire County also has a $30 wheel tax.

That would make the city the most expensive place to register a vehicle in the state, according to Byrnes.

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