Weekly Fiscal Facts are provided to Wisconsin Newspaper Association members by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the state’s leading resource for nonpartisan state and local government research and civic education. The Wisconsin Policy Forum logo can be downloaded here.
Wisconsin’s tax burden remained at an all-time low in 2025, as its residents’ combined incomes grew at the same rate as state and local tax collections.
The state and local tax burden held steady at 9.60% in 2025, matching the previous year’s record low. This ratio between what Wisconsin residents pay in all state and local taxes, and what they receive in income from all sources, remained at its lowest point since at least the 1970s.
Each year, the Wisconsin Policy Forum examines every state and local tax paid, from bingo license fees ($187,039 in 2025) to gross local property taxes ($13.64 billion). To these fiscal year 2025 figures, we compare state personal income data from the prior calendar year, in this case 2024, to calculate Wisconsin’s tax burden.
Overall state and local tax collections in 2025 rose 5.0%, making it one of the largest annual increases in the last two decades. That was due in part to the largest percentage increase in local tax revenue in two decades. However, the state and local tax burden held steady because statewide personal income also grew by 5.0% in 2025.
Local tax revenue — all tax revenues collected by municipalities, counties, school districts, and technical college, tax increment and special districts — increased 6.4% in Wisconsin in 2025, to about $13.1 billion. This was the largest increase since 2005. Net revenue from local property taxes, Wisconsin’s single largest local or state tax, increased statewide by 4.6%.
State government’s largest revenue source, the individual income tax, saw collections increase in 2025 by 7.5% to $10.45 billion, the largest percentage increase since 2010. This is notable given the income tax cuts in both the 2021-23 and 2023-25 state budgets. Looking to income tax collections for fiscal year 2026, they are projected to fall, as the 2025-27 state budget included additional annual income tax cuts of more than $500 million.
Meanwhile, continued inflation in consumer prices helped drive an increase of 3.2% in state sales tax revenue in 2025, with total collections hitting $7.83 billion. Local sales tax revenues increased 12.2%, due in part to new or increased local sales taxes in the city and county of Milwaukee.
The Forum has chronicled the long-term decline in Wisconsin’s state and local tax burden, which began in the mid-1980s. It became more consistent since 2010, as state leaders took more aggressive efforts to reduce the tax burden.
However, the experience of individual taxpayers will vary. The average tax burden may be felt differently depending on where in the state a taxpayer lives, his or her level and source of income, type of business, and other factors.
After a generation in which Wisconsin’s elected leaders prioritized limiting state and local tax growth, these years of limited taxes and budgets mean that many efficiency measures and spending curbs already have been implemented. As a result, in the years to come, elected officials could face heightened conflicts between lowering the tax burden even further, or preserving high-quality services.
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.
