Gross property tax levies across Wisconsin increased 4.2% in 2024, the second largest increase since 2009. In the last 15 years, this increase in levies by all local governments was second only to the 4.6% annual increase in 2023.

It is due to factors including significant numbers of school districts passing referenda to increase their tax levies, as well as an increase to school district revenue limits in the 2023-25 state budget. 

Total equalized property values increased 8.3% statewide in 2025. This was less than the double-digit-percentage growth seen in 2022 and 2023, but still the third-largest annual increase since 2006. 

Residential property values for the state of Wisconsin grew 8.6% in 2025, a slight slowdown from 2024 and a significant slowdown from 2022 and 2023. Still, this was a larger increase than the state saw in any year between 2007 and 2021. Statewide commercial property values increased by 7.2% in 2025, a decline from the double-digit-percentage growth seen in the two prior years.

Because the annual growth in property values again exceeded the 4.2% growth in levies, the statewide gross property tax rate fell from $15.53 per $1,000 of equalized property value to $15.03, a 3.2% decline. This is the eleventh consecutive year in which the state’s aggregate tax rate has dropped.

These are among the statewide findings from the Forum’s 2025 Property Values and Taxes DataTool, which features interactive data for all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties and nearly 1,850 cities, villages, and towns. It is the latest in a series of Forum interactive tools meant to provide all Wisconsinites with essential data about their schools, local governments, and state and regional economy.

The tool uses state data on December 2024 gross property tax levies (not including state tax credits) and tax rates adopted for 2025 budgets, as well as updated property values as of January 1, 2025 that will be used to calculate tax bills this coming December.

In the seven-county southeast Wisconsin region, 2024 aggregate property tax levies by all local governments increased by 4.8%, the largest increase in gross tax levies in the region since 2008. Within the city of Milwaukee, the gross tax levy for all local governments increased by 11.3%, the most since at least 1984, the first year in our dataset. That is in large part a reflection of the 2024 referendum to increase the funding and levy for the Milwaukee Public Schools.

In the southeast Wisconsin region, overall equalized property values increased 7.2% in 2025, a slight uptick from 2024 (6.2%) but significantly less than 2023 (12.0%). Racine County experienced the highest annual increase in 2025, at 10.7%; Milwaukee County had the smallest increase at 4.0%.

In Dane County, aggregate property tax levies grew by 5.7% in 2024. This was down from the 2023 increase of 7.8% but still the second largest increase since 2019 (7.0%). Total equalized property values in Dane County grew by 9.2% in 2025, a slight increase from a year earlier.

— 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.