Wisconsin Private Lot Towing: $150 Cap and Sign Rules

The tow has to be authorized before the price matters. Under Wis. Stat. § 349.13(3m)(c), if private property is properly posted and an unauthorized vehicle is parked there, the vehicle may be removed immediately at the owner's expense whether or not a parking citation is issued. If the property is not properly posted, § 349.13(3m)(b) allows removal only upon the issuance of a repossession judgment or the issuance of a citation for illegal parking, so an unposted Wisconsin lot cannot simply call a truck. Removal may be performed only by a towing service acting at the request of the property owner or the owner's agent, a traffic officer, or a parking enforcer, under sub. (3m)(d)1., and sub. (3m)(dr)1. forbids towing a vehicle that has been reported to a law enforcement agency as stolen.

What "properly posted" means is spelled out in Wis. Admin. Code § Trans 319.04. A notice must be erected at each vehicle entrance to the parking area, conspicuous and readily legible to drivers coming through that entrance, and a second notice must be conspicuous and readily legible to a person standing at the parked vehicle, with the bottom of that notice at least 4 feet above the parking surface. The message must either state in words that unauthorized parking is prohibited and unauthorized vehicles may be removed, or pair the tow-away symbol with a word message prohibiting unauthorized parking. Letters must be at least 2 inches high in a color that contrasts with the background. The 2 inch and 4 foot requirements apply to notices erected after February 1, 2016, the effective date of the rule adopted in CR 15-044.

Before the truck leaves, Wis. Stat. § 349.13(3m)(d)2. requires the towing service to notify a local law enforcement agency of the make, model, vehicle identification number and registration plate number of the vehicle and the location it is being taken to. Wisconsin Admin. Code § Trans 319.05(1) directs that notice to the municipal police department, or the county sheriff where there is no police department, by the agency's non-emergency telephone number unless another method is designated, and § Trans 319.05(2) adds the towing service's name and phone number and the destination's address and phone number to the required content. This is the enforcement hook that matters to a vehicle owner: under § 349.13(3m)(dr)2. a towing service may not collect any charges for removal or storage unless it made a good faith effort to give that notice, and in a city of the 1st class, meaning a city of 150,000 population or more under § 62.05(1)(a), the good faith allowance disappears and any noncompliance kills the charges outright.

The caps in § Trans 319.03(1) are individual total amounts, not starting points. Paragraph (a) sets $150 for a vehicle removed using a flatbed, hook and chain, wheel-lift, boom, or any other method, so the equipment choice cannot raise the price. Paragraphs (b) and (c) set $25 per 24 consecutive hours outdoors and $35 per 24 consecutive hours indoors. Paragraph (d) permits up to another $150 for necessary and commercially reasonable special equipment charges or travel beyond twenty miles, but only where the vehicle has unusual characteristics or a gross vehicle weight rating or registered weight of 10,001 pounds or more, where spatial constraints impede the tow, or where roundtrip travel exceeds 20 miles, in which case the surcharge is $3.00 per mile for the excess and the tow slip must show beginning and ending odometer readings to a tenth of a mile. The same paragraph expressly forbids administrative fees, gate fees, lien processing fees, and any other fee for equipment or procedures ordinarily required to remove or store a vehicle. Two further charges are possible: if the municipality asks for the $35 service fee allowed by § 349.13(3m)(dm), § Trans 319.03(2) requires the towing service to collect it and remit it, and § Trans 319.03(3) then lets the towing service add a matching fee of its own, both on top of the sub. (1) caps.

Storage time is counted, not estimated. Section Trans 319.03(4) runs the storage period from the date and time the towing service gives the law enforcement notice until the vehicle is retrieved, rounded up to whole 24 hour periods, and bars any storage fee for a calendar day on which the facility is open less than 4 consecutive hours between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. for retrieval. A lot that closes on Sunday cannot bill for Sunday. Finding the car is also a statutory right: under § Trans 319.05(3) the law enforcement agency keeps the tow record for at least 60 days and, on request from the owner or a person the owner authorizes, must immediately provide the towing service's name and telephone number, the date and time of the tow, and the address of the storage location.

Wisconsin regulates police-ordered and municipal tows separately and far more loosely. Under Wis. Stat. § 349.13(3), when a traffic officer finds a vehicle parked in violation or a disabled vehicle obstructing a freeway or expressway, the officer may move it or have it moved, and any charges for removal are regulated by local ordinance rather than by the Trans 319 caps. Wisconsin Stat. § 349.115, as amended by 2023 Wis. Act 1 and 2025 Wis. Act 46, lets a political subdivision authorize impoundment by ordinance for a violation of § 346.62 and hold the vehicle until towing, storage, and any outstanding fine or forfeiture are paid, though a vehicle reported stolen must be returned without any fee or charge.

The vehicle owner's main remedy is the charge-forfeiture rule. Under Wis. a towing service that did not make a good faith effort to notify law enforcement before the tow may not collect anything for removal or storage, and in a 1st class city the standard is strict compliance rather than good faith. 13(3m)(e). a towing service may impound the vehicle until the reasonable charges are paid, and if they are unpaid 30 days after removal and no written installment agreement is in place, the vehicle is deemed abandoned and may be disposed of as other abandoned vehicles are.

13(3m)(dg), which gives an owner disputing a charge a documentary trail. Note two protections Wisconsin does not provide: there is no statutory drop fee entitling an owner who returns before the truck departs to pay a reduced amount, and no statute gives an owner a right to retrieve personal belongings from a vehicle already at the storage lot.