Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit newsroom, is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Sign up for our newsletter for more stories straight to your inbox.
No.
Local governments in Wisconsin do not have the authority to enact rent control.
Under state law, “No city, village, town or county may regulate the amount of rent or fees charged for the use of a residential rental dwelling unit.”
The state of Wisconsin also cannot control rents as, “There are no state laws limiting the amount of a rent increase,” according to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Many states, including most of Wisconsin’s neighbors, have laws that prevent localities from enacting rent control. Others, such as Oregon and California, have statewide rent control.
Some cities have their own policies. Republican lawmakers in Minnesota unsuccessfully moved to cancel rent control measures approved by voters in St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Officials in Madison have pointed to the state law to explain why they cannot regulate rent increases, some reaching 20% a year for student renters.
Sources
Wisconsin State Legislature: Wis. Stat. § 66.1015 (1)
Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection: Tenants’ Rights and Responsibilities FAQs
National Multifamily Housing Council: Rent Control Laws by State
KARE-TV: Senate moves to ban rent control in Minnesota
Saint Paul Minnesota: Rent Stabilization Rules and Processes (2022)
Wisconsin State Journal: Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway considering strategies to prevent gentrification, displacement
The Daily Cardinal: Multiple off-campus Madison apartments to increase prices
iPropertyManagement.com: Minnesota Laws on Rent Increases & Fee Limits (Upd. 2022)
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Credit should be given, in this format: “By Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin Watch”
- If published online, you must include the links and link to wisconsinwatch.org
- If you share the story on social media, please mention @wisconsinwatch (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram)
- Don’t sell the story — it may not be marketed as an individual product.
- Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
- Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
- Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
- Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
- If we send you a request to change or remove Wisconsin Watch content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.
For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Andy Hall, executive director, at ahall@wisconsinwatch.org
