Land Lead Directory

Wisconsin Land Ownership Statistics 2025

How much of Wisconsin is vacant land, how many of its property owners live away from what they own, and which counties stand out — counted from Wisconsin Statewide Parcel Map parcel records for 71 counties (V12 (2025 tax roll)).

Every number below is free to quote. Each one has a copy button with the sentence, the source and this page's link, and the county-level data is a one-click CSV.

Download the county data (CSV)See it on the county mapBest counties for land flipping

Key statistics

  1. 3,506,146

    Wisconsin has 3,506,146 parcels on record across the 71 counties with published parcel rolls.

    Scope: 71 counties with published parcel rolls.

  2. 23%

    793,865 Wisconsin parcels — 23% of all parcels — are vacant land with no building on them.

    Scope: 71 counties with published parcel rolls.

  3. 28%

    28% of Wisconsin property owners — 797,289 ownership records — are absentee: their mailing address is not the parcel's.

    Scope: 52 counties that publish owner mailing addresses.

  4. 7%

    195,253 Wisconsin property owners (7%) have a mailing address in another state.

    Scope: 52 counties that publish owner mailing addresses.

  5. 48%

    The highest absentee-owner share in Wisconsin is Vilas County at 48%, followed by Door County (48%) and Milwaukee County (46%).

    Scope: counties with at least 1,000 mailable owners.

  6. 34%

    The highest out-of-state owner share in Wisconsin is Burnett County at 34%, followed by Sawyer County (27%) and Walworth County (23%).

    Scope: counties with at least 1,000 mailable owners.

  7. 29,183

    Dane County has the most vacant land parcels in Wisconsin: 29,183, followed by Grant County (22,876) and Marathon County (21,210).

    Scope: 71 counties with published parcel rolls.

  8. 17 ac

    In the typical Wisconsin county, the median vacant parcel is 17 acres; county medians run from 0.2 to 35.9 acres.

    Scope: 71 counties with published parcel rolls.

  9. 550

    550 Wisconsin vacant-land owners are behind on their property taxes, per the 4 counties whose delinquent-tax lists we track.

    Scope: 4 counties with a current delinquent-tax list.

By county

71 counties, A to Z. Owner-location columns are blank where the county's records can't support the mailing-vs-parcel comparison.

CountyParcelsVacant parcelsVacant %Absentee %Out-of-state %Median vacant acres
Adams County38,48912,91134%42%20%3.5
Ashland County21,3526,28829%25%19%20
Barron County45,01113,72130%27%11%24.4
Bayfield County35,89712,89436%29%21%12.5
Brown County105,67911,15111%33%2%5.6
Buffalo County24,41413,12354%21.4
Burnett County34,01510,39131%35%34%10
Calumet County29,6856,56122%22%2%15.7
Chippewa County52,86815,93130%19%4%30
Clark County35,56714,99742%34
Columbia County43,71913,83632%27%5%20
Crawford County23,13510,41945%21%9%19.9
Dane County218,85729,18313%28%3%3.9
Dodge County47,98712,22625%31%3%25
Door County43,56011,11626%48%19%5
Douglas County47,72912,69327%21%18%10
Dunn County36,01113,62338%29.2
Eau Claire County52,0159,70319%23%3%15.2
Florence County12,1683,44528%33%15%4.6
Fond du Lac County60,40815,08725%22%2%19
Forest County21,0224,99424%36%13%5.2
Grant County48,76522,87647%23%7%22
Green County28,0529,66034%24%5%17.8
Green Lake County19,4716,95336%30%10%19.4
Iowa County31,74015,07447%14%4%20
Iron County17,9634,20623%32%22%9.9
Jackson County27,65211,12840%24.7
Jefferson County45,1699,50221%22%3%20
Juneau County31,38111,42636%10
Kewaunee County16,7505,66634%19%3%21
La Crosse County54,1428,19115%26%4%10.5
Lafayette County21,56211,37153%22%8%30.5
Langlade County29,4927,54526%20
Lincoln County30,6167,34624%20.4
Manitowoc County49,74412,70226%21%3%15.3
Marathon County83,70821,21025%22%2%26.6
Marinette County57,98616,47328%9.8
Marquette County22,0308,25937%19.6
Menominee County4,51463714%0.5
Milwaukee County280,6765,2892%46%4%0.2
Monroe County39,36714,52837%16%6%17
Oconto County42,14212,05229%32%4%14.9
Oneida County58,35514,46625%36%17%3
Outagamie County94,42613,80815%22%2%9.8
Ozaukee County41,1652,9577%20%2%3.9
Pepin County9,6934,28244%23
Pierce County28,3789,31933%19%9%29.4
Polk County48,93714,72830%25%19%19.6
Portage County47,50911,58724%21%3%20
Price County27,89010,40837%35.9
Racine County84,5697,4649%40%5%1.3
Richland County20,9079,03043%18%5%28
Rock County73,1438,01311%28%4%3.6
Rusk County29,16312,05441%25.6
Sauk County50,76215,29030%25%8%13
Sawyer County42,90612,69130%30%27%5.8
Shawano County40,31813,63934%20
Sheboygan County62,0429,61315%21%3%11.3
St. Croix County54,90012,22022%28%8%20
Taylor County25,65010,42041%35
Trempealeau County33,15714,07442%17%4%22
Vernon County35,55515,96645%16.8
Vilas County49,90113,84928%48%22%1.8
Walworth County69,23112,72918%44%23%0.4
Washburn County34,9279,93528%10.7
Washington County63,6826,88711%19%2%9.6
Waukesha County164,7157,2284%19%2%1.2
Waupaca County43,17112,33729%18.8
Waushara County31,32811,20036%15
Winnebago County80,77210,15113%22%3%6.1
Wood County46,48411,13324%26%3%18.5

How these numbers are counted

  • Parcels are every record on the county's published parcel roll; vacant land is the county's own vacant land-use codes (no building value).
  • Absentee means the owner's mailing address differs from the parcel's address; out-of-state means the mailing address is in another state. Both are shares of owners with a mailable address, and are omitted for counties whose parcel addresses can't support the comparison.
  • Counts are deduplicated by owner and mailing address where the source allows it. Figures change when a county publishes a new roll.
  • Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Cite as: Land Lead Directory, "Wisconsin Land Ownership Statistics 2025", Wisconsin Statewide Parcel Map (V12 (2025 tax roll)). https://landleaddirectory.com/statistics/wisconsin
  • The same county files for every state we cover are also on Kaggle, Hugging Face and GitHub.

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