Run your maximum bid
The free Max-Bid Calculator works backwards from your resale price to the highest hammer bid you can pay, with the fees shown line by line.
All Wisconsin counties · Wisconsin tax sale hub
Land · Wisconsin tax sale guide
Racine County tax sales, Wisconsin
Verified
Racine County publishes the most complete sale terms in this Wisconsin set, and they carry the statute's hard floor: each property must be sold at its minimum appraised value or greater, and no property can be sold for less. The process is paper and in person: packets cost 2.50 dollars at the Treasurer's Office, bids must be physically received in a sealed envelope by 11:00 AM on the opening day, and every bid is subject to final acceptance by the Finance Committee of the County Board, a step the county says may take approximately 6 to 8 weeks. Unverified flag: the terms state that a successful bidder who fails to pay forfeits a deposit, so a deposit is part of the bid, but the terms read do not state the deposit amount.
Selling office: Racine County Treasurer
Next sale: No single annual date: sealed bid sales are held at certain times throughout the year when the county has foreclosed inventory. Racine County does not run one annual sale. When a sale opens, the property list and the minimum bid for each property are published in the Racine Journal Times and posted on the Treasurer's website, with mapping and photos through the Treasurer Tax Foreclosure link. No dated sale was open in the sources read.
As of November 9, 2026, no Racine County sale date was open in the sources read. The 2027 working pattern is a sealed bid sale when foreclosed inventory accumulates, announced in the Racine Journal Times and on the Treasurer's website; the packet, the 11:00 AM physical receipt deadline and the Finance Committee acceptance are the steps to plan around.
Dates and deadlines
| Next sale | No single annual date: sealed bid sales are held at certain times throughout the year when the county has foreclosed inventory |
| The certificate | On September 1 the county treasurer issues a tax certificate under s. 74.57 for taxes unpaid at the close of August 31, held by the county itself. |
| Redemption | The owner may redeem while the certificate runs, generally two years, paying the delinquent taxes with interest and penalty under s. 74.47. |
| Foreclosure | Racine County acquires its sale inventory through in rem tax foreclosure. The county will not later recommend a bid from anyone who owned property taken in a Racine County in rem action in the preceding five years. |
| The list | At the time of a sale the list of properties and the minimum bid for each are published in the Racine Journal Times and posted on the Treasurer's website. Sale packets, bid form, terms and property list, are picked up at the Treasurer's Office, 730 Wisconsin Ave, Racine, for 2.50 dollars each. |
| The bid | Bids must be physically received in the Treasurer's Office in a sealed envelope marked Sealed Bid by 11:00 AM on the day of the sealed bid opening. No property can be sold for less than its minimum appraised value. |
| Acceptance and closing | All submitted bids are subject to final acceptance by the Finance Committee of the Racine County Board of Supervisors, and the process may take approximately 6 to 8 weeks. Successful bidders pay the remainder of their bids in full, plus a 32.00 dollar deed recording fee, within 30 days after notification. |
| Format | Sealed bid sale under s. 75.69, held at intervals through the year, plus subsequent sealed bid and over-the-counter sales: Racine County sells properties taken in tax foreclosure by sealed bid under Wisconsin Statute s. 75.69. The Treasurer names three sale types: Sealed Bid, Subsequent Sealed Bid, and Over-the-Counter. Lists and minimum bids publish in the Racine Journal Times and on the Treasurer's website when a sale opens. |
| Selling office | Racine County Treasurer |
Sources: Racine County Treasurer, In-Rem Sale Terms of Sale, Sealed Bid Sale (Wis. Stat. s. 75.69). Racine County Treasurer, Public Sale of Properties Taken in Tax Foreclosure. Wisconsin Statutes s. 75.69, Sale of tax delinquent real estate. Confirm with the selling office before relying on any date on this page: sales move, terms change, and parcels are pulled up to sale day.
Research Racine County parcels before you bid
A sale list gives you the parcels, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across Racine County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.
Open a PropertyRadar accountSee plans and pricing
Pine and Brass is a PropertyRadar partner. If you open an account through these links, we may earn a commission; it does not change the price you pay.
How Wisconsin tax sales work
- Delinquent taxes accrue at eighteen percent a year, and nobody auctions anything. Under s. 74.47 unpaid Wisconsin taxes bear interest at one percent per month plus a penalty of one half of one percent per month. There is no lien sale at this stage, in any county, to anyone.
- On September 1 the treasurer issues the tax certificate to the county itself. Under s. 74.57 the county treasurer issues a tax certificate for the taxes and charges unpaid at the close of August 31, and the certificate holder is the county. The investor product that lien states sell simply does not exist in Wisconsin.
- The owner redeems from the county, generally within two years. Redemption means paying the delinquent taxes with the accrued interest and penalty to the county treasurer. While the certificate runs, the county holds a lien and nothing more; it cannot sell the land.
- Title moves by tax deed or by in rem foreclosure. When redemption expires unredeemed, the county may take a tax deed under ss. 75.01, 75.12 and 75.14, after the notice s. 75.12 requires, with the owner able to redeem until the deed is recorded; or it may foreclose in rem under s. 75.521, where the published notice fixes a last day for redemption at least eight weeks after first publication and the judgment vests title in the county. The City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County may file after one year of delinquency; other counties generally after two years.
- Only then does the public get a purchase point. Tax-deeded lands are sold under ss. 75.35, 75.36 and 75.69 in the manner the county board sets: sealed bids, standing lists, online auctions and over-the-counter sales all appear in this set. Where s. 75.69 governs, no parcel may be sold for less than its appraised value, and conveyances are executed by the county clerk.
- The former owner keeps two statutory protections. The county board must provide by ordinance a right for the former owner of a single-family owner-occupied property to repurchase before the county sells (s. 75.35(3)), and on any sale the proceeds are distributed under s. 75.36, with the remainder going to a former owner who used the property as a homestead in the five years before acquisition (s. 75.36(4)).
How buying works in Racine County
There is no online registration. Buy the sale packet at the Treasurer's Office, 730 Wisconsin Ave, Racine (County Courthouse, 1st Floor, north end), complete the bid form, and deliver it in a sealed envelope marked Sealed Bid so it is physically received by 11:00 AM on the opening day. Bidder exclusions apply: the county will not accept bids from property owners who owe delinquent property taxes, have outstanding judgments, or have health, building, or zoning code violations at the time of bidding.
- The appraisal is the market's first opinion, and the floor. Under s. 75.69 a county cannot sell below appraised value, so the interesting Wisconsin parcels are the ones where the appraisal is stale, the property has changed, or two sale rounds have taught the county its floor is wrong. Research the parcel against the appraisal, not against the tax amount, which the buyer never sees as a price.
- Time is the real inventory cost. A parcel entering delinquency today reaches a county sale years later: certificate period, deed or foreclosure, appraisal, then the sale round. The buyers who do well in Wisconsin work the standing lists and repeat sales patiently instead of waiting for a single annual event that does not exist.
Terms: what a bid actually costs
| Deposit, Racine County | A deposit is part of the Racine County bid: the terms provide that a successful bidder who does not pay the balance within 30 days after notification forfeits the deposit. Unverified flag: the terms read for this record do not state the deposit amount or percentage, so no figure is given here; the sale packet carries it. |
| Payment, Racine County | Successful bidders pay the remainder of the bid in full, plus a 32.00 dollar deed recording fee, within 30 days after notification, or the deposit is forfeited. The county offers no financing. Properties are sold AS IS and deeded by quit claim, and the deed is mailed to the new owner. |
| What is sold | Tax-deeded land: real estate the county already owns, taken by tax deed, foreclosure of tax certificate, deed in lieu, or in rem judgment under s. 75.521 (s. 75.35(1)). You are buying land from the county, not a lien, and there is no certificate yield to model. |
| When you can buy | Only after the county holds title. The delinquency years, the certificate period (generally two years) and the deed or foreclosure process all happen before any public sale. A Wisconsin parcel cannot be bought early at any stage of that pipeline. |
| The price floor | Where the county sells under s. 75.69, no property may be sold for less than its appraised value. Counties that sell under s. 75.35 board-set terms may express the same discipline as a minimum bid or a listed appraised price; read the county's own terms, because the floor is the number every bid is measured against. |
| Redemption | Redemption belongs to the period before the county takes title: from the county treasurer while the certificate runs, until the deed is recorded on the tax deed route, or until the last day fixed in the in rem notice. Once the county holds title and sells, there is no redemption from the county's buyer. |
| The former owner's rights | Before the county sells, the former owner of a single-family owner-occupied property holds a statutory repurchase right the county board must provide by ordinance (s. 75.35(3)), on payment of the county's costs and the taxes that would have been owed. On a sale, proceeds are distributed under s. 75.36, and a former owner who used the property as a homestead in the five years before acquisition receives the remainder. |
| The deed | Conveyances are executed by the county clerk under the clerk's hand and the seal of the county (s. 75.35(2)(c)). Counties in this set convey by quitclaim deed as their standard practice; warranty deeds appear only by exception in individual records. |
Unsold parcels: subsequent sealed bid and over-the-counter
Racine County names its leftover channels in its own sale types. A property that does not sell in the first sealed bid round can be offered in a Subsequent Sealed Bid sale, and property still held after that is available Over-the-Counter from the Treasurer. The s. 75.69 floor travels with the parcel: even over the counter, the county's terms hold the minimum appraised value line.
Before you bid
- Forget the lien auction playbook. There is no certificate to buy, no rate to bid down and no redemption premium to collect in Wisconsin. Every number that matters sits on the land side: appraised value, condition, title after the county's acquisition, and the county's sale terms.
- Check the former owner's position before you price. The repurchase right and the proceeds rules mean some parcels come to sale with a former owner who can still act, and homestead proceeds follow the former owner after your purchase, not you. Read the county ordinance provisions for the parcel's sale round.
- Assume the sale calendar is a watch, not a date. Most Wisconsin counties in this set sell when inventory and appraisals are ready: standing lists, sealed bid rounds and platform auctions through the year. The pages that name no date are telling the truth about the system.
- Set the maximum before you bid. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your exit value to the highest bid you can pay, with the costs shown.
Every Wisconsin county in this set
One page per county, each verified against its own county source. Wisconsin has 72 counties; this set is the top 10 by population.
VERIFY BEFORE YOU GO
Keep going
Get the Wisconsin alerts
The Pine membership is built on alerts: members pick their counties, get an email when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis done. Wisconsin counties are being added from the interest list first, in the order readers ask for them.
Once a deadline puts you in a sale, the Land Investor Due Diligence Toolkit is the checklist and bid worksheet to run on each parcel before you bid. The same desk runs Florida tax deed sales, Texas tax sales, Pennsylvania tax sales, Georgia tax sales, North Carolina tax foreclosure sales, Ohio tax foreclosure sales, Illinois tax lien sales, Michigan tax foreclosure sales, Arizona tax lien sales, California tax defaulted property sales, Colorado tax lien sales, South Carolina tax sales, Indiana tax lien sales, Tennessee delinquent tax sales, Wisconsin tax deed sales and Missouri tax sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.
Pine Parcel Alerts · The paid tier
Racine County · WISCONSIN
The sale dates are free. The parcels are the product.
Members set their counties and their parameters, parcel size and back taxes among them, and every matching parcel arrives by email with a one-page deal analysis: what the parcel is, when it sells, and what to bid. The dates and the basic alerts on this page stay free; Pine Parcel Alerts is $4.99 a month or $49 a year for the parcels themselves, screened and analyzed.
Wisconsin sale lists and county data, first.
One email when a Wisconsin county opens for alerts, plus new county pages as they post. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
More state guides
New York tax sales · Florida tax deed sales · Texas tax sales · Pennsylvania tax sales · Georgia tax sales · North Carolina tax foreclosure sales · Ohio tax foreclosure sales · Illinois tax lien sales · Michigan tax foreclosure sales · Arizona tax lien sales · California tax defaulted property sales · Colorado tax lien sales · South Carolina tax sales · Indiana tax lien sales · Tennessee delinquent tax sales · Missouri tax sales