Does Wisconsin have its own lead paint disclosure law for landlords?

No. Wisconsin imposes no state-specific lead-based paint disclosure duty on landlords. The leasing disclosure duty in Wisconsin is entirely federal, under 42 U.S.C. 4852d with implementing rules at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F and 24 CFR Part 35 Subpart A. Wisconsin's own lead statutes at Wis. Stat. 254.11 and following, and the rules at Wis. Admin. Code ch. DHS 163, are a certification, investigation, and abatement regime aimed at contractors, risk assessors, and health departments. They do not create a landlord disclosure form. Wisconsin law does matter in three adjacent ways: the habitability duty at Wis. Stat. 704.07, the code-violation and habitability disclosure at Wis. Admin. Code ATCP 134.04(2) and Wis. Stat. 704.07(2)(bm), and the lead hazard order regime at Wis. Stat. 254.166.

Which Wisconsin rentals require a lead-based paint disclosure?

Any residential rental constructed before 1 January 1978, which the rule calls target housing. Units built in 1978 or later sit outside the rule. The exclusions are narrow. Under the current 40 CFR 745.103, target housing means any housing constructed prior to 1978, except housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities or any 0-bedroom dwelling (unless any child who is less than 6 years of age resides or is expected to reside in such housing). Read the grammar carefully: the child-under-six parenthetical sits at the end of the except-clause and qualifies both limbs, so a studio occupied by a child under six is target housing and the disclosure is required. That has been the text since 13 January 2025, when EPA's final rule of 12 November 2024 conformed the regulation to 42 U.S.C. 4851b(27). Transaction-level exemptions at 40 CFR 745.101 cover foreclosure sales, leases of certified lead-based paint free housing, short-term leases of 100 days or less with no renewal, and qualifying lease renewals. None of those four carries a child condition.

Do I have to give Wisconsin tenants 10 days to inspect for lead?

No. The 10-day inspection opportunity is a sales rule, not a rental rule. 40 CFR 745.110(a) provides that before a purchaser is obligated under any contract to purchase target housing, the seller shall permit the purchaser a 10-day period, unless the parties mutually agree in writing on a different period, to conduct a risk assessment or inspection. Purchaser, seller, purchase: every operative noun is a sales noun, and 42 U.S.C. 4852d(a)(1)(C) reads the same way. The lessor requirements at 40 CFR 745.113(b) contain no inspection-opportunity item at all. A Wisconsin landlord may offer an inspection window voluntarily as a matter of good practice, but no federal or Wisconsin rule compels one for a lease, and you should never print a line asserting a tenant received or waived a right the rule never gave them.

Is a Wisconsin studio apartment exempt if a child under six lives there?

No. A 0-bedroom dwelling in which a child under six resides or is expected to reside is target housing, and the disclosure is required. This is the most commonly misreported sentence in the whole rule, because the text changed. The current 40 CFR 745.103 reads: target housing means any housing constructed prior to 1978, except housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities or any 0-bedroom dwelling (unless any child who is less than 6 years of age resides or is expected to reside in such housing). The parenthetical sits at the end of the except-clause, so it qualifies both the elderly-and-disabled limb and the 0-bedroom limb. EPA moved it there in a final rule published 12 November 2024 (89 FR 89416), effective 13 January 2025, expressly to conform the regulation to the statute; 42 U.S.C. 4851b(27) has always read this way. Before that date the parenthetical sat inside the elderly-and-disabled limb only, which made the 0-bedroom exclusion unconditional, and many pages still describe that superseded text. A 0-bedroom dwelling means any residential dwelling in which the living area is not separated from the sleeping area, and the term expressly includes efficiencies, studio apartments, dormitory housing, military barracks, and rentals of individual rooms in residential dwellings.

Does a Wisconsin landlord have to test for lead-based paint?

No. The federal rule requires disclosure of what you actually know, not investigation. EPA states plainly that the disclosure rule does not require sellers or landlords to test or remove lead-based paint or lead-based paint hazards, and that it does not cancel leasing or sales contracts. If the unit has never been tested and you hold no reports, no knowledge is the honest and lawful answer. What you may not do is check no knowledge while holding a lead investigation report, a lead hazard reduction record, a municipal code citation for deteriorated paint, or knowledge of a child's elevated blood lead level traced to the unit. Wisconsin can force testing in one situation, but it is not the leasing rule: under Wis. Stat. 254.166 a lead investigation follows a report that a child under six in the dwelling has lead poisoning or an elevated blood lead level.

How long must a Wisconsin landlord keep the signed disclosure?

At least three years from the commencement of the leasing period, under 40 CFR 745.113(c)(1). Keep the signed disclosure, a note of which EPA pamphlet edition was delivered and how, and copies of every record you handed over. Note what 745.113(c)(2) actually says: the recordkeeping requirement is not intended to place any limitations on civil suits under the Act, or to otherwise affect a lessee's or purchaser's rights under the civil penalty provisions of 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3). Three years is how long you must keep the file, not a period after which claims stop. Wisconsin's own personal-injury limitation period is also three years under Wis. Stat. 893.54(1m)(a), so it does not run longer than the federal retention clock. The provision that matters is Wis. Stat. 893.16(1): a person who was under 18 when the cause of action accrued may commence the action within 2 years after the disability ceases, so a lead-poisoning claim brought on behalf of a child can surface up to two years after that child turns 18, long after the tenancy ends. Retaining the file for the life of ownership is the safer practice.

What Wisconsin law does apply to lead paint in a rental?

Four things, none of which is a lead disclosure form. First, Wis. Stat. 704.07 requires the landlord to keep the premises in a reasonable state of repair, and 704.07(2)(bm) requires disclosure to a prospective tenant, before a rental agreement or before accepting any earnest money or security deposit, of any building or housing code violation the landlord actually knows of that affects the unit or a common area, presents a significant threat to health or safety, and has not been corrected. Wis. Admin. Code ATCP 134.04(2) is the parallel DATCP rule covering code violations and conditions affecting habitability. Second, an ATCP 134 violation carries the Wis. Stat. 100.20(5) private remedy: twice the pecuniary loss plus costs and a reasonable attorney fee. Third, Wis. Stat. 254.166 sets a lead hazard order regime. Fourth, Wis. Stat. 254.12 bans applying lead-bearing paint to interior dwelling surfaces.

What are the Wisconsin lead hazard order deadlines?

Under Wis. Stat. 254.166(2m), where a lead hazard is found, the local health department shall and the state department may issue an order requiring reduction or elimination of an imminent lead hazard within 5 days after the order is issued, and of other lead hazards within 30 days after issuance. There is a winter carve-out: for orders issued between 1 October and 1 May that relate only to exterior lead hazards that are not imminent, the order may set a deadline no earlier than the following 1 June. The agency may extend for good cause. Two consequences make this section matter more than its deadlines. Failure to comply within the time prescribed or as extended is prima facie evidence of negligence in an action for injuries incurred after the period expires. Compliance creates a rebuttable presumption that the owner exercised reasonable care as to lead poisoning or exposure caused after the order was complied with.

Does Wisconsin's Real Estate Condition Report cover lead for landlords?

No, because it does not reach landlords at all. Wis. Stat. ch. 709 is titled Disclosures by Owners of Real Estate, and 709.01 applies to persons who transfer real property by sale, exchange, or land contract. It is a sales instrument and creates no duty on a lease. Several ranking pages state that Wisconsin requires a seller to disclose lead-based paint under ch. 709 and must supply lead reports within 10 days of a mutual purchase agreement. That conflates three separate things: the 709.02 clock is the condition-report delivery and rescission clock owed to buyers, not a lead rule, and it is not the federal 40 CFR 745.110 inspection window. Whatever ch. 709 does or does not require of a seller, it imposes nothing on a Wisconsin landlord, and this page does not rely on it.

What must a Wisconsin landlord do when renovating an occupied pre-1978 rental?

This is a separate duty from the leasing disclosure. Under the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting rule at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart E, renovation that disturbs painted surfaces in pre-1978 target housing must be performed by a certified firm using certified renovators and lead-safe work practices, and occupants must receive lead hazard information no more than 60 days before work begins. If common areas are affected, notice describing the nature, location, and expected dates of the work must reach every unit in the building. Wisconsin runs its own certification and accreditation programme for this work under Wis. Stat. 254.176 and Wis. Admin. Code ch. DHS 163, so a Wisconsin renovator's credential comes from DHS. This duty runs to sitting tenants who received their leasing disclosure years earlier, and it applies to a landlord's own maintenance staff.

Can the Wisconsin lead-based paint disclosure be signed electronically?

Yes. Electronic disclosure and signature are permitted under the E-SIGN Act, 15 U.S.C. 7001. EPA attaches conditions: give a clear statement of the right to receive paper documents, explain the procedure to withdraw consent and its consequences, explain how to access and retain the electronic records, and obtain the tenant's consent demonstrating they can actually access the materials. The governing principle is that the technology must give the tenant complete access to all disclosure materials. A portal link buried in a welcome email, a PDF the tenant cannot download, or an e-sign flow that presents the signature page without the pamphlet all fail that test even though a signature comes back. Retain the electronic record for the same three years, exported into storage you control.

What are the penalties for skipping the Wisconsin lead disclosure?

Two separate federal exposures, plus a Wisconsin one that landlords miss. First, 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3) makes a knowing violator jointly and severally liable to the lessee for three times the amount of damages that person incurred, and 4852d(b)(4) lets the court add court costs, reasonable attorney fees, and expert witness fees. Second, government civil money penalties assessed by EPA and HUD, which are inflation-adjusted every year, with the operative EPA amounts published in the table at 40 CFR 19.4. We print no dollar figure on this page because any figure would be stale within a year and the numbers circulating elsewhere are drawn from different authorities and different years without saying which. Separately, a Wisconsin ATCP 134.04(2) disclosure failure carries the Wis. Stat. 100.20(5) remedy: twice the pecuniary loss plus costs and a reasonable attorney fee.

Does the disclosure apply to Wisconsin lease renewals?

A fresh disclosure is required for a new lease with a new lessee. Renewals are addressed directly by 40 CFR 745.101(d), which exempts renewals of existing leases in target housing in which the lessor has previously disclosed all information required under 40 CFR 745.107 and where no new information described in 745.107 has come into the possession of the lessor. Watch the cross-reference: 745.101(d) points at 745.107, not at 745.113, and pages that cite 745.113 here have followed the wrong thread. The regulation adds that renewal includes both renegotiation of existing lease terms and ratification of a new lease. Both conditions must hold. If you obtained a lead investigation report or learned of a hazard since the original disclosure, the exemption is gone and the new information must be disclosed.

Home › Free Landlord Forms › Wisconsin Landlord-Tenant Laws › Lead-Based Paint Disclosure

Free Wisconsin Lead-Based Paint Disclosure

Q: Is Wisconsin's definition of lead paint the same as the federal one?

No, and the difference is worth knowing. The federal rule at 40 CFR 745.103 defines lead-based paint as paint or other surface coatings containing lead equal to or in excess of 1.0 milligram per square centimeter or 0.5 percent by weight. Wisconsin's term is lead-bearing paint, defined at Wis. Stat. 254.11(8) as any paint or other surface coating material containing more than 0.06 percent lead by weight, calculated as lead metal, in the total nonvolatile content of liquid paint, more than 0.5 percent lead by weight in the dried film of applied paint, or more than 1 milligram of lead per square centimeter in the dried film of applied paint. The dried-film limbs track the federal thresholds closely, but Wisconsin adds a liquid-paint limb at 0.06 percent that has no federal counterpart. The federal definition still governs your disclosure duty.

The federal disclosure every Wisconsin landlord must deliver before leasing housing built before 1978. Authority is 42 U.S.C. 4852d and 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F. Wisconsin adds no lead disclosure statute of its own — and the 10-day inspection window you see on other sites is a sales rule, not a rental rule.

Federally Required 42 U.S.C. 4852d 40 CFR Part 745 Wisconsin Free PDF

Updated Q3 2026 By Tenant Screening Background Check Editorial Team Reviewed for Wisconsin ~18 min read

A Wisconsin lead-based paint disclosure is the federally mandated form a landlord delivers to a prospective tenant before any lease of residential property built before 1978. It carries the fixed federal lead warning statement, states the lessor’s actual knowledge of lead-based paint and hazards, lists the records being handed over, documents the tenant’s receipt of the EPA pamphlet Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home, captures any agent’s acknowledgment, and is signed and dated by every party. Authority is 42 U.S.C. 4852d (Section 1018 of Title X, the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992), implemented at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F (EPA) and 24 CFR Part 35 Subpart A (HUD). Wisconsin imposes no separate lead-based paint disclosure duty on landlords — the leasing duty here is purely federal. What Wisconsin does add sits alongside it: a repair-and-habitability duty under Wis. Stat. 704.07, covered in our Wisconsin habitability laws guide, and a lead hazard order regime under Wis. Stat. 254.166. Generate the form below, then read on for exactly what the rule requires.

Key Takeaways

Pre-1978 is the only trigger. Original construction before 1 January 1978 makes the unit “target housing” and the disclosure mandatory. The build date controls even if the unit was gutted and rebuilt in 1998.
Wisconsin has no landlord lead disclosure statute. The leasing duty is 100% federal. Wisconsin’s lead chapter (Wis. Stat. 254.11 and following) and Wis. Admin. Code ch. DHS 163 are a certification and abatement regime aimed at contractors and health departments, not a disclosure form.
The 10-day inspection window does not apply to leases. 40 CFR 745.110 gives it to purchasers only. The lessor rules at 40 CFR 745.113(b) contain no such item.
A studio is NOT exempt if a child under six lives there — the rule changed. Since 13 January 2025, the child-under-six condition in 40 CFR 745.103 qualifies both the elderly/disabled limb and the 0-bedroom limb. EPA moved the parenthetical to conform the rule to 42 U.S.C. 4851b(27). Pages still saying “a studio is always exempt” are quoting superseded text.
You never have to test. The rule compels disclosure of actual knowledge, not investigation. “No knowledge” is honest and lawful when nothing has been tested and you hold no reports.
Deliver before the tenant is obligated, not at move-in and not with the keys. Late delivery is the same violation as no delivery.
Retain the signed disclosure three years from the commencement of the leasing period (40 CFR 745.113(c)). It is your only real defence in an enforcement inquiry.
Wisconsin’s real overlay is the code-violation disclosure. Wis. Stat. 704.07(2)(bm) and Wis. Admin. Code ATCP 134.04(2) can bite earlier than the federal rule — before you accept earnest money or a security deposit — and an ATCP 134 breach carries double damages plus attorney fees under Wis. Stat. 100.20(5).

▶ Watch overview

Wisconsin lead-based paint disclosure overview

Wisconsin Lead-Based Paint Disclosure at a Glance

Trigger

Built before 1978

Authority

42 U.S.C. 4852d

Wisconsin Statute

None — federal only

Retention

3 years

Timing

Before lease obligation

Pamphlet

EPA, mandatory

Duty to test

10-day inspection

Sales only

The one-line answer: if your Wisconsin rental was built before 1978 and the lease runs longer than 100 days, you must hand the tenant this signed disclosure plus the EPA pamphlet before they are obligated under the lease, and keep the signed copy for three years. Nothing in Wisconsin law changes that; nothing in Wisconsin law adds a second lead disclosure form on top of it.

What the Wisconsin lead-based paint disclosure does

The lead-based paint disclosure — often called the Section 1018 disclosure, after the 1992 statute that created it — is the formal federal notice a Wisconsin landlord delivers to a prospective tenant for any residential property built before 1978. It does four things in one document.

First, it puts the tenant on notice of potential lead exposure through the federally mandated lead warning statement, the fixed language at 40 CFR 745.113(b)(1) that must be attached to or included within the lease.

Second, it transmits the lessor’s actual knowledge of lead-based paint or hazards in the dwelling. The lessor picks one of exactly two positions: known lead-based paint or hazards are present, with a description of what is known; or the lessor has no knowledge of lead-based paint or hazards in the housing. There is no third box, and there is no “maybe”.

Third, it transmits any reports the lessor holds from prior lead investigations, risk assessments, or hazard-reduction work. The lessor either provides copies of all available records and lists them, or affirmatively states that no reports or records exist.

Fourth, it documents the tenant’s receipt of the disclosure and of the EPA pamphlet. The signed acknowledgment is the landlord’s primary defence in any later EPA or HUD inquiry or private civil action.

The disclosure is not optional and the duty is not waivable by agreement. A pre-1978 Wisconsin rental leased without one exposes the landlord to government civil penalties and to a tenant’s private action for triple damages plus fees. Compliance takes fifteen minutes; non-compliance is the most expensive paperwork failure in pre-1978 rental practice.

Does Wisconsin have its own lead paint law?

Wisconsin has no state-specific lead-based paint disclosure duty for landlords, and this page will not invent one. The leasing disclosure obligation in Wisconsin is entirely federal: 42 U.S.C. 4852d, 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F, and 24 CFR Part 35 Subpart A. That is a genuinely useful answer, not a shrug — it means you are looking for one form, not two, and it means any page promising you a “Wisconsin lead disclosure statute” is selling something that does not exist.

Wisconsin does have a substantial lead code. It simply is not aimed at you as a disclosing landlord. Here is what it actually does, checked against the statutes themselves rather than a summary of them.

Wis. Stat. ch. 254 — certification, investigation, and abatement

Subchapter II of Wis. Stat. ch. 254 is Wisconsin’s lead programme. Its centre of gravity is who is allowed to touch lead and what happens when a child is poisoned, not what paperwork a landlord hands a tenant. Wis. Stat. 254.176 authorises the Department of Health Services to set certification requirements for anyone who performs or supervises lead hazard reduction or a lead management activity. Wis. Stat. 254.167 lets DHS write rules for how lead investigations are conducted. Wis. Stat. 254.172 governs prevention and control of lead-bearing paint hazards and directs DHS to keep its rules consistent with federal law.

Wis. Admin. Code ch. DHS 163 is the rule chapter those sections produced. Its own title tells you its scope: Certification for the Identification, Removal and Reduction of Lead-Based Paint Hazards. It certifies individuals and companies to perform lead-safe renovation, lead hazard reduction, and lead investigation activities. It contains no landlord disclosure duty and no tenant notice form.

Wis. Stat. 254.12 — the application ban

One Wisconsin prohibition is worth knowing because it is absolute and easy to breach during a turnover. Wis. Stat. 254.12(1) provides that no person may apply lead-bearing paints to any exposed surface on the inside of a dwelling, to the exposed surface of a structure used for the care of children, or to any fixture or other object placed in or upon a surface inside a dwelling and ordinarily accessible to children. Subsection (2) bars selling or transferring such a fixture or object. This is not a disclosure rule; it is a conduct rule, and it applies to your maintenance staff.

Wisconsin defines “lead paint” more broadly than the federal rule

The two regimes do not use the same term or the same numbers, and the difference is real. Federal law at 40 CFR 745.103 defines lead-based paint as paint or other surface coatings containing lead equal to or in excess of 1.0 milligram per square centimetre or 0.5 percent by weight. Wisconsin’s term at Wis. Stat. 254.11(8) is lead-bearing paint, and it means any paint or other surface coating material containing more than 0.06 percent lead by weight, calculated as lead metal, in the total nonvolatile content of liquid paint; more than 0.5 percent lead by weight in the dried film of applied paint; or more than 1 milligram of lead per square centimetre in the dried film of applied paint.

Read the two side by side and the picture is precise: the dried-film limbs track each other closely, but Wisconsin adds a liquid-paint limb at 0.06 percent that has no federal counterpart. Practically, that matters for what a Wisconsin contractor may apply under 254.12, not for what you disclose — your disclosure duty is measured by the federal definition. But it explains why a Wisconsin lead report may use language a federal form d