814.63.Fees in forfeiture actions.

Section 814.63 (1) (b) charges a defendant a clerk’s fee once judgment is entered against them in a circuit court forfeiture action — currently $25, rising to $40 on November 1, 2026. That fee doesn’t apply to a handful of specific violations: certain violations under s. 101.123 (2) or (2m), a financial responsibility violation under s. 344.62 (2), a violation under s. 343.51 (1m) (b), or a safety belt use violation under s. 347.48 (2m).

The section also runs the other direction. When a county, town, city, village, town sanitary district, or public inland lake protection and rehabilitation district wins a forfeiture case for violation of its own ordinance, that government has to pay the clerk of circuit court its own nonrefundable fee — currently $5, rising to $17 — with the same category of exclusions plus cases transferred under s. 800.035 (5) (c), which are handled separately under (4).

Beyond the base fee, a defendant owes any other costs, fees, and surcharges chapter 814 imposes, on top of the forfeiture itself. And if the defendant is convicted of violating an OWI-related statute (or a conforming local ordinance) and had blood drawn as part of the case, the court must add whatever a law enforcement agency was charged — or reasonably expects to be charged — for that blood withdrawal, and disburse that amount back to the agency. The one thing a court can’t charge for is an alternative test provided free of charge under s. 343.305 (4).

When the prosecuting government prevails, it recovers its costs and disbursements, subject to the (2) fee limit and whatever else the court directs; in a case transferred under s. 800.035 (5) (c), the court instead disburses all the forfeitures it collects straight to the municipality. Of the fee collected under (1) (b), the county treasurer pays $17.50 to the secretary of administration and keeps the rest for the county — a split this section keeps unchanged even as the underlying fee itself rises.