Wisconsin Court Records: How to Search WCCA, What's Public, and How to Seal Them (2026)

Wisconsin runs one of the most open court records systems of any state covered in this guide. Wisconsin Circuit Court Access, universally known as WCCA or by its older name CCAP, has been searchable online since April 1999, and it remains completely free. That openness comes with real responsibilities for anyone using it, which is why Wisconsin's own courts post an employer notice and a scam warning directly on the tool itself.

Information last verified on 2026-08-10. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

WCCA: Wisconsin's Free, Statewide Court Records Tool

WCCA has been running since April 1999, which makes it one of the longest-standing public court records tools of any state. It covers Civil cases (including small claims, divorce, and restraining orders), Criminal cases (felonies, misdemeanors, and criminal traffic), Probate (informal probate, trusts, and wills), Other matters (liens, tax warrants, and tribal court orders), and Traffic forfeitures. What you get is docket information, not the underlying filed documents, and case information is uploaded roughly hourly. Because each Wisconsin county started using the underlying case-management system at a different point, how far back a given county's records go on WCCA varies county by county.

WCCA's legal basis is Wisconsin's open records tradition. The system's own FAQ, as captured in a Wisconsin State Law Library presentation, states: "The public policy of Wisconsin state government is that all persons are entitled to the greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and its official acts... Circuit court records are open for public inspection, Wis. Stats. 59.20(3), unless closed by a statute, a common law limitation, or a specific court order." WCCA's own agreement screen adds an important honesty note: "This website (WCCA) provides access to certain public records of the Wisconsin circuit courts. The information displayed is an exact copy of the case information entered into the circuit court case management system by court staff in the counties where the case files are located." WCCA also cautions that it is not itself the official judgment and lien docket, that role belongs to the clerk of circuit court in each county, though it states WCCA "does accurately reflect the information entered into the circuit court case management system for that purpose."

What WCCA Does Not Include

Wisconsin's own description of excluded case types is direct: "Cases NOT Included: Confidential cases or confidential case types - Adoption, Mental health commitment, Guardianship, Juvenile cases (Except for traffic cases tried in circuit court), Municipal court records, Federal court (Includes bankruptcies)." If you are looking for a case in one of these categories, WCCA will not have it regardless of how the underlying case was resolved.

How Long Cases Stay Visible

Wisconsin runs a statewide retention schedule under Supreme Court Rule 72 that determines how long a case remains listed on WCCA. Felony Class A cases display for 75 years, felony Classes B through I for 50 years, misdemeanors and criminal traffic offenses for 20 years, family cases for 30 years, and non-small-claims civil cases for 20 years. Cases that end in an acquittal, a dismissal, or a deferred prosecution agreement dismissal typically drop to a much shorter 2-year display window. That schedule means an old dismissed charge may age off WCCA's public display well before the underlying court file is destroyed anywhere else.

Search Methods

WCCA offers three ways to search. Simple search lets you look up an individual or business by name, or a case by number and county. Advanced search adds filters for case type, class code, attorney, and more. Judgment search covers liens and money judgments specifically. Case numbers follow a consistent format: a 4-digit year, a 2-character case-type code, and a 6-digit sequence number, for example 1998TR000001, often shortened informally to 98tr1.

The Employer Notice on WCCA

Because WCCA is so widely used for background checks, Wisconsin posts a notice directly on live case pages: "It may be a violation of state law to discriminate against a job applicant because of an arrest or conviction record. Generally speaking, an employer may refuse to hire an applicant on the basis of a conviction only if the circumstances of the conviction substantially relate to the particular job." That framing tracks Wisconsin Statute 111.335, which permits an employer to refuse employment based on a conviction record where "the individual has been convicted of any felony, misdemeanor, or other offense the circumstances of which substantially relate to the circumstances of the particular job," along with narrower exceptions tied to bonding requirements and certain licensed occupations. The same statute requires licensing agencies acting on a conviction record to give written reasons and to allow the individual to demonstrate rehabilitation, except for a defined category of exempt offenses.

The Paid-Removal Scam Warning

Because WCCA search results are public and easy to find, a cottage industry of sites has tried to charge people money to remove or hide their listed cases. Wisconsin's courts address this directly on WCCA itself: any business or website offering to remove court case information for payment is not connected to WCCA. There is no legitimate paid service that removes a real case from WCCA. If a case is eligible to come off public display, it happens through the retention schedule described above or through an actual court-ordered expungement or sealing, never through a payment to a third-party website.

Because WCCA searches by name, it is also worth being careful about false positives. A common name can return multiple different people, so do not assume a search result belongs to the person you are looking for without confirming other identifying details, such as a date of birth or address, where the tool allows it.

Sealing Your Record: Wisconsin's Narrow Expungement

Wisconsin's expungement law, Wisconsin Statutes § 973.015, is notably tighter than many other states' versions. It is only available "when a person is under the age of 25 at the time of the commission of an offense," and only for an offense where "the maximum period of imprisonment is 6 years or less." Critically, the decision has to be made at sentencing, not later: the defendant bears the burden of asking the judge to order expungement at that time, and a request made afterward generally cannot fix a missed opportunity.

If expungement is ordered and the person successfully completes their sentence, "the detaining or probationary authority shall issue a certificate of discharge which shall be forwarded to the court of record and which shall have the effect of expunging the record." Expungement under this statute does not erase the underlying conviction from history entirely. Wisconsin courts may still "consider the facts underlying an expunged conviction in sentencing in another case" down the line. For a full eligibility walkthrough, see the Wisconsin expungement laws guide.

Certified Copies and Courthouse Access

WCCA itself is a free docket-lookup tool, not a source for certified copies. For a certified copy of a court document, contact the clerk of circuit court in the county where the case was filed. The price is not a county decision. Wisconsin Statute 59.40(3)(a) provides that "the clerk of the circuit court shall collect the fees that are prescribed in ss. 814.60 to 814.63," and Wisconsin Statute 814.61(10)(a) fixes the rate statewide at $1.25 per page "for copies, certified or otherwise, of any document for which a specific fee is not established by this section." So a certified copy of a circuit court document costs the same $1.25 per page in every Wisconsin county.

Two related fees sit alongside that per-page rate. A clerk collects a separate statutory fee under Wisconsin Statute 814.61(5)(am) for issuing a certificate or a transcript from the judgment and lien docket, currently $5 and scheduled to rise to $14 on November 1, 2026. Probate records run on their own schedule: under Wisconsin Statute 814.66, the register in probate charges $1 per page for copies, certified or otherwise.

Using Wisconsin Court Records the Right Way

WCCA is built for checking your own case, general public transparency, and legitimate research, not for compiling a background file on someone else outside a proper screening process. If a Wisconsin court record is being used to screen a job applicant or tenant, that use is governed separately by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, on top of Wisconsin's own conviction-record employment protections. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c, records of criminal convictions are exempt from the standard seven-year reporting limit and can be reported indefinitely unless Wisconsin has expunged them under section 973.015.

Related Resources

Court Records by State covers the full 50-state picture. See also How to Look Up Court Records, Are Court Records Public?, Wisconsin Expungement Laws, Wisconsin Background Check Laws, Wisconsin Warrant Search, and Wisconsin Public Records Laws.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Wisconsin's WCCA court records tool and expungement law. It is not legal advice. Retention schedules, coverage, and statutes change; verify current details with Wisconsin's court system or a Wisconsin attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-10. Portal facts and fees reflect their published status as of August 2026.