To: County Register of Deeds, County Treasurers, and County Real Property Listers

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR), State and Local Finance Division is making enhancements to our real estate transfer return (RETR) filing by moving it from the Electronic Real Estate Transfer Return (eRETR) system to My Tax Account (MTA). DOR will also provide this functionality via web-services using third-party software.

This improved RETR e-filing system rolls out in January 2026 and is a one-stop shop for county employees and external customer filers.

Overview

Current eRETR system

• Uses a Web Access Management System (WAMS) ID and password to access the state of Wisconsin internet systems through third-party software
• Based on the RETR roles managed by DOR, i.e., county treasurer, register of deeds (ROD), real property lister (RPL) and trusted web service user (TWSU), you access a DOR web-service to complete various RETR transactions
• Examples:
• Posting recording information
• Reviewing or correcting official parcel numbers retrieving recorded or unrecorded RETRs
• The third-party software providers use the TWSU role to maintain WAMS accounts

New System

• DOR will issue RETR web-service logon credentials for your county to submit RETR recording and Official Parcel transactions using the web services
• You need to work with your third-party software provider to imbed these credentials into their software
• You will need to work with your software provider to enforce the separation of duties between the ROD and RPL functions if needed
• DOR is no longer going to manage the roles of the ROD and the RPL within the 3rd Party Software  
• Once imbedded, you can connect to the DOR's RETR web-services through the third-party software
• You must notify your software provider and DOR which of the following RETR web-services you intend to use:
• Submit Recording – add recording information to an unrecorded return
• Retrieve RETR – retrieve an unrecorded or a recorded return
• Retrieve RETR – Recorded Only – only retrieve a recorded return
• Submit Official Parcel – review and/or correct parcel numbers on a return

DOR's Next Steps

• DOR must authorize and approve the third-party software providers that can transmit data to DOR through the RETR web-services
• To allow the software to submit the necessary RETR transactions, DOR will assign logon credentials to the software and software company once they are vetted through testing

DOR will follow these steps to ensure continuation of the interface between counties and third-party software providers:

1. DOR will issue a logon credential to each county – assigned logon credential allows you to complete RETR transactions for your own jurisdiction
2. Inform your software provider of the assigned credential so the provider can imbed the credential in its RETR software

Note: You must provide your software provider's name to DOR so we can work with them to secure access to our systems

3. Your assigned logon credentials can only be used to complete RETR transactions through the approved third-party software.
4. If the assigned logon credentials need to be used by authorized ROD and RPL staff in a county
• County ROD and county RPL are responsible to ensure that only authorized staff members are accessing the RETR web-services through the third-party software
•  County ROD and RPL must manage who has access to what application in their third-party RETR software and who should be able to submit RETR data to the DOR.
5. We will issue separate logon credentials to you for testing and production. Once you have successfully tested with us and have confirmed that you can access the necessary RETR web-services in the testing environment, we will approve your logon credentials for the production environment and will set them up before we roll out on January 12, 2026.

Your Next Steps

All Wisconsin counties must test the new process. If your county has not tested yet, contact OTAS@wisconsin.gov as soon as possible.

Send the items below to us as soon as possible to otas@wisconsin.gov:

To complete testing and obtain timely approvals for your production logons, complete the following steps as soon as possible.

1. Send us your IP address(es) at OTAS@wisconsin.gov so they can be whitelisted. Send this information timely since this may take us a few weeks to get the IP address(es) whitelisted.
2. Let us know how many users you anticipate connecting with our system environments and how many will use My Tax Account (MTA)
3. Send us the name of the software provider you intend to work with – it will take us one week to issue you a testing logon credential
4. After you receive your testing logon credential, work with your software provider to imbed it into their software (Direct your software provider to review technical details to RETR Web Services and contact us with any questions)
5. Once your software provider has imbedded your testing logon credential, let us know so we can schedule testing and provide you with testing instructions
6. After we confirm, you can successfully connect to our systems and perform the necessary RETR transactions, we will issue you a production logon credential
7. We will work with your software provider to get the production credential imbedded in their software

Questions?