Attention County Officials - Enhanced RETR moving to My Tax Account on January 12, 2026

December 15, 2025

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

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR), State and Local Finance Division would like to remind you of the upcoming enhancements to the real estate transfer return (RETR). DOR is moving RETR into My Tax Account (MTA) on January 12, 2026.

How to Prepare

Current RETR system

  • Deactivated at 5:00 p.m. on January 8, 2026 – system will no longer be available to submit or record a RETR
  • Conversion of returns to MTA – returns submitted:
    • On or after November 10, 2025, but not yet recorded – will be converted to MTA and will be available to record in MTA
    • Prior to November 10, 2025, and not recorded by January 8, 2026 – will not be converted and will not be available to record in MTA

RETR Web Services

  • First email – starting December 19, DOR will send county officials RETR web services login credentials by secure email
    • Allows time to integrate these credentials with your software providers
    • Will contain the URL for the production end points for the RETR services; provide the URL to your software provider
  • Second email – a few days after you receive the first email, DOR will send a separate secure email with a password for these credentials
  • Important details
    • Production RETR web services credentials access will not be live until January 12, 2026. You will receive a 404 error if trying to connect prior to January 12, 2026.
    • Using RETR web service credentials does not require whitelisting of your county's public facing IP addresses with DOR, as was required while testing the new test RETR web services with DOR

MTA System

  • January 9, 2026
    • MTA RETR logon ID – county officials who perform register of deeds (ROD) and real property lister (RPL) functions on DOR's Legacy ROD and RPL system (GOWA) will be issued logon ID credentials to access the new MTA RETR system
  • If you are not an existing MTA user – when accessing the new MTA RETR system for the first time on or after January 12, 2026, you will be prompted to set up a password
    • DOR will send county officials (RODs, RPLs) individual login credentials by secure email if they do not already have them. These login credentials will be effective on January 12, 2026.
  • If you already have MTA login credentials (treasurer) – they will continue to work on January 12, 2026 
  • January 12, 2026 – new system go-live date
  • Within MTA, register of deeds, treasurers and real property listers will be able to:
    • Record a return
    • Re-record a return to correct document number or recording date
    • View recorded and unrecorded returns by receipt number, document number, conveyance date, and recorded date
    • File the P-520 Transmittal Report
      • First P-520 filed through MTA will be in February
      • This will include all recordings for January 2026
    • Pay state share of transfer fee collections
    • Verify official parcel numbers on returns

Communication is important

Make sure to keep in touch with your third-party provider on this upcoming change.

Review Resources

  • DOR will provide training and resources on our website – resource links will be on the RETR page when available
  • Stay informed – sign up for RETR email updates on our Subscribe to DOR E-News page

Questions?

Contact us at retr@wisconsin.gov​