There are no dry counties in Wisconsin. State law puts alcohol licensing in the hands of individual cities, villages, and towns, not county governments, so a county board has no authority to ban alcohol sales across the communities inside its borders. What you’ll find instead is a municipality-by-municipality patchwork, and as of the last reported change, no Wisconsin municipality is fully dry either.
Why No County in Wisconsin Can Go Dry
Wisconsin’s local option statute, Section 125.05, gives the power to approve or deny retail alcohol licenses only to the electors of a municipality. That means voters in a specific city, village, or town decide whether their community will issue licenses for beer, wine, or liquor sales.1Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 125.05 – Local Option; Remonstrances Counties are not part of that structure. A county board simply has no legal mechanism to impose a blanket prohibition across the multiple municipalities within its lines.
The practical effect: two neighboring towns in the same county can run on completely different alcohol rules. One might license taverns, package liquor stores, and restaurants without restriction while the next town over allows only beer sales. The relevant boundary is always the municipal line, never the county line.
Is Any Part of Wisconsin Still Dry?
The Village of Ephraim in Door County held the title of Wisconsin’s last fully dry municipality until April 2016. The village had been dry since its founding by Moravian settlers in the 1850s. That year, voters approved Class “B” beer licenses 127 to 98 and Class “C” wine licenses 152 to 73, allowing restaurants and other establishments to serve beer and wine for the first time.
With that vote, Wisconsin lost what was widely reported as its final dry municipality. The Town of Wayne in Washington County is sometimes mentioned in the same breath, but Wayne has adopted an alcohol beverage licensing ordinance under Chapter 125, meaning it currently permits licensed sales.2Town of Wayne. Ordinance 2025-02 – Alcohol Beverage Licensing and Permitting Smaller or partial restrictions can still exist in individual communities, but the era of a Wisconsin municipality banning every category of alcohol licensing appears to have ended with Ephraim.
Partial Restrictions You Might Still Run Into
Even where sales are allowed, they may not be allowed in every form. Chapter 125 separates “fermented malt beverages” (beer) from “intoxicating liquor” (spirits and wine), and licenses are issued category by category.1Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 125.05 – Local Option; Remonstrances A municipality can approve one category and reject another, which is why a town might allow beer sales at a grocery store but not permit a liquor store, or allow wine by the glass at a restaurant while keeping package liquor out.
Ephraim’s 2016 vote is the clearest example: voters approved beer and wine licenses but did not approve full liquor sales. In a town that has banned only “Class A” liquor licenses, package stores can’t sell spirits, but bars and restaurants holding a “Class B” liquor license can still serve them. If you’re trying to figure out what’s available in a particular community, the question isn’t whether the town is “wet” or “dry” but which specific license categories its voters have approved.
Neighborhood-Level Blocks: Remonstrances
One quirk worth knowing about, because it operates below the municipal level: Wisconsin law lets residents of a defined neighborhood block intoxicating liquor licenses in their immediate area even when the surrounding municipality allows them. The tool is called a remonstrance.3Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 125.05 – Local Option; Remonstrances
To use it, residents define a compact, contiguous “residence district” bounded by streets, alleys, waterways, or municipal lines, containing at least 100 and no more than 750 qualified electors. If a majority of those electors sign the remonstrance and file it with the municipal clerk, no intoxicating liquor licenses can be issued inside that district. The filing window is May 1 for areas that have never held a liquor license, and May 1 through May 15 for areas that previously had one.1Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 125.05 – Local Option; Remonstrances A later majority of the same district can reverse it. Remonstrances apply only to intoxicating liquor; beer licenses aren’t affected.
What “Dry” Actually Means in Wisconsin
Even when a municipality or neighborhood restricts sales, the restriction is about commercial licensing, not personal behavior. The local option statute governs whether a community will “issue retail licenses.” It does not make it illegal to possess, transport, or drink alcohol in a private home within a restricted area. A resident of a dry community in Wisconsin can legally buy alcohol in a neighboring town, bring it home, and consume it there.
That’s a meaningful contrast with states where dry status also reaches possession. In Wisconsin, “dry” means no licensed sales at that address, not an absence of alcohol in the community.