Make your own Wisconsin will.
Yours in about 20 minutes. Legally valid in Wisconsin. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Is a self-written will legal in Wisconsin?
Yes. Wisconsin recognizes wills you write yourself, as long as they meet the state's signing requirements. The governing statute is Wis. Stat. §853.01 et seq.
Your will needs to be in writing, signed by you, and witnessed by 2 adults. You don't need a notary for the will itself to be valid, but adding a notarized "self-proving" affidavit makes the probate process faster later (this tool generates that for you automatically).
You must be at least 18 years old and of sound mind. Choose witnesses who don't inherit under your will: some states void or reduce a gift to a witness, and the exact Wisconsin rule is covered below. This tool walks you through the rules so you don't trip over them.
A will you write yourself has the same legal force as one drafted by an attorney, provided you follow the signing rules. Courts admit self-written wills to probate every day. An attorney's value is in advising on complex estates, not in drafting the document itself.
What it costs to make a will in Wisconsin
A Wisconsin estate-planning attorney typically charges $300 to $600 for a simple will, and $1,000 to $1,500 for a will-plus-revocable-trust package. Rates run higher in dense metros and lower in rural areas. Most attorneys bill at $250 to $400 per hour and need one or two meetings to draft a basic will.
You can also write a will entirely from scratch with a sheet of paper and a pen, with no software at all. Wisconsin requires the same 2-witness signing process regardless of who drafts the document. The risk with a from-scratch will is technical: a missing self-proving affidavit, a witness who's also a beneficiary, or wording that creates ambiguity for the probate court. That's what this tool prevents.
Will.com is free at the document level. The $29/year subscription adds cloud-stored, zero-knowledge-encrypted access so you can edit and update your plan as life changes.
Wisconsin will requirements at a glance
How it works
- 1
Answer a few questions
About you, your family, and what you own.
- 2
Download your will
A complete, personalized document, formatted for Wisconsin courts.
- 3
Sign with witnesses
Print and sign in front of 2 adult witnesses. Keep the signed copy somewhere safe.
When you might want an attorney instead
An online will works for most people. It's the right tool when your situation is straightforward: you want to leave your assets to family or friends, you don't have complex tax issues, and you're not anticipating a fight over your estate.
Consider hiring an attorney if any of these apply:
- Your estate is large enough to trigger federal estate tax (over $15 million in 2026) or Wisconsin estate or inheritance tax.
- You own a business, complex investments, or assets in multiple states or countries.
- You're in a blended family, especially if you want to leave assets to a current spouse while protecting children from a prior relationship.
- You have a child or beneficiary with special needs and want a supplemental-needs trust that won't disqualify them from public benefits.
- You expect someone to contest the will, or you're disinheriting a close family member.
- You have substantial retirement accounts and want sophisticated beneficiary planning.
If none of these apply, an online will is genuinely fine. The legal validity of your will doesn't depend on who drafted it, only on whether Wisconsin's signing rules were followed.
Self-proving affidavit in Wisconsin
Wisconsin recognizes self-proving affidavits. Will.com attaches one to your will: a short statement your witnesses sign in front of a notary, swearing to what they saw when you signed. See Wis. Stat. §853.04(1).
A self-proven will skips the requirement to track down witnesses years later for the probate court. It's optional, but adding the affidavit at signing time saves your executor work. Will.com generates the affidavit alongside the will.
Who can witness your will in Wisconsin
Wis. Stat. §853.07: anyone competent to testify in court to the facts of execution may witness a will, and a will is not invalidated because an interested witness signed it. Beneficial provisions for a witness or the witness's spouse are invalid, though, to the extent their aggregate value exceeds what that person would have received had the testator died intestate, unless the will is also signed by two disinterested witnesses or there is sufficient evidence that the testator intended the full transfer. A provision naming the witness as personal representative or trustee at ordinary compensation is not a disqualifying beneficial interest.
Family changes after you sign
A child born or adopted after the will. A child who arrives after you sign, and who isn't named or accounted for in the will, is covered by Wisconsin law rather than by your wishes. The safest practice is to update your will when your family changes.
Wis. Stat. §853.25: a will that fails to provide for a child of the testator born or adopted after it was executed leaves an omitted child, unless it appears from the will or from other evidence that the omission was intentional, or the testator provided for the child by a transfer outside the will and the intent that the transfer be in lieu of a testamentary provision is shown by the testator's statements or is reasonably inferred from the amount of the transfer or other evidence (§853.25(1)(a)). Wisconsin lets evidence outside the will establish an intentional omission, where the Uniform Probate Code confines that to the will. If the testator had no child living at execution, the omitted child receives the share the child would have received under ch. 852, unless the will devised all or substantially all of the estate to or for the benefit of the other parent of the omitted child and that other parent survives the testator and is entitled to take under the will (§853.25(1)(b)). If the testator had one or more children living at execution and the will devised property to one or more of them, the omitted child's share is limited to the devises made to those then-living children, computed as if the testator had included all omitted after-born and after-adopted children with the children who took under the will and given an equal share to each, of the same character so far as feasible, with those devises abating ratably and the court preserving the character of the testamentary plan to the maximum extent possible (§853.25(1)(c)). Issue who survive the testator take the share of an omitted child who died before the testator (§853.25(1)(d)). Wisconsin separately protects a child who was living when the will was made, or the issue of a then-deceased child, omitted by mistake or accident including a mistaken belief that they were dead, on clear and convincing evidence; failure to mention a child in the will is not by itself evidence of mistake (§853.25(2)). A demand for relief under this section must be presented to the court in writing by entry of final judgment or 6 months after allowance of the will, whichever occurs first (§853.25(3)). A share under §853.25(1)(b) is taken first from intestate property and then from each devise in proportion to what the beneficiary would have received under the will, subject to a clear-and-convincing showing that the testator's intention as to a specific gift would be defeated (§853.25(4)). All of it is subject to §853.25(5): where the court determines the share is in a different amount or form from what the testator would have wanted, it may instead make whatever provision for the child best accords with the testator's intent.
A spouse you married after signing. Updating the will after marriage avoids relying on whatever Wisconsin law provides by default.
Wis. Stat. §853.12 (substantive rule, with §853.11(2m) routing): a surviving spouse or surviving domestic partner whose marriage or ch. 770 recorded domestic partnership post-dates the testator's will is entitled to the share of the probate estate the survivor would have received had the testator died with an intestate estate equal to the value of the testator's net estate. The net estate is first reduced by all devises to or for the benefit of the testator's children born before that marriage or partnership who are not also the survivor's children (§853.12(2)(a)), by all devises to or for the benefit of the issue of those children (§853.12(2)(b)), and by all devises passing to those children or their issue under §854.06, §854.07, §854.21 or §854.22 (§853.12(2)(c)). Both halves of that description have to be true before a child's devise leaves the base: born before the marriage or partnership, and not also a child of the survivor. Three exceptions defeat the entitlement: it appears from the will or other evidence that the will was made in contemplation of the marriage or partnership (§853.12(3)(a)); it appears from the will or other evidence that the will is intended to be effective notwithstanding a subsequent marriage or partnership, or there is sufficient evidence that the testator considered revising the will after the marriage or partnership and decided not to (§853.12(3)(b)); or the testator and the spouse entered into an agreement complying with ch. 766 that provides for the spouse or specifies that the spouse is to have no rights in the estate (§853.12(3)(d)). The first two may be established by evidence outside the will. In satisfying the share, amounts received by the surviving spouse under §861.02 and devises made by the will to the survivor are applied first, and devises other than the carved-out ones abate as provided under §854.18 (§853.12(4)).
Two tiers, both private
Free: nothing leaves your browser. No account, no storage. Clear your answers whenever.
Subscription ($29/year): zero-knowledge encrypted storage. We store the ciphertext; only you hold the key. Edit and update as life changes.
Ready to write your will?
Whatever you decide today, your family won’t have to guess. Start free, or save it to your account for $29 a year.