What is Wisconsin's cigarette tax?

Wisconsin charges 2.52 dollars in state excise tax per pack of 20 cigarettes. That is on top of the federal excise tax of about 1.01 dollars per pack and any general sales tax applied at the register.

How does Wisconsin tax beer?

Wisconsin's beer excise tax is unusually low at about 0.06 dollars per gallon, one of the lowest beer taxes in the United States. The tax is paid by brewers and distributors and folded into shelf prices.

What are Wisconsin's wine and spirits tax rates?

Wisconsin taxes wine at roughly 0.25 dollars per gallon for table wine and distilled spirits at about 3.25 dollars per gallon. Spirits carry by far the highest per-gallon excise of the three beverage categories.

Is sales tax applied on top of excise tax?

Yes. Excise taxes are built into the price before Wisconsin's general sales tax is calculated, so consumers effectively pay sales tax on the excise portion too. This tool focuses on the excise component.

Why do these rates differ from neighboring states?

Each state sets its own excise schedule. Wisconsin's beer tax is among the lowest in the country while its cigarette tax is moderate, so cross-border price differences with Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan can be significant.

Wisconsin Cigarette & Alcohol Tax Calculator

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Excise taxes are flat per-unit charges levied on specific goods, and Wisconsin applies them to cigarettes and alcohol at rates that look very different from the general sales tax. This calculator shows exactly how much state excise tax is baked into a pack of cigarettes or a gallon of beer, wine or spirits, and what share of the retail price that represents.

How it works

Excise taxes are charged per physical unit, not as a percentage of price:

Cigarettes: $2.52 per pack of 20.
Beer: about $0.06 per gallon (one of the lowest in the nation).
Wine: about $0.25 per gallon of table wine.
Spirits: about $3.25 per gallon of distilled spirits.

The calculator multiplies the quantity you enter by the matching rate:

excise tax = quantity × per-unit rate

If you enter a pre-tax retail price, it also shows the excise tax as a percentage of that price, so you can see how heavy the tax burden is for each product type.

Notes and example

Buying 10 packs of cigarettes incurs 10 × $2.52 = $25.20 in state excise tax alone — before federal excise and sales tax. By contrast, a gallon of beer carries only about six cents of state excise, which is why Wisconsin is famously cheap for beer relative to neighboring states. Spirits sit at the other extreme. These figures are the state excise component only; federal excise taxes and Wisconsin’s general sales tax apply separately at the register.