What Act 210 actually changes
Act 210 amends, creates, renumbers, or repeals the following Wisconsin statutory sections, all in the IID and occupational-license framework:
- Amends §343.10(2)(b), occupational license: an occupational license may not permit operation of vehicles the person is barred from operating under a §343.301(1g)(am)1 order
- Amends §343.30(1q)(b)3 and (b)4 (Sections 2 and 3), OWI revocation at the count-of-2 and count-of-3-or-more tiers: deletes the 45-day wait outright, leaving eligibility conditioned on the assessment and driver safety plan
- Creates §343.30(1qm): a conviction for violating §343.302(1) now carries its own revocation of not less than one year nor more than 18 months, with the person eligible for an occupational license
- Amends §343.301(1g)(am)1, IID order (adds the Class M prohibition)
- Amends §343.301(3)(a): adds liability for reinstallation cost where the person removes the device without department documentation that the operating privilege has been restored
- Creates §343.301(6), (7), (8), (9), including the 180-day extension provision, the malfunction determination, the service-provider data handoff, and the 15-business-day rebuttal process
- Amends §343.305(10)(b)2 (Section 12), first improper refusal: replaces the 30-day wait with eligibility upon IID installation
- Renumbers §347.413 to §343.302 and creates §343.302(2), new criminal IID-violation penalty (5 days to 6 months imprisonment, $350 to $1,100 fine)
- Amends §347.50(1) and (1s), repeals §347.50(1t)
The Act’s relating clause describes it as concerning “license eligibility and restriction extensions relating to ignition interlock devices and providing a penalty.” The bill originated as 2025 Senate Bill 248. The date of enactment was April 8, 2026 and the date of publication was April 9, 2026.
Effective date matters. Section 18 provides that the Act takes effect the first day of the 12th month beginning after the date specified in the notice published in the Wisconsin administrative register under Section 17(2). Section 17(2) provides that WisDOT notifies the legislative reference bureau on the date the joint committee on finance provides the Section 17(1) funding, and the bureau then publishes the notice. As of August 16, 2026 no such notice has published. The Wisconsin Statutes certified and published August 5, 2026 still carry an effective-date note on every Act 210 provision, and no notice appears in the administrative register through issue 848A2 of August 10, 2026. The twelve-month countdown has not started. Until it does, the 30-day first-refusal wait, the 45-day waits at the count-of-2 and count-of-3-or-more OWI tiers, and the existing IID-violation framework all remain in force. Because the effective date sits a full twelve months past a date that has not been set, the earliest realistic operative date is in the second half of 2027.
The good news: faster occupational licenses
The largest practical benefit of Act 210 is the elimination of two waiting periods that have constrained Wisconsin drivers for decades:
| Track | Pre-Act 210 wait | Post-Act 210 wait |
|---|---|---|
| 1st improper refusal (§343.305(10)(b)2) | 30 days from revocation start | None. Eligible “upon installation of an ignition interlock device on any motor vehicle that the person operates” |
| OWI revocation, count of 2 (§343.30(1q)(b)3) | 45 days from revocation start | None. Eligible on completing the assessment and complying with the driver safety plan. No IID installation condition |
| OWI revocation, count of 3 or more (§343.30(1q)(b)4) | 45 days from revocation start | None. Eligible on completing the assessment and complying with the driver safety plan. No IID installation condition |
| 1st OWI conviction (§343.30(1q)(b)2) | None. Eligible “at any time” | Unchanged. Act 210 does not amend this subdivision |
| 2nd and 3rd-or-higher improper refusal (§343.305(10)(b)3, (b)4) | 90 days and 120 days | Unchanged. Act 210 amends only subd. 2 |
| General baseline (§343.10(2)(a)4) | 15 days | 15 days, unchanged |
The general baseline sits at §343.10(2)(a)4, not §343.10(2)(a): at least 15 days must have elapsed since the date of revocation or suspension, “unless another minimum waiting period or immediate eligibility is expressly provided by law.” That closing clause is what lets the tier-specific rules in §343.30(1q)(b) and §343.305(10)(b) override it, in both directions, which is why a first OWI conviction can be eligible “at any time” today and why the Act 210 changes operate the way they do.
Two things get misreported about this. First, Act 210 does not make occupational licences turn on IID installation across the board: only the first-refusal track at §343.305(10)(b)2 was rewritten that way. On the OWI revocation track the wait was simply struck out. Second, the Act reaches only two of the refusal tiers’ neighbours: the 90-day and 120-day waits after a 2nd or 3rd improper refusal survive, and a first OWI conviction already had no wait to remove.
The trap: 180-day extensions, six triggers, no cap
Newly created §343.301(6)(b) imposes a 180-day extension to the IID restriction period for each occurrence of any of six specified events, when the event occurs 60 or more days after IID installation:
- “Tampering with or attempting to circumvent an ignition interlock device.”
- “Removing an ignition interlock device without authorization.”
- “Failure to service an ignition interlock device that results in the ignition interlock device entering lockout mode.”
- “Any attempt to start a motor vehicle with a breath alcohol concentration of 0.020 or more.”
- “Failure to take a random breath test unless a review of the digital image confirms that the motor vehicle was not occupied by the person at the time of the missed test.”
- “Failure to pass a confirmation retest.”
No cap on extensions appears in the Act text. Two triggering events 60 days apart stack to 360 days of additional IID on top of the original order. But §343.301(6)(b) is expressly “subject to par. (c)”, and two provisions cut the other way. Under §343.301(6)(c), the department “shall determine that a person did not commit a violation” on receipt of documentation or information from the driver’s IID provider indicating the reported violation “resulted from a malfunction of the ignition interlock device for which the person was not responsible.” And §343.301(6)(a) defines “violation” for this subsection to exclude “a detectable breath sample that passes a test immediately following a failed test or in response to a bypass or circumvention attempt.” Both are defence material, and neither is optional language: each is written as a mandatory determination.
Why the 0.020 threshold matters
Trigger four uses a 0.020 BrAC threshold, well below the 0.08 OWI standard and below the 0.04 commercial-driver standard. Mouthwash, cough syrup, fermented foods, and trace residual alcohol from the previous evening can all produce a 0.020 reading. The interlock device does not distinguish between actual alcohol consumption and incidental positive readings, and Act 210 does not distinguish either. Every 0.020 start attempt is a potential 180-day extension after the 60-day grace.
Random retests and the unoccupied-vehicle exception
Trigger five is the most defensible of the six. The Act carves out a missed random breath test where “a review of the digital image confirms that the motor vehicle was not occupied by the person at the time of the missed test.” Read the carve-out precisely: it turns on whether the person was in the vehicle, not merely on whether the vehicle was empty, and it turns on a review of the image, which means someone has to actually pull and look at it. Drivers should know the exception exists and should preserve their own records of where they were at the time of any disputed missed test.
The new misdemeanor crime: §343.302
Act 210 renumbered the existing §347.413 IID-violation provision into §343.302 and added a new subsection (2) with criminal penalties:
§343.302(2): “Any person violating sub. (1) shall be fined not less than $350 nor more than $1,100 and imprisoned for not less than 5 days nor more than 6 months.”
That penalty range is word-for-word the range in §346.65(2)(am)2 for a 2nd-offense OWI: “fined not less than $350 nor more than $1,100 and imprisoned for not less than 5 days nor more than 6 months.” It is a crime under §939.12, and because the imprisonment is not in the Wisconsin state prisons it is a misdemeanor under §939.60. It is not a Class A misdemeanor: §343.302(2) sets its own penalty rather than assigning a class, and the Class A range under §939.51(3)(a) is a different one (a fine not to exceed $10,000 or imprisonment not to exceed 9 months, or both). A driver who is on IID for a first improper refusal, which is itself a civil revocation and not a crime, can now face actual jail exposure if charged under §343.302.
Act 210 also gives that conviction a licence consequence of its own. Newly created §343.30(1qm) requires the court to revoke the operating privilege of a person convicted of violating §343.302(1) “for not less than one year nor more than 18 months,” and provides that the person is eligible for an occupational licence under §343.10. So an IID violation can generate a second revocation stacked on the one that put the device in the car in the first place.
The motorcycle ban
§343.301(1g)(am)1 as amended prohibits operation of a Class M (motorcycle) vehicle for the entire duration of the IID order. The statutory text contains no carve-out for drivers who hold only a Class M license, and no carve-out for off-season storage. Drivers who rely on motorcycles for primary or seasonal transportation will need to plan for the IID-period gap.
Service-provider data and compliance review
The newly created §343.301(7) through (9) impose new information-flow requirements between the offender, WisDOT, and the IID service provider:
- §343.301(7): the offender must give the service provider the county of conviction and case number, and the start and end dates of the IID requirement. A provider “may not begin the compliance-based review until all information required under sub. (7) is provided.”
- §343.301(8): the device “shall conduct a retest after each failed or skipped test,” and a person who fails or skips a retest “is guilty of an ignition interlock device violation.”
- §343.301(9)(a): at the end of the order the person returns to the provider for final service, data download, and compliance-based review, which the provider must complete no later than 7 business days after the download.
- §343.301(9)(b) and (c): the provider notifies the department of any §343.301(6)(b) event, the department extends the order, and it must notify the person in writing, with the extension “beginning 10 days from the date of the written notice.”
The rebuttal right is the deadline that matters. Under §343.301(9)(d), a person who receives an extension notice “may, within 15 business days of the date of the notice, provide the service provider with a written rebuttal of the event that the service provider determines requires an extension.” The provider then has 7 business days to review it and notify both the department and the person of the final determination. If the original determination is reversed, “the service provider shall correct the person’s record and the department shall reverse the extension.” Miss the 15 business days and the extension stands.
Practically, this makes the IID service provider a quasi-enforcement node, formally responsible for triggering extension reviews and then for adjudicating the first challenge to its own determination. That is an unusual structure, and it is where the defence work will sit: getting the raw device data, testing the calibration and service history behind a reported event, and filing the §343.301(9)(d) rebuttal inside the window.
Practical posture: who Act 210 helps, who it hurts
Helps: First-improper-refusal defendants who need to drive sooner, where the 30-day wait is replaced by eligibility on installing the device. Repeat-OWI defendants at the count-of-2 and count-of-3-or-more revocation tiers, where the 45-day wait is struck out. It does nothing for a first OWI conviction, which was already eligible “at any time,” and nothing for a 2nd or 3rd improper refusal, where the 90-day and 120-day waits stand.
Hurts: Anyone on IID who has compliance issues more than 60 days after installation (six triggers, 180 days each, no cap in the Act text). Anyone charged under the new §343.302(2), which carries the same penalty range as a 2nd-offense OWI and now also triggers a separate one-year to 18-month revocation under §343.30(1qm). Anyone who relies on a motorcycle, since the Class M bar runs for the whole IID order. And anyone who removes the device without department documentation that their operating privilege has been restored, who under amended §343.301(3)(a) picks up the reinstallation cost.
What to do if you are facing OWI or a refusal hearing in 2026
Two distinct case-by-case decisions are now in front of every Racine, Kenosha, and Walworth County OWI defendant:
- Whether to accept the IID and file the occupational license immediately (the Act 210 fast track) or fight the underlying charge (no IID required if the charge is dismissed or reduced to a non-OWI). The faster occupational-license route is more attractive under Act 210, but it requires committing to IID compliance for the full ordered period plus any §343.301(6)(b) extensions.
- Whether to challenge specific IID-violation events that occur during the ordered period. Because each event now carries a 180-day extension and possible §343.302(2) criminal exposure, contesting an IID violation is no longer a low-stakes paperwork exercise. The defense angles include device calibration records, digital-image authentication for unoccupied-vehicle missed retests, and chain-of-custody on the service provider's data download.
Existing OWI tier pages
Act 210 affects the IID and occupational-license posture at every tier. For tier-specific consequences, see:
- Refusal hearings, where the 30-day occupational-license wait is eliminated by Act 210
- 1st-offense OWI, civil forfeiture but with collateral consequences
- 2nd-offense OWI, first criminal-tier OWI with mandatory IID
- 3rd-offense OWI, mandatory 45-day jail floor
- 4th-offense felony OWI, Class H felony
Free, confidential consultation: Call or text (262) 632-5000. We have defended Wisconsin OWI cases continuously since 1994 and are watching the Wisconsin administrative register for the Section 17(2) notice that starts the Act 210 clock.
