Cost of Wisconsin OWI

Question: How much will an OWI cost in Wisconsin?

Answer: There is a big variety of answers to that question. In and of itself, a first offense OWI has a minimum forfeiture to the court of $150. With court costs and surcharges and other things, you’re looking at a minimum of about $800 that’s payable, that’s just to the court itself. Other consequences of an OWI usually include higher insurance cost, you might have to have an ignition interlock device. If you hire the attorney, you have the cost of the attorney—and that can be a huge range. There are certainly some attorneys that charge very low fees to handle OWI cases, and then there are attorneys who charge much higher fees and everything in between. So the total cost of an OWI is never less than $800 in my experience, and it can be extremely significant. If you’re looking at a criminal OWI, just the court costs to the court alone if you’re convicted are usually over $2,000.