Wisconsin writes its own code for the IRC

Record of adoption

Legal citation

Wis. Admin. Code chs. SPS 320-325

Adopted by

Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS), with its Uniform Dwelling Code Council

Second reading

Agreed Oct 19, 2026

Applies

The state writes its own code

Also called

UDC, SPS 320-325, One- and Two-Family Dwellings code

Wisconsin’s one- and two-family code is its own Uniform Dwelling Code, chs. SPS 320-325, which sets uniform statewide construction standards (SPS 320.01). Chapters SPS 320, 321, 323, 324, and 325 took effect June 1, 1980 (SPS 320.03).

Coming next

• Edition not knownPartial
  No date yetIn developmentSS 011-25: SPS 320 to 325

  DSPS lists the rule status as Drafting Rule and the UDC Council agenda for Jul 23, 2026, has ‘SPS 320 to 325 Review’.

How Wisconsin adopts the IRC

• Agency rule
• The legislature reviews the rules and can block them

DSPS amends the UDC (chs. SPS 320-325) by agency rule, with the Uniform Dwelling Code Council reviewing drafts, and the current update (SS 011-25) is at the drafting stage. The same Governor and Legislature rule-review steps, and the same 2025 limits on JCRAR, apply as for other DSPS code rules.

Cycle. Irregular: the UDC is a state-written code with no model-code edition cycle.

Laws, rulings, and other actions

1. Feb 12, 2026Legislation
   2025 Enrolled Joint Resolution 13 (introduced as 2025 Assembly Joint Resolution 133)

   Proposed constitutional amendment (new art. IV, s. 35) letting the full Legislature suspend agency rules, in whole or part, by a joint resolution adopted by a majority of all members elected to each house.

   Pending: first consideration passed the Assembly Feb 12, 2026, and the Senate Feb 18, 2026; second consideration by the 2027 Legislature and a statewide vote would follow, and no ballot date is set

   legis.wisconsin.gov (opens in a new tab)
2. Jul 8, 2025Court ruling
   Evers v. Marklein, 2025 WI 36 (Wisconsin Supreme Court)

   Held the statutes letting JCRAR indefinitely object to proposed rules and suspend promulgated rules facially unconstitutional because they lack bicameralism and presentment, which cleared the stalled commercial building code update.

3. Aug 9, 2017Legislation
   2017 Senate Bill 15 / 2017 Wisconsin Act 57 (rulemaking reforms, REINS-type provisions)

   Requires an economic impact analysis for proposed rules and makes an agency stop work on a rule with $10,000,000 or more in implementation and compliance costs over any two-year period unless a bill authorizing it is enacted.

   Enacted Aug 9, 2017, published Aug 10, 2017

   docs.legis.wisconsin.gov (opens in a new tab)

How it was checked

Verified

Two separate readings of the state’s own record agree, and the passage is on file word for word.

Read twice: a second, blind reading of the state’s record agreed with the first on Oct 19, 2026.

The state’s record was last read on Oct 18, 2026, from two source pages.

Evidence 3 sources

Sources for the record itself come first, the state’s own records ahead of others. A label marks a source about something else, such as an exception. A source marked secondary is not the state’s own record.

• “Chs. SPS 320-325; Uniform Dwelling Code”

  “The purpose of this code is to establish uniform statewide construction standards and inspection procedures for one- and 2-family dwellings”

• About the note

  “The effective date of chs. SPS 320, 321, 323, 324 and 325 is June 1, 1980.”

• About another code

  “Effective January 1, 2016, the Wisconsin Uniform Dwelling Code updated its energy conservation code to the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code.”

Related pages

• See Wisconsin’s IRC on the map
• IRC adoption in every state
• All six codes in Wisconsin

Other codes in Wisconsin

• NEC2023 NECVerified
• IBC2021 IBCVerified
• IFCAnother model codeVerified
• IECC residential2009 IECCVerified
• IECC commercial2021 IECCVerified