Initial Considerations

Associated Costs

Up to $350. Some court-imposed fees may be waived for low-income petitioners (see Section IA). 

• Filing Fee: $164.50 to file a petition for name change. 

• Newspaper publication (if applicable): $75–$100. The newspaper in which notification must be published charges this fee, and it can vary. 

• Certified Copies of Name Change Court Order. These typically cost $2.50/copy for non-certified copies and $7.50/copy for certified copies. It is best to purchase a few certified copies, but an exact number is not required. 

• Vital Records Office Fee (if applicable): $10 to file an order to change a Wisconsin birth certificate. 

• Certified Wisconsin Birth Certificate (if applicable): The Wisconsin Vital Records Office charges $20.00 for the first copy of an amended* birth certificate and $3.00 for duplicates purchased at the same time. 

*Definition: Amended = Changed. Courts sometimes use the word “amended” to mean something has been changed. 

Tip: If you plan to change both your name and sex marker, consider waiting to update documents until a court has ordered both changes since new copies are expensive. 

Timeline

The process can take four to eight weeks. 

• This timeline includes the required three-week newspaper publication period. 

• If you can use the confidential process, as described in the next paragraph, the timeline will be shorter. 

Confidential or Public

The courts offer two variations on the procedure to obtain a name change, and you will need to decide which you will follow. 

Public. The default name change process creates a public record of the name change, requires publication of a notice of the name change hearing, and becomes accessible on the website for Wisconsin circuit court records. 

Confidential. To use this confidential process, a petitioner must show, “by a preponderance of the evidence,” that publication “could endanger” them. 

• To follow the confidential procedure, you must complete a different set of forms. The confidential forms are listed throughout the Process section below and are shown in [brackets]. 

Note: There is case law that narrowly defines “could endanger” to require proof that it is “more likely than not that the petitioner could be physically endangered if the name change petition is published. In the Matter of the Name Change of R.I.B. v. Brown County Circuit Court, 2022AP323 (Jan. 18, 2023) (emphasis added). 

“Endanger” does not include mental or emotional harm, only physical harm. "Could" is more than just any chance that physical harm might occur, but instead requires you to prove it is "more likely than not" that physical harm will occur if your name change is public.