Wisconsin Architect seal requirements: size, wording, and the rule that sets them

The architect's approved design reads "ARCHITECT" and the surveyor's reads "LAND SURVEYOR" — not "Registered Architect", and not "Professional Land Surveyor" even though the credential and the board section are both titled professional land surveyor. (Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(2); Wis. Stat. § 15.405(2)(ar))

Yes, and that is the half of the rule most often dropped. Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(1) provides that the overall diameter "may not be less than 1⅝ inches nor more than 2 inches", so an oversized seal fails exactly as an undersized one does. One provision governs every credential the examining board issues, which is why the architect's floor and ceiling are the engineer's and the surveyor's too — and why there is no architect seal rule to look up in ch. A-E 3, the architect registration chapter, which contains no seal provision at all. (Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(1))

Yes, and you do not re-seal their drawings. Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(8)(a) lets plans, specifications and calculations prepared by an architect credentialed in another state be filed here bearing that architect's own seal and signature. What the Wisconsin architect adds under § A-E 2.02(8)(b) is a separate certificate — itself dated, signed and sealed — attached to the plans, indicating that another architect prepared them, describing the work the submitting architect performed, and stating that the plans and specifications have been reviewed and comply with all applicable local and state building codes and that the submitting architect will be responsible for the supervision of construction. The route is open only for buildings and structures not exempt under Wis. Stat. § 443.15, and responsibility for supervision of construction is its price. (Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(8)(a), (b))

Every sheet, unless the set is bound into a volume and the title sheet does a specific job. Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(4) requires each sheet of plans, drawings, documents, specifications and reports to be signed, sealed and dated by the credential holder who prepared or directed and controlled the preparation. Subsection (5) relaxes that for a bound volume: the credential holder may sign, seal and date only the title or index sheet, but only if the signed sheet clearly identifies all other sheets comprising the volume and any sheet prepared by or under another credential holder's direction and control is signed, sealed and dated by that other holder. An index that does not itemize the sheets it stands for leaves the obligation where sub. (4) put it. (Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(4), (5))

Yes, since 1 June 2025, and the wording changed that day. CR 24-028 repealed and recreated Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(3), which now provides that the registration seal may be an embossing seal, an ink stamp seal, a digitally printed seal, or a seal digitally embedded in an electronic file, and rewrote sub. (7)(b) into three permitted ways of signing and dating a seal on a document filed as a public document: physical placement of a seal with a handwritten signature in permanent ink, digital placement of a seal with a handwritten signature in permanent ink, and — created by that same order — digital placement of a seal with an electronic signature. The order also repealed sub. (7)(a) outright, so the paragraphs under sub. (7) now begin at (b) and a citation to § A-E 2.02(7)(a) points at nothing. (Wis. Admin. Code § A-E 2.02(3), (7)(b), History note Register May 2025 No. 833)