Adverse Possession in Wyoming: One Sentence of Statute and Ten Years
Reviewed by DocDraft Legal Team · Wyoming · Last updated October 5, 2026
Adverse possession is the rule that can turn years of open occupation of land titled to somebody else into legal ownership, and Wyoming governs it with less statutory text than almost anything else in its code. One sentence carries the deadline. An action for the recovery of the title or possession of lands, tenements or hereditaments can only be brought within ten years after the cause of such action accrues (Wyo. Stat. 1-3-103). A second sentence handles owners under a legal disability, who may bring their action within ten years after the disability is removed (Wyo. Stat. 1-3-104). The Wyoming Legislative Service Office has put it plainly: the statutes are fairly quiet on the topic, only those two requirements are codified, and the elements of adverse possession are addressed through the courts rather than by statutory prescription. What follows from that silence matters. There is no tax payment condition anywhere in the limitation chapter, so a Wyoming claim does not turn on who paid the county. There is no shorter route for someone holding a deed, because color of title appears inside the element list as an alternative to claim of right rather than as a discount on the ten years. There is no acreage cap. And when the ten years is up, the quiet title action is open only to a person already in possession of the real property, held personally or by a tenant (Wyo. Stat. 1-32-201). Attorney review is available through DocDraft.
Find out where you stand in Wyoming
Which side of the boundary question are you on?
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How long must possession last for a Wyoming adverse possession claim?
Ten years, and only ten. An action for the recovery of the title or possession of lands, tenements or hereditaments can only be brought within ten years after the cause of such action accrues (Wyo. Stat. 1-3-103). Wyoming sets no second or shorter period.
Does Wyoming require an adverse possessor to pay the property taxes?
No. The Wyoming limitation chapter that sets the ten years contains no reference to taxes of any kind. The Legislative Service Office records that only two adverse possession requirements are codified, the ten year period and the disability extension, and neither concerns tax payment.
Where do the Wyoming adverse possession elements come from?
From the courts, not the code. The Legislative Service Office states that Wyoming's statutes are fairly quiet on the topic and that the elements are addressed through the courts rather than statutory prescription. Wyoming decisions require actual, open, notorious, exclusive and continuous possession that is hostile and under claim of right or color of title.
Can a Wyoming county acquire a road right of way by adverse possession?
The highway statute preserves that. Nothing in it prevents the creation or establishment of a public highway right of way for state and county highways under the common law doctrines of adverse possession or prescription, and a board resolving one must file a plat and accurate survey and publish for three successive weeks (Wyo. Stat. 24-1-101).
Wyoming adverse possession at a glance
Adverse possession is the doctrine under which someone who occupies land they do not own, openly and for long enough, can end up holding its title. Wyoming's contribution to that doctrine is remarkably short. The deadline is ten years from when the cause of action accrues (Wyo. Stat. 1-3-103), with ten years after a legal disability is removed for an owner who had one (Wyo. Stat. 1-3-104). Those are the only two adverse possession requirements the Legislature has codified, and the Legislative Service Office says so in terms. Everything else, every element, comes from Wyoming's courts, which require possession that is actual, open, notorious, exclusive and continuous, hostile, and under claim of right or color of title. No tax condition. No deed discount. No acreage ceiling. The quiet title action then requires the claimant to be in possession (Wyo. Stat. 1-32-201).
A Johnson County fence on the creek instead of the section line
Say a cattle outfit south of Buffalo built barbed wire along a creek in 1998 because the creek was the practical water boundary, and has grazed the twenty acres between the creek and the true section line every summer since. No deed covers that strip. No tax bill for it ever arrived. Under Wyoming law neither gap is fatal, because the limitation chapter asks for neither. What the courts will want is proof that the grazing was actual, open, notorious, exclusive and continuous, hostile, and under claim of right or color of title, across a full ten years. Wyoming also puts a condition on the filing: the quiet title action belongs to a person in possession (Wyo. Stat. 1-32-201). How the elements land on these facts is for the court.
Relevant Laws
Wyo. Stat. 1-3-103 (ten year period for recovery of real property)
Provides that an action for the recovery of the title or possession of lands, tenements or hereditaments can only be brought within ten years after the cause of such action accrues. This single sentence is the statutory basis of the Wyoming adverse possession period.
Wyo. Stat. 1-3-104 (recovery of real property, legal disability)
Provides that any person entitled to bring an action for the recovery of real property who is under any legal disability when the cause of action accrues may bring the action within ten years after the disability is removed.
Wyo. Stat. 1-32-201 (action to quiet title)
Provides that an action may be brought by a person in possession of real property against any person who claims an estate or interest in it adverse to them, for the purpose of determining the adverse estate or interest, and that the person bringing the action may hold possession personally or by a tenant.
Wyo. Stat. 1-32-202 and 1-32-203 (petition and answer in an action to recover realty)
Provides that the petition is sufficient if it states that the plaintiff has a legal estate in and is entitled to possession of the property, describes it with sufficient certainty to enable an officer holding an execution to identify it, and states that the defendant unlawfully keeps the plaintiff out of possession, and that it is not necessary to state how the estate or ownership is derived. Section 1-32-203 sets what the defendant's answer must do.
Wyo. Stat. 1-5-101 (actions brought where the real property is situated)
Requires actions for the recovery of real property, or of an estate or interest in it, for partition, and for sale under a mortgage, lien or other encumbrance, to be brought in the county in which the subject of the action is situated, except as provided in sections 1-5-102 and 1-5-103.
Wyo. Stat. 1-32-206 through 1-32-210 (occupying claimant, allowance for improvements)
Lets parties in an action for the recovery of real property avail themselves of the statutes for the relief of occupying claimants, and provides that a qualifying occupant in quiet possession who obtained title and possession without fraud or collusion is not evicted by a person proving an adverse and better title until paid the value of all lasting and valuable improvements made before actual notice by commencement of suit, subject to the listed title conditions and to the successful claimant's option to be paid the value of the land without the improvements.
Wyo. Stat. 24-1-101 (public highways, creation by adverse possession)
Provides that nothing in the section shall be construed as preventing the creation or establishment of a public highway right of way with reference to state and county highways under the common law doctrines of adverse possession or prescription, and sets a plat and accurate survey requirement plus publication for three successive weeks where a board of county commissioners resolves such a creation.
Wyo. Stat. 34-1-112 (claim of adverse possession not to invalidate conveyance)
Provides that no grant or conveyance of lands or interest in them shall be void for the reason that at the time of its execution the land was in the actual possession of another, claiming adversely.
Wyo. Stat. 34-10-103 and 34-10-104 (marketable record title and its exceptions)
Builds marketable record title on an unbroken chain of record title disclosed by a conveyance or other title transaction of record not less than forty years old, and makes that title subject to listed exceptions including the rights of any person arising from prescriptive use or a period of adverse possession or user which was in whole or in part subsequent to the effective date of the root of title.
Wyoming Legislative Service Office, Research Memo 06 RM 039R, Adverse Possession Background
A Legislative Service Office research memo on the Wyoming Legislature's own site recording that Wyoming requires a statutory period of ten years, that Wyoming's statutes are fairly quiet on the topic, that only two adverse possession requirements are codified in Wyo. Stat. 1-3-103 and 1-3-104, that the elements are addressed through the courts rather than by statutory prescription, and that adverse possession also addresses the state's own ability to use the doctrine to build public necessities such as roads.
Regional Variances
Wyoming adverse possession rules at a glance
Statutory period
Ten years, with no alternative. An action for the recovery of the title or possession of lands, tenements or hereditaments can only be brought within ten years after the cause of such action accrues (Wyo. Stat. 1-3-103).
Property taxes
No role at all. The limitation chapter that sets the ten years contains no tax provision, and the Legislative Service Office records that the only two codified requirements are the ten year period and the disability extension. Tax payment neither creates a route nor shortens one.
Elements
Supplied by the courts, not the code. Wyoming decisions require possession that is actual, open, notorious, exclusive and continuous, that is hostile, and that is under claim of right or color of title, held for the ten year statutory period.
Color of title
Does not shorten the period. It sits inside the element list as an alternative to claim of right. No Wyoming statute provides a shorter period for a claimant holding a written instrument.
Acreage cap
None. The Code of Civil Procedure sets a period and no size limit. The acreage figures that appear in that title concern mortgage redemption for agricultural real estate and the homestead exemption, not adverse possession.
Owner under a legal disability
Ten more years. A person entitled to bring an action for the recovery of real property who was under any legal disability when the cause of action accrued may bring it within ten years after the disability is removed (Wyo. Stat. 1-3-104).
Government and the doctrine
The statutes address only one direction. Nothing prevents the creation of a public highway right of way for state and county highways under the common law doctrines of adverse possession or prescription (Wyo. Stat. 24-1-101). Attorney review is available for a claim touching publicly owned ground.
Effect on a sale
A pending adverse claim does not void a deed. No grant or conveyance is void for the reason that the land was in the actual possession of another, claiming adversely, when it was executed (Wyo. Stat. 34-1-112).
Improvements
A qualifying occupying claimant in quiet possession who obtained title and possession without fraud or collusion is not evicted by a person proving an adverse and better title until paid the value of all lasting and valuable improvements made before suit (Wyo. Stat. 1-32-207).
Perfecting title
A quiet title action available to a person in possession, personally or by a tenant (Wyo. Stat. 1-32-201), brought in the county where the property is situated (Wyo. Stat. 1-5-101), on a petition that need not state how the plaintiff's ownership is derived (Wyo. Stat. 1-32-202).
Frequently Asked Questions
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