How Does Garnishment Work: Wages, Bank Accounts, and Your Rights

Garnishment works by letting a creditor collect a debt at the source: a court (or, in some cases, a federal agency) orders your employer or bank to withhold money and send it to the creditor before it ever reaches you. For most debts, the creditor first has to sue you and win a money judgment. Federal law then caps how much can be taken, usually at 25% of your disposable earnings, with higher ceilings for child support and tax debts and a lower one for federal student loans.

The Creditor Usually Needs a Judgment First

A credit card issuer, a hospital, or a landlord cannot simply decide to pull money from your paycheck. The creditor has to sue you, win, and get the court to enter a money judgment stating the amount owed. Only then can it ask the court for a writ of garnishment.¹

Post-judgment interest and court costs from the original lawsuit can be added to the amount pursued through garnishment. Those figures have to be stated precisely on the writ.

Debts That Skip the Courtroom

Some creditors do not need a lawsuit. The IRS can levy your wages or bank account for unpaid federal taxes on its own authority. It sends a notice and demand for payment, and if you do not pay within ten days, it has statutory power to seize property directly.²

Defaulted federal student loans use an administrative process. The Department of Education or a guaranty agency can garnish up to 15% of your disposable pay after giving at least 30 days’ written notice and offering a hearing.³ As of January 2026, the Department has temporarily paused involuntary collections, including administrative wage garnishment, while it implements changes under the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. No end date has been announced.⁴

Child support and alimony orders issued by a court or qualifying administrative process are also enforceable without a separate money judgment, and they follow their own caps.⁵

How the Writ Reaches Your Employer or Bank

Once the creditor has a judgment, it fills out a garnishment form from the court clerk identifying you (the debtor) and the third party holding your money (the garnishee, usually your employer or bank). The paperwork lists the judgment amount, accumulated interest, and court costs. The clerk signs and seals it, and the writ becomes a live court order.

The sealed writ then has to be formally delivered to the garnishee through service of process, typically by a sheriff’s deputy or licensed process server. Proof of service goes back to the court, starting the clock on the garnishee’s deadline to respond.

After being served, the garnishee is legally required to act. Banks generally freeze the account up to the amount on the writ. Employers begin withholding from your paycheck. The garnishee must also file a written answer with the court, usually within 14 to 30 days depending on the jurisdiction, stating whether it holds any of your money and how much.

Ignoring a writ is dangerous for the garnishee. A bank or employer that fails to respond can have a default judgment entered against it for the entire debt, shifting the creditor’s claim from you to them. That is why even small garnishments get taken seriously.

How Much of Your Paycheck Can Be Taken

Federal law prevents a creditor from taking your entire check. Under the Consumer Credit Protection Act, the most a creditor can garnish for ordinary consumer debts (credit cards, medical bills, personal loans) is the lesser of:⁵

25% of your disposable earnings for the week, or
The amount by which your weekly disposable earnings exceed $217.50 (30 times the federal minimum wage of $7.25).⁶

Whichever number is smaller is what the creditor gets. If your weekly disposable earnings are $217.50 or less, nothing can be garnished at all.

What Counts as Disposable Earnings

Disposable earnings are not your gross pay and not your take-home pay. The statute defines them as what remains after deductions “required by law to be withheld.”⁷ That includes federal and state income taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and state unemployment insurance. It does not include voluntary deductions like health insurance premiums, retirement contributions, or union dues. So your disposable earnings for garnishment purposes are usually higher than the amount actually hitting your bank account.

The Test Applied

Say your weekly disposable earnings are $600. Twenty-five percent is $150. The amount over $217.50 is $382.50. The creditor gets the smaller figure, $150. Now say your disposable earnings are $250. Twenty-five percent is $62.50. The amount over $217.50 is $32.50. The creditor gets $32.50. The closer you sit to the $217.50 floor, the more you keep.

Many states set stricter limits than federal law, and some prohibit wage garnishment for consumer debt entirely or give heads of household extra protection. When federal and state rules conflict, whichever leaves more money with you controls.⁸

Higher Caps for Support Orders, Different Rules for Taxes

The 25% ceiling applies only to ordinary consumer debts. Child support and alimony can reach a much larger share of your paycheck:⁵

50% of disposable earnings if you are supporting another spouse or dependent child
60% if you are not supporting another spouse or dependent child
Add 5% (making it 55% or 65%) if the support order covers arrears more than 12 weeks old

Federal tax levies do not follow the 25% rule either. The IRS uses its own formula that leaves you a weekly exempt amount based on filing status and dependents rather than a flat percentage. Federal student loan garnishment, when active, is capped at 15% of disposable pay, lower than the standard consumer cap.³

When Multiple Garnishments Hit at Once

If you owe several creditors and more than one writ arrives, the total withheld from your paycheck still cannot exceed the federal ceiling. Orders are generally paid in the order served, with one exception: family support orders jump to the front regardless of when they arrive.⁹

In practice, a second creditor may collect nothing at first because the first garnishment already fills the 25% cap. Its writ stays active and starts collecting once the earlier debt is satisfied. When a support order arrives during a consumer-debt garnishment, the employer has to prioritize support and reduce or pause the consumer garnishment to keep the total within legal limits.

What Happens When the Money Is in Your Bank Account

Wage-garnishment limits protect wages. Bank accounts are covered by a separate rule. Under 31 CFR Part 212, when a bank receives a garnishment order, it must review the account for federal benefit deposits made during the prior two months (the “lookback period”). If protected federal payments hit the account during that window, the bank must calculate a protected amount and keep those funds available to you. It cannot freeze protected funds in response to the writ.¹⁰

Protected payments include Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (under 42 U.S.C. § 407) and veterans benefits (under 38 U.S.C. § 5301). The bank must send you a written notice showing how much was protected, how much (if any) was frozen, and how to claim additional exemptions. This federal rule overrides conflicting state law.

Important limit: automatic protection only applies to directly deposited federal benefits. If you receive a paper check and deposit it yourself, the bank’s system may not flag those funds, and you would need to file a claim of exemption with the court to protect them.

How to Fight a Garnishment

Getting served with a garnishment notice does not mean the fight is over. You can challenge it by filing a written objection or claim of exemption with the court. Common grounds include:

Exempt income. Social Security, disability, and other protected payments should not be garnished; if they are, you can claim the exemption.
Debt already paid. If the judgment is satisfied or the creditor is trying to collect more than you owe, the garnishment should be reduced or stopped.
Improper service. If you never received proper notice of the underlying lawsuit or the garnishment itself, you can challenge it on procedural grounds.
Bankruptcy. Filing a bankruptcy petition triggers an automatic stay that immediately halts most collection activity, including garnishment.¹¹

To claim an exemption, you typically complete the claim form, attach supporting documents (bank statements showing Social Security deposits, proof of prior payments, and the like), and file with the court clerk. There is usually no filing fee. You then serve copies on the creditor, the garnishee, and any sheriff involved. If the creditor objects, the court sets a hearing. Deadlines are short, often 10 to 14 days after you receive garnishment notice, so speed matters more here than almost anywhere else in the process.

The bankruptcy stay is the broadest tool available, but it has a limit worth knowing: domestic support obligations like child support are largely exempt from the automatic stay, so those garnishments continue even after a bankruptcy filing.¹¹

Can Your Employer Fire You Over a Garnishment

Federal law says an employer cannot fire you because your wages are being garnished for any one debt.¹² An employer who violates the rule faces up to a $1,000 fine, up to one year in jail, or both.

The protection has a real gap. It only covers garnishment for a single debt. If a second garnishment arrives from a different creditor, the federal shield no longer applies. Some states extend the ban to multiple garnishments, but the federal floor stops at the first. If you owe more than one creditor, that gap is worth knowing about before a second writ shows up on your employer’s desk.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 3205 – Garnishment
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6331 – Levy and Distraint
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 20 USC 1095a – Wage Garnishment Requirement
4
U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education Delays Involuntary Collections Amid Ongoing Student Loan Repayment Improvements
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
6
U.S. Department of Labor. State Minimum Wage Laws
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1672 – Definitions
8
eCFR. 5 CFR 582.402 – Maximum Garnishment Limitations
9
eCFR. 29 CFR Part 20 Subpart F – Administrative Wage Garnishment
10
eCFR. Part 212 – Garnishment of Accounts Containing Federal Benefit Payments
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 362 – Automatic Stay
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1674 – Restriction on Discharge From Employment by Reason of Garnishment