A wage garnishment letter tells an employer to withhold part of an employee’s paycheck to satisfy a court judgment, and if you are the judgment creditor writing one, it needs to identify the judgment, state the exact amount to withhold within federal limits, tell the employer where to send the money, and arrive with a certified copy of the writ of garnishment attached. Getting any of those pieces wrong gives the employer a reason to delay, and delay is money you do not collect. What follows walks through how to write a wage garnishment letter that a payroll department will act on.
Who Should Be Writing This Letter
The letter is a creditor’s document. You have already sued the debtor, won a judgment, and obtained a writ of garnishment from the court; the letter is what you or your attorney sends alongside the writ to direct the employer’s payroll office. The court issues the writ. You issue the letter.
One boundary worth naming up front: federal and state agencies collecting their own debts do not use a creditor-drafted letter at all. The IRS levies wages for unpaid taxes on its own authority, the Department of Education garnishes up to 15% of disposable earnings for defaulted student loans through guaranty agencies, and state agencies handle child support administratively.1U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 30 – Wage Garnishment Protections of the Consumer Credit Protection Act Those agencies use standardized forms, including Standard Form SF-329A for federal administrative wage garnishment.2U.S. General Services Administration. Wage Garnishment Letter and Important Notice to Employer If that describes your situation, use the form. If you are a private creditor enforcing a court judgment, you draft your own.
Information to Gather Before You Draft
Pull all of this together first. A letter missing any of it invites the employer to push back or sit on it.
- The employee’s full legal name and address.
- The employer’s full legal name, address, and the specific department that processes payroll or garnishments.
- The case name, case number, issuing court, and date of the judgment.
- The total amount owed, including principal, accrued interest, and any court-approved costs or fees.
- The specific dollar amount or percentage to withhold each pay period, calculated to stay within legal caps.
- The payee name and mailing address for the withheld funds, plus any reference or account number the employer should include with each payment.
- The legal authority for the withholding: the writ of garnishment, the court order, or the statute. A certified copy of the writ or order goes with the letter as an attachment.
How to Structure the Letter
Write it as a formal business letter. At the top, put the sender information: creditor’s name, firm name if there is one, address, phone number, and the date. Below that, the employer’s name and address. Add a subject line naming the employee and referencing the case number so the payroll department can route it without opening the envelope twice.
Opening Paragraph
State the purpose in one paragraph. Identify the court judgment by case name, case number, issuing court, and date of entry. Say that the attached order requires the employer to begin withholding from the named employee’s wages. Keep it short. The employer does not need a narrative of the underlying dispute.
Withholding Paragraph
Give the total outstanding balance and the exact dollar amount or percentage to withhold each pay period. If this is ordinary consumer debt, note that federal law caps the withholding at the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which the employee’s weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage, currently $217.50.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 US Code 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment Spell out the cap even though the employer is expected to know it. You want a paper record that the letter did not request an unlawful amount.
Two calculation points to build into the paragraph or into an attached worksheet. First, disposable earnings are gross pay minus amounts the law requires the employer to withhold: federal income tax, state and local taxes, Social Security, and Medicare.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 US Code 1672 – Definitions Voluntary deductions like health insurance premiums, 401(k) contributions, and life insurance do not reduce the disposable earnings base. Second, commissions and bonuses count as earnings; tips paid directly by customers generally do not, because the employer never pays them as compensation. If the employee’s pay fluctuates, the employer recalculates each cycle within the cap.
State law can protect a larger share of wages than federal law. When the state limit is lower, the state limit controls. Check your jurisdiction before writing in a specific percentage.
Remittance Instructions
Tell the employer exactly how to pay. Who to make the check payable to, the mailing address, and any account or case reference to include. If the funds go to a court registry or an intermediary rather than to you directly, say so, because payroll departments will not guess.
Closing and Attachments
Close with a reference to the legal authority, a note that documents are enclosed, and a formal signature block with your name, title, and contact information. List attachments at the bottom: the certified copy of the judgment or writ, a garnishment calculation worksheet if your jurisdiction requires one, and any employee exemption forms the court expects you to include.
How to Deliver It
Delivery matters as much as content, because if the employer ignores the order you may have to prove receipt. Certified mail with return receipt requested is standard. Some jurisdictions allow or require personal service through a process server for the initial writ. Either way, you get a dated record.
Address the letter to a person or a specific role, not to the company generally. Payroll manager, human resources director, or in-house counsel are the reliable recipients. A letter that lands on a general reception desk can sit unopened for weeks, and the employer’s clock starts when the right person receives the order, not when the mailroom signs for it.
Watch for Competing Garnishments
The 25% cap on ordinary consumer debt is aggregate, not per creditor. If another creditor is already withholding 25% of the employee’s disposable earnings on an earlier judgment, your garnishment collects nothing until the first is satisfied, unless your debt falls into a higher-priority category like child support or a tax levy.1U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 30 – Wage Garnishment Protections of the Consumer Credit Protection Act
Federal law does not set priority rules between competing ordinary garnishments. State law does. In most states, the first order served on the employer takes priority, but child support orders and tax levies generally jump ahead of ordinary creditor garnishments regardless of arrival order. If you have reason to think the debtor has other judgments outstanding, check your state’s priority rule before you tell a client to expect immediate payments.
What Happens After the Employer Receives It
A valid garnishment order compels the employer to withhold. The employer cannot ignore it, negotiate with the employee, or second-guess the underlying debt. Timing to begin withholding varies by state, but most jurisdictions require compliance starting with the first or second pay period after receipt. The employer recalculates each pay period based on disposable earnings and stays within both federal and state caps.
There is no federal notice requirement obligating the employer to tell the employee about the garnishment. The Department of Labor states that Title III of the CCPA carries no poster or notice requirement. Most employers notify the employee anyway, and some state laws require it, but the federal statute does not. An employer that fails to comply with a valid order can be compelled by court action and, in some cases, held directly liable for the amounts it should have withheld.5U.S. Department of Labor. Employment Law Guide – Wage Garnishment
Once the letter goes out and the withholding starts, your job as the creditor becomes tracking payments against the judgment balance and confirming that the employer is calculating correctly. If payments stop or come in short, the writ and your delivery receipt are what you take back to court.