How to stop a wage garnishment

Every remedy on this page belongs to exactly one kind of garnishment, and using the wrong one wastes the only time you have. Ask your payroll department for a copy of the order they received. They hold it, they are usually willing to hand it over, and it names the creditor, the court or agency that issued it, a case or account number, the amount claimed and the date service was made. Without that document you are guessing.

If the order came from a court, you are dealing with a judgment creditor. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's position is that most creditors can only garnish wages or benefits after a court has issued a judgment saying you owe the debt. That means there was a lawsuit, and the fact that you do not remember one does not mean there was not — default judgments are entered against people who never filed an answer, and sometimes against people who were never properly served.

If the order came from an agency letterhead rather than a court, it is one of the administrative routes that need no judgment at all. The Department of Education issues administrative wage garnishment orders on defaulted federal student loans under 34 CFR Part 34. The IRS issues levies on Form 668-W. State child support agencies issue income withholding orders. Each of these arrives without anyone ever suing you, which is exactly why they surprise people.

Distinguish a wage garnishment from a bank levy. A wage garnishment intercepts money before it reaches you; a bank levy freezes money already in your account. They are separate legal steps, they are often used by the same creditor in sequence, and the protections are entirely different. The rules for money sitting in an account are covered further down this page, and they matter enormously for anyone receiving federal benefits.

Finally, write down every date on the paperwork. The date of service, the date of the notice, the date of the judgment. Almost every route out of a garnishment runs on a clock measured from one of those dates — thirty days to request a student loan hearing, a fixed window to file a claim of exemption, a state-law period for moving to vacate a default judgment. Reconstructing them later from memory does not work.

Title III of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, at 15 U.S.C. 1673(a), sets the ceiling for a garnishment in any workweek at the lesser of two numbers: 25 percent of your disposable earnings for that week, or the amount by which your disposable earnings for that week exceed thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage. Whichever produces the smaller garnishment is the one that applies, which means low earners are protected by the second test and higher earners by the first.

The Department of Labor's employment law advisor works the second test from a federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Thirty times that figure is $217.50 a week, so on the Department's stated wage the arithmetic means a worker with $217.50 or less in weekly disposable earnings cannot be garnished by an ordinary creditor at all. A worker with $400 in disposable earnings that week faces the lesser of $100 and $182.50 — so $100. A worker with $250 faces the lesser of $62.50 and $32.50 — so $32.50.

Disposable earnings are not the same as take-home pay and the difference catches people out. Disposable earnings are what remains after deductions the law requires: federal and state income tax withholding, Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance contributions. Deductions you chose — union dues, life insurance premiums, charitable giving, most retirement contributions — do not reduce the figure the garnishment is calculated against, even though they reduce the amount that actually lands in your account.

The law reaches more than a salary. Title III applies to anyone who receives earnings for personal services, and the Department of Labor's advisor lists wages, salaries, commissions, bonuses and periodic payments from a pension or retirement program among them. A commission-heavy month or an annual bonus is not outside the order simply because it is not a regular paycheck.

The 25 percent ceiling applies no matter how many garnishment orders your employer receives. A second creditor with a second judgment does not double what comes out of your pay; it queues behind the first. This matters because a creditor who cannot collect anything today may still hold a live order that begins withholding the moment the earlier one is satisfied.

Employers get this arithmetic wrong more often than you would expect, usually by calculating from gross pay rather than disposable earnings, or by stacking two orders. The Wage and Hour Division administers and enforces Title III, accepts complaints about violations, and can be reached on 1-866-487-9243. Complaining costs nothing and does not require a lawyer.

Child and spousal support sits above the ordinary cap by design. Under 15 U.S.C. 1673(b), a support order may reach 50 percent of disposable earnings where you are supporting another spouse or dependent child, and 60 percent where you are not. Either figure rises by a further five points — to 55 or 65 percent — where the arrears are more than twelve weeks old. These are federal ceilings, and a state may set the withholding lower.

A support withholding order usually arrives as an income withholding order from a state child support agency or a court rather than from a private creditor, and your employer is obliged to act on it. Disputing the amount is a matter for the issuing agency or court, not for payroll, and continuing to pay the custodial parent directly while ignoring the order generally does not reduce what is withheld.

Defaulted federal student loans run on a separate track again. Under 34 CFR Part 34 the Department of Education may garnish administratively, with no lawsuit and no judgment. Withholding is capped at 15 percent of disposable pay where the Department issues the orders, and the employer may take no more than the amount by which disposable pay exceeds thirty times the minimum wage — the same floor that protects low earners from ordinary creditors.

That regulation also gives you rights people routinely fail to use. The Department must mail notice at least thirty days before it starts garnishment proceedings. If it receives a timely written hearing request, it will not issue a garnishment order until it has provided the hearing and issued a written decision on your objections; if it has not decided within sixty days of the request, garnishment stops until it does. Separately, the Department does not garnish where it has credible evidence that you were involuntarily separated from a job and have not yet been continuously reemployed for twelve months.

An IRS levy is not a percentage garnishment at all, and treating it like one leads to nasty surprises. The IRS takes everything above a fixed exempt amount, calculated from your standard deduction and the number of dependents you are allowed, using the tables in Publication 1494 that are sent to your employer. Your employer gives you a Statement of Dependents and Filing Status to complete and return within three days; if you miss that, the exempt amount is figured as though you were married filing separately with no dependents, which is close to nothing. Bonuses are especially harsh — where the exempt amount has already been applied to your regular wages that period, the whole bonus goes to the IRS.

The IRS levy is preceded by a bill titled Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to a Hearing, and that hearing right is the moment to act. The IRS will release a levy issued in error or one that is creating hardship, and the Taxpayer Advocate Service — an independent office inside the IRS, free, on 1-877-777-4778 — exists precisely for taxpayers whose hardship is not being recognised through normal channels. Our guide on what to do if you cannot pay your taxes covers the payment routes that prevent a levy in the first place.

State tax authorities levy on their own statutory authority and their own timetables. A federal arrangement with the IRS does nothing about a state levy, and vice versa. Title III's percentage limits do not apply to debts due for any state or federal tax, which is why tax levies bite harder than credit card judgments.

Congress wrote the federal limits as a minimum standard, not a national rule. 15 U.S.C. 1677 leaves standing any state law prohibiting garnishment or providing for more limited garnishment than the federal subchapter allows. Where the two conflict, the more protective one governs, and in several states the gap is enormous.

Texas is the clearest example. The Texas State Law Library's debt collection guide states that the state constitution prohibits taking wages directly from paychecks for most debts, and that a debt collector cannot garnish your wages for ordinary debts even after winning a judgment. The exceptions are child support, spousal maintenance, federal student loans and federal taxes. The catch, which the same guide is blunt about, is that the protection ends when the money lands in your bank account, where a judgment creditor may reach it with a writ of garnishment.

Florida protects by household status rather than by category. Under section 222.11 of the Florida Statutes, all of the disposable earnings of a head of family whose disposable earnings are $750 a week or less are exempt from attachment or garnishment. A head of family earning more than that can only be garnished if they signed a separate written waiver in at least 14-point type, in the same language as the underlying contract. Anyone who is not a head of family is limited to the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act figure. Florida also keeps exempt earnings protected for six months after they are deposited in a financial institution, provided they can be traced.

California sets a lower percentage than the federal cap and builds a formal escape hatch into the process. The state courts' self-help guidance describes a garnishment as the debt collector having your employer take up to 20 percent of your wages, on an Earnings Withholding Order served by a levying officer — usually a sheriff, and not necessarily the one in your county. The order itself tells you which levying officer to deal with.

New York uses a two-limit structure. Under CPLR 5231 an income execution may be issued for installments of not more than ten percent of gross income, the total withheld may not exceed twenty-five percent of disposable earnings, and nothing may be withheld in any week unless disposable earnings exceed thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage. New York also serves the debtor first: the sheriff serves a copy on the judgment debtor, and only levies on the employer if the debtor defaults for twenty days or service on them fails.

The practical instruction is to find your own state's rule before you assume the federal 25 percent applies to you. Your employer must apply whichever limit protects you more, and LawHelp.org will route you to nonprofit legal-aid material for your state. Do not rely on a national figure quoted by a collector — the CFPB notes that it is illegal under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for a collector to threaten garnishment of wages that cannot legally be garnished.

A claim of exemption is a formal statement to the court or officer running the garnishment that the money being taken is needed to support you and your family, or that it comes from a protected source. It does not dispute that you owe the debt. It asks for the withholding to be reduced or stopped on hardship or exemption grounds, and it is the fastest lawful route available to most people.

California shows the shape of the process clearly. You file a Claim of Exemption on form WG-006 together with a financial statement, delivering two copies to the levying officer named in the upper right corner of the Earnings Withholding Order. The debt collector then has ten days to oppose. If they do not, the garnishment stops or reduces and wages already over-garnished are returned. If they do oppose, you are sent a hearing notice and must reply at least five court days before the hearing date, then show the judge — with pay stubs and bills, not assertions — that the deduction makes it impossible to cover essential family expenses.

Other states run the same idea through different paperwork, and the names vary: claim of exemption, motion to quash, head-of-family affidavit, hardship application. What does not vary is the evidence that persuades. Assemble recent pay stubs, your lease or mortgage statement, utility bills, childcare costs, transportation costs, medical expenses and any documentation of a dependent you support. A schedule of monthly income against monthly essential outgoings, with receipts attached, is worth more than any argument.

For a defaulted federal student loan, the equivalent is the written hearing request to the Department of Education. Financial hardship is a recognised objection, as is disputing the existence, amount or enforceability of the debt, and so is the twelve-month reemployment protection for anyone involuntarily separated from a job. Send it in writing, keep proof of the date, and send it within thirty days of the notice — a timely request means no garnishment order issues until the Department has held the hearing and decided.

For an IRS levy the mechanism is different again. Return the Statement of Dependents and Filing Status within three days so your exempt amount reflects your actual filing status and dependents rather than the punitive default. If the levy still leaves you unable to meet basic living expenses, ask the IRS to release it for hardship; the Taxpayer Advocate Service describes currently not collectible hardship status for taxpayers who cannot pay both their taxes and their reasonable basic living expenses, though penalties and interest keep running.

Two habits make all of this work. File early, because these windows are short and courts rarely extend them. And keep a copy of everything you send with proof of delivery, because the most common reason an exemption claim fails is not that it was refused but that nobody can prove it arrived before the deadline.

A large share of garnishments rest on default judgments — orders entered because nobody filed an answer to the lawsuit. The CFPB warns plainly that ignoring a debt collection lawsuit can result in a judgment against you, and that a judgment is what unlocks garnishment. If the first you heard of a case was a short paycheck, the judgment is the thing to attack, not the garnishment order that flows from it.

The usual ground is defective service. Court papers must actually be delivered to you in the manner your state's rules require. Where they were left at an address you moved out of years ago, handed to someone unconnected with your household, or simply never delivered at all, most states allow a motion to vacate or set aside the judgment. Deadlines for that motion are set by state law and are frequently measured from when you learned of the judgment rather than when it was entered, which is why the date you first saw the garnishment matters.

A second ground is the statute of limitations. The CFPB notes that a collector cannot sue once the limitations period on the debt has expired. That defense generally has to be raised — it is not applied automatically — so a suit filed on a time-barred debt that nobody answered can still produce a valid-looking judgment that a court will reopen if you ask.

Then there are the identity questions. Judgments are routinely entered against the wrong person with a similar name, against victims of identity theft who never opened the account, and on debts that were already paid, settled or discharged in bankruptcy. If any of that applies, say so in writing and support it with documents — a settlement letter, a bankruptcy discharge order, a police report or an identity theft report.

Be aware that the CFPB is candid about the difficulty: once entered, a judgment is a court order and can be very hard to change or set aside. That is an argument for acting immediately, not for giving up. It is also the strongest possible argument for answering any new debt collection lawsuit on time, however hopeless the underlying debt looks, because responding forces the collector to prove the debt rather than winning by your silence.

You do not have to do this alone or pay for it. Legal aid offices take consumer cases based on income eligibility, many courts publish fill-in-the-blank motion forms, and the Legal Services Corporation funds nonprofit legal aid organizations in every state, the District of Columbia and the US territories. Our guide on getting legal help if you cannot afford a lawyer sets out how to reach them.

Some income is protected because of where it comes from rather than how much of it there is. Supplemental Security Income is the strongest case: the CFPB states that SSI is protected from garnishment even to pay a government debt or child or spousal support. Ordinary Social Security retirement and disability benefits are protected from ordinary judgment creditors, but not absolutely — the CFPB notes that the IRS and the Department of Education may take up to 15 percent of Social Security or SSDI benefits, and states can generally garnish for child support.

The protection for money already in a bank account comes from 31 CFR Part 212, which covers benefits paid by the Social Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Railroad Retirement Board and the Office of Personnel Management. When a bank receives a garnishment order it must review the account within two business days, look back over the two months before the review, and establish a protected amount equal to the lesser of the benefits deposited in that window or the current balance. It must leave that money accessible, and it may not charge a garnishment fee against it.

The bank must then tell you. Where benefits were deposited in the lookback period, the balance was above zero and there are funds above the protected amount, the bank has three business days to send a notice explaining the protected amount, the freezing of the excess and your right to assert further exemptions. That notice is not a formality — it is often the only written explanation you will get of why part of your account is frozen and part is not.

The protection has a hard edge. It applies to payments arriving by direct deposit, identified automatically by the bank. If you receive benefits by paper check and deposit them yourself, the CFPB is explicit that the automatic protection does not apply and the whole balance can be frozen unless you prove the source of the money in court. For anyone on benefits with any exposure to a judgment creditor, switching to direct deposit is the single cheapest protective step available.

There is also an exception written into the rule itself. Where a garnishment order arrives with a Notice of Right to Garnish Federal Benefits attached — issued by the United States or by a state child support enforcement agency — the special protections do not apply and the bank follows ordinary garnishment procedure. That is how child support and federal debt collection reach benefit money that a credit card creditor cannot.

State law can add a further layer for wages that have already been paid to you. Florida, for example, keeps earnings that were exempt when paid exempt for six months after deposit in a financial institution, so long as they can be traced. Most states have some version of a tracing rule, and it is worth finding yours before you move money between accounts, which usually makes tracing harder rather than easier.

Start with the reassurance, because people quit jobs over this. Under 15 U.S.C. 1674 no employer may discharge any employee by reason of the fact that their earnings have been subjected to garnishment for any one indebtedness, and a willful violation carries a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment of up to a year, or both. The Wage and Hour Division enforces that protection and accepts complaints on 1-866-487-9243.

Read the limit in that rule carefully, though. The federal protection covers garnishment for any one debt; it does not stop an employer firing someone whose wages are garnished for multiple separate debts. That gap is real, and it is one more reason to resolve the first garnishment rather than letting a second creditor line up behind it. Federal student loan borrowers get a broader shield — 34 CFR Part 34 says an employer may not discharge, refuse to employ or take disciplinary action against a debtor because of a garnishment order under that part.

Negotiating directly with the creditor is undervalued. The creditor who obtained the order is usually the only person who can ask for it to be released, and many will do so in exchange for a voluntary payment arrangement they consider reliable, because a payment plan is cheaper for them to administer than repeated garnishment. Get any agreement in writing, get the release of the existing order in writing, and confirm with payroll that the order has actually been withdrawn before you rely on the next paycheck.

Bankruptcy is the blunt instrument that stops nearly everything at once. Filing a petition triggers an automatic stay: the US Courts explain that filing under chapter 13 automatically stays most collection actions, and that creditors generally may not initiate or continue lawsuits, wage garnishments or even telephone calls demanding payment. Chapter 13 adds a codebtor stay protecting anyone liable alongside you on a consumer debt. It is a serious decision with long consequences and it does not stop everything — support obligations in particular are treated differently — so take advice before filing rather than after.

Free help exists at every level. Legal aid offices funded by the Legal Services Corporation cover every state and territory and take consumer cases on income eligibility; LawHelp.org routes you to state-specific nonprofit legal information and free document tools; Low Income Taxpayer Clinics handle IRS levy cases; and the Taxpayer Advocate Service is free for hardship cases the IRS is not resolving. The CFPB accepts complaints about garnishment conduct by financial companies and debt collectors on 855-411-2372, with companies generally responding within fifteen days.

Two things not to do. Do not take an unbanked, cash-in-hand job to dodge an order — it does not extinguish the debt, it usually costs more in lost wage protections than it saves, and for a federal debt the Treasury can reach other payments. And treat any company advertising that it can stop a garnishment for an up-front fee with deep suspicion; every step described on this page is one you can take yourself, or with a legal aid lawyer, at no cost.