Wage Garnishment: How Much Can Be Taken From Your Paycheck
Figures checked October 27, 2026 against primary sources
A wage garnishment is an order that makes your employer hold back part of your pay and send it to someone you owe. Federal law caps how much can be taken, and the cap depends on who is collecting: a credit card company, a child support agency, the Education Department and the IRS all play by different rules. This guide covers each one, with the federal limits worked out in dollars.
The Short Answer
- Ordinary debts (credit cards, medical bills, personal loans): the creditor usually has to sue you and win a court judgment first. Federal law then caps the garnishment at 25% of your disposable earnings or the amount above $217.50 a week, whichever is less.
- Low pay is protected: if your weekly disposable earnings are $217.50 or less, nothing can be garnished for these debts.
- Child support and alimony: up to 50% or 60% of disposable earnings, plus 5% more when payments are over 12 weeks behind.
- Defaulted federal student loans: no lawsuit needed; up to 15% of disposable pay. The Education Department paused this in January 2026 and had not announced a restart when we checked on October 27, 2026.
- IRS: no lawsuit needed; the IRS leaves you an exempt amount set by its own table and can take the rest.
- Your job: your employer cannot fire you because your pay is garnished for one debt.
- State law can set a lower limit, and the lower limit wins.
What Wage Garnishment Is
The federal law on garnishment, Title III of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, defines it as any legal procedure that requires part of a person's earnings to be withheld to pay a debt (15 U.S.C. 1672). The Labor Department, which enforces the federal limits, notes in its Fact Sheet #30 that most garnishments come from a court order, but IRS and state tax levies and federal agency garnishments for non-tax debts count too. A deduction you agreed to yourself, called a voluntary wage assignment, is not a garnishment.
For a private creditor or debt collector, the usual path is a lawsuit. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains that most creditors can only garnish after a court issues a judgment saying you owe the debt. Government creditors are different: the IRS, the Education Department and state child support agencies can start withholding without suing you, after sending the notices the law requires.
"Earnings" is broader than your hourly wage. It covers salary, commissions, bonuses and periodic pension payments, and the Labor Department counts lump sums paid for your work, such as severance pay and final paychecks. Tips above what your employer counts toward your wage are not earnings under the federal law.
Federal Limits: The 25% Rule
The limit is based on disposable earnings: what is left of your pay after deductions the law requires. Those include federal, state and local income tax, your share of Social Security and Medicare tax, and any retirement contributions a law makes mandatory. Deductions you choose, such as health insurance, union dues, 401(k) contributions or charity, usually are not subtracted. So your disposable earnings can be higher than your actual take-home pay.
For ordinary debts, 15 U.S.C. 1673(a) allows the lesser of:
- 25% of your disposable earnings for the week, or
- the amount by which your weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage. At $7.25 an hour, that floor is $217.50.
The cap applies to the total, no matter how many creditors have orders against you. The Labor Department publishes the floor for each pay schedule:
| Pay period | Nothing can be garnished if disposable earnings are | Only the amount above the floor | Up to 25% if disposable earnings are |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | $217.50 or less | more than $217.50 but less than $290.00 | $290.00 or more |
| Biweekly | $435.00 or less | more than $435.00 but less than $580.00 | $580.00 or more |
| Semimonthly | $471.25 or less | more than $471.25 but less than $628.33 | $628.33 or more |
| Monthly | $942.50 or less | more than $942.50 but less than $1,256.66 | $1,256.66 or more |
Three kinds of debt are outside this 25% cap: support orders, orders from a Chapter 13 bankruptcy court, and state or federal tax debts. Each has its own rules, covered below.
Worked Example: The Federal Maximum
Here is the federal formula applied to a few weekly paychecks for an ordinary debt such as a credit card judgment. These are federal limits only; your state may allow less. The examples are hypothetical.
| Weekly disposable earnings | 25% test | Amount above $217.50 | Federal maximum (the lower one) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $200 | $50.00 | $0 (below the floor) | $0 |
| $250 | $62.50 | $32.50 | $32.50 |
| $400 | $100.00 | $182.50 | $100.00 |
| $700 | $175.00 | $482.50 | $175.00 |
The math for $250: 25% of $250 is $62.50, and $250 minus $217.50 is $32.50. The lower figure, $32.50, is the most that can be taken. Once weekly disposable earnings reach $290, the 25% figure is always the lower one.
Other pay schedules use the multiples in the table above. A worker paid monthly with $1,100 of disposable earnings: 25% is $275, and $1,100 minus $942.50 is $157.50, so the maximum is $157.50. If you are paid biweekly with $1,000 of disposable earnings: 25% is $250, and $1,000 minus $435 is $565, so the maximum is $250.
To estimate your own disposable earnings, run your gross pay through our paycheck calculator and add back any voluntary deductions such as health insurance and 401(k) contributions.
Child Support and Alimony
Support orders can take much more. Under 15 U.S.C. 1673(b), the federal ceiling is:
- 50% of disposable earnings if you are supporting another spouse or child (other than the ones the order covers);
- 60% if you are not;
- 55% or 65% to the extent the garnishment covers support that is more than 12 weeks overdue.
Example: with $500 of weekly disposable earnings and no second family, up to $300 (60%) can be withheld, or up to $325 (65%) for arrears older than 12 weeks. Support orders can come from a court or a state agency, and the CFPB notes states can generally garnish wages or bank accounts for child support. Support also comes first in practice: in one Labor Department example, a worker with $370 a week already had $140 withheld for child support, which is more than 25%, so nothing more could be garnished for a consumer debt.
Federal Student Loans
A defaulted federal student loan can be collected by administrative wage garnishment, with no lawsuit. The Higher Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1095a) and the Education Department's rules in 34 CFR Part 34 set the terms:
- Up to 15% of disposable pay, unless you agree in writing to more. The federal $217.50-a-week floor still applies, and state garnishment limits do not.
- For this purpose, the department's definition of disposable pay also subtracts health insurance premiums.
- You must get written notice at least 30 days before garnishment starts. It explains your rights: to see the records, to agree to a repayment schedule, and to ask for a hearing.
- If your hearing request is postmarked or received by the 30th day after the notice, the department will not issue the order until it holds the hearing and decides.
- You can object that the amount would cause financial hardship for you and your dependents.
- If you lost a job involuntarily, garnishment cannot start until you have been back at work continuously for 12 months. You have to tell the department about the job loss.
- Your employer cannot fire you, refuse to hire you or discipline you because of it.
Example: with $500 of weekly disposable pay, 15% is $75. That is less than $282.50, the amount above the $217.50 floor, so up to $75 a week could be withheld.
Current status. On January 16, 2026, the Education Department announced a temporary delay of involuntary collections, including administrative wage garnishment and Treasury offsets of tax refunds, while it puts new repayment rules in place. It gave no end date. We found no announcement of a restart in the department's press releases through October 26, 2026. The pause is not forgiveness: the loan stays in default, and the department's default page still lists wage garnishment as a consequence. Rehabilitation or consolidation gets a loan out of default; see our student loan guide for the options.
IRS Wage Levies
The IRS calls its version a levy, and the 25% cap does not apply to it. According to the IRS's levy guidance, it usually levies only after it has assessed the tax, sent you a bill, you have not paid, and it has sent a Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to A Hearing at least 30 days before. A wage levy is continuous: it keeps taking money each pay period until the tax is paid, you make other arrangements, or the IRS releases it.
Instead of a percentage, the IRS lets you keep an exempt amount and takes the rest. The exempt amount is based on the standard deduction and the number of dependents you can claim, and your employer looks it up in Publication 1494, which comes with the levy. In the 2026 tables, a single filer with no dependents paid weekly keeps $309.62 of take-home pay a week; the IRS's own example gives a single filer with three dependents $615.38. Your filing status, dependents and age or blindness all change the figure.
Your employer will give you a Statement of Dependents and Filing Status. Return it within three days: if you do not, the IRS's wage levy page says your exempt amount is figured as if you were married filing separately with no dependents. A bonus paid separately from your regular paycheck can be taken in full. If a levy leaves you unable to pay basic living costs, the IRS says it may release a levy that causes an immediate economic hardship; call the number on the levy notice.
State tax agencies can also garnish wages for unpaid state taxes under their own rules.
Social Security, VA and Other Federal Benefits
Social Security and VA benefits are not wages, and a private creditor generally cannot garnish them. The harder question is what happens when a creditor with a judgment goes after your bank account. A Treasury rule, 31 CFR Part 212, makes banks protect directly deposited benefits from Social Security, the VA, the Office of Personnel Management (federal civil service retirement) and the Railroad Retirement Board.
Within two business days of receiving a garnishment order, the bank must review your account. If benefits were deposited during the past two months, it must leave you a protected amount, which the rule defines as "the lesser of the sum of all benefit payments posted to an account" during that two-month lookback period, "or the balance in an account when the account review is performed." You do not have to file anything to use that money. Money above the protected amount can still be frozen.
The protection has limits:
- It does not apply when the order comes from the federal government or a state child support agency with a Notice of Right to Garnish Federal Benefits attached. The CFPB notes that the IRS or the Education Department can take up to 15% of Social Security or SSDI benefits.
- Benefits received by paper check are not covered by the bank's automatic review. The CFPB says you can still claim the exemption for up to two months of benefits deposited by check, but you have to ask.
Can You Be Fired?
Not for a single debt. Under 15 U.S.C. 1674, no employer may fire an employee because their earnings have been garnished for any one debt. An employer who willfully breaks this rule can be fined up to $1,000, jailed for up to a year, or both. The Labor Department reads "one debt" to include repeated levies or lawsuits over the same debt.
Federal law does not protect you if your pay is garnished for two or more separate debts, but it leaves states free to, so check your state's law. For student loan garnishment the protection is wider: an employer cannot fire, refuse to hire or discipline you because of it.
State Laws Can Protect More
The federal limits are a ceiling, not a floor. 15 U.S.C. 1677 keeps in force any state law that bans garnishment or allows less of it, and the Labor Department says that when the two differ, the law that results in the lower garnishment must be followed. Several states set lower limits than the federal ones for consumer debts, and the rules differ from state to state.
To check your state:
- read the exemption notice that comes with the garnishment papers, which usually lists the state exemptions and the deadline to claim them;
- look at your state court's self-help pages on garnishment and exemptions;
- use LawHelp.org, which the CFPB points to for state exemption rules and legal aid.
State limits do not apply to federal student loan garnishment, and they do not limit IRS levies.
How to Stop or Reduce a Garnishment
- Respond to the lawsuit. If a creditor or debt collector sues you, file an answer by the deadline on the court papers. If you do not, the court can enter a default judgment, which is the step that allows garnishment. You may have defenses, such as a debt that is not yours or the wrong amount.
- Claim your exemptions. Once garnishment is ordered, you usually get a notice listing exemptions and a short deadline to claim them. Claim every one that fits: state wage exemptions and protected benefits in your bank account.
- Check the math. Compare what your employer withholds with the federal limits above and your state's limits. If too much is taken, ask the payroll office to correct it. The Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division enforces the federal limits and the firing protection: 1-866-487-9243.
- Use the government process. For student loans, ask for a hearing within 30 days of the notice, raise financial hardship, or start rehabilitation or consolidation. For the IRS, return the Statement of Dependents, contact the IRS about a payment plan, or ask for a hardship release.
- Negotiate. A creditor may accept a payment plan or a lump-sum settlement to end the garnishment. Get any deal in writing, including that the garnishment will be released. If several debts are the problem, consolidation can sometimes replace them with one payment.
- Consider bankruptcy. Filing a bankruptcy petition creates an automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. 362, which stops most collection actions, including enforcing a judgment. It does not stop withholding for child support or alimony. See Chapter 7 vs Chapter 13, and talk to a bankruptcy attorney before filing.
Free or low-cost help is available from legal aid programs and nonprofit credit counselors. An attorney who handles consumer cases can also tell you which of your wages and accounts your state protects.
FAQ
How much can be garnished from my paycheck?
For ordinary debts, federal law allows the lesser of 25% of your disposable earnings or the amount above $217.50 a week. Child support can take 50% to 65%, defaulted federal student loans up to 15%, and the IRS takes everything above its exempt amount. Your state may set lower limits for ordinary debts.
Can my wages be garnished without a court order?
For credit cards, medical bills and most private debts, generally no: the creditor needs a court judgment first. The IRS, state tax agencies, the Education Department for defaulted federal student loans, and child support agencies can garnish without suing you, after giving the required notice.
What are disposable earnings?
Your pay after deductions required by law, such as income taxes and Social Security and Medicare tax. Voluntary deductions such as health insurance, union dues and 401(k) contributions are usually not subtracted, so disposable earnings can be more than your take-home pay.
Can I be garnished if I make minimum wage?
For ordinary debts, not if your weekly disposable earnings are $217.50 or less. That floor does not apply to child support or IRS levies.
Can two creditors garnish my wages at the same time?
They can both have orders, but the federal 25% limit covers the total, not each order. If child support already takes more than 25%, nothing more can be garnished for an ordinary debt.
Can a debt collector take my Social Security?
A private creditor generally cannot. If benefits are directly deposited, your bank must protect up to two months of them from a garnishment order. The federal government and child support agencies are exceptions.
Can my employer fire me for a wage garnishment?
Not because of a garnishment for one debt. Federal law does not protect you if garnishments come from two or more debts, but your state's law might.
Does bankruptcy stop wage garnishment?
Filing stops most garnishments through the automatic stay, but not withholding for child support or alimony.
This article is for general information and is not legal or financial advice. Federal limits are from 15 U.S.C. 1671-1677 (GPO edition) and the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #30; student loan rules from 20 U.S.C. 1095a, 34 CFR Part 34 and ed.gov; IRS levy rules from IRS.gov and Publication 1494 (2026 tables); benefit protection from 31 CFR Part 212 and the CFPB. All read on 2026-10-27. Examples are hypothetical. Garnishment rules vary by state; check your state's law or talk to a legal aid office or attorney about your situation.
