Wage Garnishment Limits in 2026: How Much of Your Paycheck They Can Take

Search for garnishment limits and you’ll get one number back: 25%. It’s real, it’s in federal law, and for most people it’s the wrong one. That ceiling governs a specific kind of creditor — a company that sued you, won a judgment, and took the order to your employer. Change who’s holding the order and the math changes completely, sometimes in your favor and sometimes far against it.

So the useful question isn’t “how much can they take.” It’s “who is they.” Identify the creditor and the rest follows.

The Baseline: A Creditor Who Sued You and Won

This is the scenario the famous number describes. Under Title III of the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act, at 15 U.S.C. § 1673, a garnishment for an ordinary debt may not exceed the lesser of two figures: 25% of your disposable earnings for that week, or the amount by which those earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009, putting that floor at $217.50 a week. Earn less after required deductions and an ordinary creditor gets nothing.

The word doing the heavy lifting is disposable. It is not gross pay, and it is not the number at the bottom of your paystub. Disposable earnings are what’s left after deductions the law requires — income tax, Social Security, unemployment insurance, mandatory state retirement. Deductions you chose don’t count — 401(k) contributions, health premiums, union dues, transfers to savings. None of it reduces the base. People routinely misjudge their exposure by hundreds of dollars a month because they run the percentage against take-home pay.

One more feature of this category — the creditor has to get there through a courtroom. A card issuer, a medical provider, a car lender chasing a deficiency each needs a judgment before an employer withholds anything. That’s why triaging which balances are heading toward litigation matters before a summons arrives, and why our Debt Payoff Priority Calculator sorts obligations by consequence rather than interest rate.

Child Support and Alimony: The Ceiling More Than Doubles

The same statute that sets the 25% cap immediately carves support orders out of it. For an order enforcing child support or alimony, the limit rises to 50% of disposable earnings if you’re supporting another spouse or child, and 60% if you’re not. Both figures climb another five points — to 55% and 65% — when the order covers arrears reaching back more than twelve weeks.

That’s a very different world from 25%, and a support order can coexist with an ordinary judgment — support takes priority.

Defaulted Federal Student Loans: No Judge Involved

Federal student loan collection skips the courthouse. Under 20 U.S.C. § 1095a, the Department of Education can order an employer to withhold up to 15% of disposable pay through administrative wage garnishment — no lawsuit, no judgment, no hearing before a judge.

What you get instead is a set of time-limited procedural rights. The statute requires written notice mailed to your last known address at least 30 days before proceedings begin, and you can petition for a hearing on the terms of repayment; file on or before the 15th day after the notice was mailed and the hearing official must decide within 60 days. One protection is worth knowing after a layoff: if you were involuntarily separated from a job, no amount may be deducted until you’ve been continuously reemployed for at least 12 months.

Curing the default is nearly always cheaper than arguing after: our Student Loan Repayment Calculator compares an income-driven plan against the 15% that comes out automatically.

Unpaid Federal Taxes: The Rule That Runs Backward

This is the carve-out that catches people hardest. Title III’s percentage caps expressly do not apply to a debt due for any state or federal tax. The IRS doesn’t take a slice of your paycheck — it leaves you one.

An IRS wage levy works from an exempt amount: the agency figures what you keep from the standard deduction, your filing status, and the number of dependents you can claim, publishes the table in Publication 1494, and everything above that goes to the government. The practical result: a high earner with a large tax debt can see far more than 25% withheld, because the calculation was never a percentage.

Two details compound it. The levy is continuous, running until the debt is paid, released, or replaced by an arrangement rather than expiring after one paycheck. And you have three days to return the Statement of Dependents and Filing Status on the levy form. Miss it and the IRS computes your exempt amount as though you were married filing separately with zero dependents — close to the smallest number the table produces.

Income That’s Off the Table Entirely

Some money isn’t wages and isn’t reachable. Federal law at 42 U.S.C. § 407 states that Social Security benefits are not “subject to execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process.” Per the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, when a garnishment order hits a bank account the bank must automatically protect two months’ worth of directly deposited federal benefits — protection that attaches only to direct deposits, not to checks you deposit.

The shield isn’t absolute against the government, though. Social Security can still be reached for back federal taxes, defaulted student loans, and child or spousal support. Supplemental Security Income stays out of reach even for those.

Your State Line Can Move All of This

Federal law sets a ceiling, not a floor. Congress said so explicitly: 15 U.S.C. § 1677 provides that Title III does not annul or affect state laws “prohibiting garnishments or providing for more limited garnishment.” Where the two conflict, the more protective rule wins.

A handful of states bar garnishment for ordinary consumer debts almost entirely, and others cap it well below the federal line. Some add a head-of-family exemption — Florida Statute 222.11 fully exempts the disposable earnings of anyone providing more than half the support of a child or other dependent, when those earnings run $750 a week or less, and above that allows garnishment only against a signed written waiver.

Because the rules vary so sharply, look yours up: our state selector points to the agencies and rules where you live.

When the Notice Lands

Ignoring the notice is the most expensive move available, because nearly every protection described here has to be claimed — exemptions are not applied automatically. States provide a claim-of-exemption process with a short filing window, and missing it generally means withholding proceeds at the maximum the law allows.

Find the deadline and the form in the paperwork, then file within it. If your income was miscalculated or the debt isn’t yours, that’s the moment to say so. A free consultation through the Legal Aid Finder is worth an hour when a slice of every paycheck is at stake, and if the debt load is beyond restructuring, the Bankruptcy Means Test Calculator shows whether a filing — which stops most garnishments cold — is realistic. For triaging which bills to keep current meanwhile, our Can’t Pay My Bills guide walks through the order of operations.

One reassurance while you sort it out: under 15 U.S.C. § 1674, an employer may not fire you because your earnings were garnished for any one debt, and a willful violation carries criminal penalties.

Garnishment turns on facts a general article can’t see, and none of this is legal advice. But you can know the shape of the rule before you talk to anyone. Run your numbers through our Wage Garnishment Calculator — enter your pay and required deductions and it computes your disposable earnings, applies the limit matching the creditor pursuing you, and shows what you’d keep each pay period.