Wage Garnishment

A court- or agency-ordered deduction taken directly from a debtor's paycheck to satisfy a debt.

Wage garnishment means a creditor gets to pull money directly out of your paycheck — but usually only after they’ve sued you and won a judgment. Once an employer gets a valid garnishment order, they’re legally required to withhold the specified amount from every check and send it off, until the debt’s paid or the order is lifted.

For most everyday debts — credit cards, medical bills, personal loans — a creditor can’t touch your wages without going to court and winning first. A few players get to skip that step entirely: the IRS, federal student loan holders, and child-support agencies can all garnish wages through their own administrative process, no lawsuit required.

Federal law puts a ceiling on how much can actually be taken for most judgment debts: the lesser of 25% of your disposable earnings, or whatever’s left once your weekly pay clears 30 times the federal minimum wage. “Disposable earnings” means after taxes and Social Security come out — not your gross pay, and not after voluntary deductions like insurance or a retirement contribution come out too.

A lot of states go further than that federal floor. A handful — Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and South Carolina among them — don’t allow wage garnishment for ordinary consumer debt at all, with the usual exceptions for taxes and child support. This site’s state-specific figures are being verified and rolled out state by state, but the federal floor above always applies as the baseline no matter where you live.