Wage garnishment limits by state

Federal law caps ordinary garnishment at the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount above 30 times the federal minimum wage ($217.50 a week). But that is a FLOOR of protection, not a ceiling — where a state protects more, state law governs. Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina bar ordinary consumer-debt garnishment almost entirely. Arizona caps it at 10%. New Jersey and New York cap it at 10% of gross. California takes 20%, and only 40% of the amount above its own much higher floor.

Texas exempts current wages for personal services outright, except for court-ordered child support. Pennsylvania exempts wages except for a short list of proceedings — divorce, support, four weeks of board, certain lease judgments, PHEAA student loans, and criminal restitution. South Carolina bars it specifically for consumer credit debt. North Carolina is usually listed alongside them, but its protection is genuinely conditional: it covers earnings from the 60 days before the order, and only where a debtor shows those earnings are necessary to support their family.

No, and this is the most important caveat on the page. Every rule here covers ORDINARY consumer debt. Child support and alimony have their own, much higher federal limits — 50% to 65% of disposable earnings depending on whether you support another family and how far in arrears you are. Tax levies, bankruptcy orders and, in several states, student loans and criminal restitution are all expressly carved out of these statutes. Applying a 10% consumer cap to a support order would understate it by five or six times.

Under federal law, gross pay minus deductions REQUIRED by law: income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and legally mandated retirement. A voluntary deduction does not reduce disposable earnings even though it reduces your take-home — your 401(k), health premium, HSA or union dues do not shrink what can be garnished. Some states differ: Colorado also deducts employer-provided health insurance before the calculation, Arizona includes pension and deferred compensation payments in the base, and Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Delaware run their percentage on GROSS pay instead.

No. Since 2022, New York bars any income execution on a judgment arising from a medical debt action brought by a licensed hospital or health care professional. That is specific to New York and specific to medical debt; other judgment types are still subject to its ordinary 10%-of-gross limit.

50 jurisdictions, each read from the state legislature's own code with the operative statutory text quoted. A state listed here has been READ — not necessarily found more protective. Utah, Idaho, Kentucky and Georgia are recorded precisely because they match the federal limit rather than beating it, so that a state's absence from this list means nobody has looked at it rather than that it matches. Every state not listed falls back to the federal limit in this calculator, which may well understate its real protection.

Generally not, and the commonly published version of this rule is wrong. Fla. Stat. §222.11 exempts ALL disposable earnings of a head of family — a person providing more than half the support for a child or other dependent — and that exemption does not stop at $750 a week. Above $750 the wages are still exempt "unless such person has agreed otherwise in writing", and the waiver has to be a separate document in at least 14-point type. Most sources report that earnings over $750 drop to the federal 25%; that is only true where such a waiver exists. The exemption does have to be claimed — it is not applied automatically — and a Floridian who is not a head of family gets no state protection beyond the federal limit.