# Garnishment — definition

> Garnishment is the post-judgment process by which a creditor reaches a judgment debtor's wages held by an employer or funds held by a bank, subject to federal caps and exemptions.

- Source: https://ottoforfirms.com/glossary/garnishment/
- Publisher: Otto — https://ottoforfirms.com
- Updated: 2026-07-26
- Status: in attorney review. Served noindex and excluded from the sitemap; do not cite as settled.

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**Garnishment** — Garnishment is the post-judgment process by which a creditor reaches a judgment debtor's wages held by an employer or funds held by a bank, subject to federal caps and exemptions.

Title III of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1673(a), caps ordinary consumer-debt wage garnishment at the lesser of 25 percent of disposable earnings for the week or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage; § 1673(b) carves out support orders, chapter 13 orders, and state and federal tax debts, with higher percentages for support. Bank account garnishment adds 31 C.F.R. part 212, which requires an account review on receipt of a garnishment order and protects the lesser of all federal benefit payments posted during a two-month lookback period or the account balance at review. State exemptions layer on top of both, and many states cap below the federal 25 percent, so the federal ceiling is a maximum rather than an entitlement.

## Primary sources

1. [15 U.S.C. § 1673; 31 C.F.R. §§ 212.3, 212.5–212.6](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1673)

## See also

- [Post-judgment interest](https://ottoforfirms.com/glossary/post-judgment-interest/)
- [Default judgment](https://ottoforfirms.com/glossary/default-judgment/)
- [Remittance](https://ottoforfirms.com/glossary/remittance/)

## Where this appears

- [Migrating a collections firm to a new case management system](https://ottoforfirms.com/migrating/)
- [The Otto platform](https://ottoforfirms.com/platform/)
- [Client Trust Accounting for Collections Firms: What Does Three-Way Reconciliation Actually Require?](https://ottoforfirms.com/compliance/iolta-trust-accounting/)

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This is an informational reference, not legal advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. Limitations periods turn on facts this page cannot know — which state's law governs, the contract type, when the claim accrued, and whether anything tolled or revived it. Confirm against the primary source and your own counsel before acting.