Wage garnishment in New York: the CPLR 5231 income execution

New York reaches wages through a CPLR 5231 income execution: up to 10% of gross income, inside caps of 25% of disposable earnings or the excess over thirty times the greater minimum wage. The sheriff or city marshal serves the judgment debtor first; only after twenty days of default is the employer served and withholding begins.

The instrument: one income execution, ten percent, until paid

New York does not call it garnishment and does not route it through a lawsuit against the employer. The income execution is an enforcement device issued under CPLR 5231: “Where a judgment debtor is receiving or will receive money from any source, an income execution for installments therefrom of not more than ten percent thereof may be issued and delivered to the sheriff of the county in which the judgment debtor resides or, where the judgment debtor is a non-resident, the county in which he is employed” (CPLR 5231(b)).

Two structural points matter to a creditor-side firm. The ten percent is of gross — “installments therefrom of not more than ten percent thereof,” of the money the debtor is receiving — while the protective caps beneath it are computed on disposable earnings, so the binding constraint varies with the debtor’s income level. And delivery is to the enforcement officer of the debtor’s residence county (or employment county for a nonresident); getting the county wrong costs the execution its place in the priority line.

Two services, twenty days apart: the debtor first, the employer second

The statute makes the debtor’s own compliance the first route. “Within twenty days after an income execution is delivered to the sheriff, the sheriff shall serve a copy of it upon the judgment debtor, in the same manner as a summons or, in lieu thereof, by certified mail return receipt requested provided an additional copy is sent by regular mail to the debtor” (CPLR 5231(d)). The execution itself must tell the debtor to start paying installments directly to the sheriff.

The employer enters only on default: “If a judgment debtor fails to pay installments pursuant to an income execution served upon him or her for a period of twenty days, or if the sheriff is unable to serve an income execution upon the judgment debtor within twenty days after the execution is delivered to the sheriff, the sheriff shall levy upon the money that the judgment debtor is receiving or will receive” by serving the execution on the source (CPLR 5231(e)).

Once served, the employer’s duty is unambiguous: “A person served with an income execution shall withhold from money then or thereafter due to the judgment debtor installments as provided therein and pay them over to the sheriff. If such person shall fail to so pay the sheriff, the judgment creditor may commence a proceeding against him for accrued installments” (CPLR 5231(f)). There is no garnishee answer in the Florida or Georgia sense — the employer’s obligation is to withhold and remit, and the creditor’s remedy for silence is a proceeding for the accrued installments.

The exemption math: three caps stacked

CPLR 5231(b) writes the federal CCPA structure into the execution and then makes it stricter. First the floor: no amount is withheld for any week “unless the disposable earnings of the judgment debtor for that week exceed the greater of thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage prescribed in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 or thirty times the state minimum hourly wage prescribed in section six hundred fifty-two of the labor law as in effect at the time the earnings are payable.” Because New York’s minimum wage exceeds the federal $7.25, the state rate sets the floor, and it moves when the state rate does. Second, the ceiling: the amount withheld for any week “shall not exceed twenty-five percent of the disposable earnings of the judgment debtor for that week,” or the amount above the thirty-times floor, whichever is less. Third, the support offset: where earnings are already subject to deductions for alimony, support, or maintenance under CPLR 5241 or 5242, the income execution may take no more than the amount by which twenty-five percent of disposable earnings exceeds the support deduction (CPLR 5231(b)(iii)) — a support order at or above 25% leaves the commercial execution nothing until it ends.

On top of all three sits the ten-percent-of-gross ceiling of subdivision (b) itself, which for most wage earners is the one that binds. The result is materially stricter than the bare federal formula in 15 U.S.C. § 1673 — the CCPA is the floor of protection, and New York builds well above it. Worth knowing at the margins: CPLR 5205(d)(2) separately exempts ninety percent of earnings for personal services rendered within sixty days before an income execution is delivered, which is the provision that protects recent wages sitting in other enforcement contexts, and 15 U.S.C. § 1674(a) bars discharge over garnishment for any one indebtedness.

Marshals and sheriffs

Outside New York City the levying officer is the county sheriff. Inside the city, income executions are commonly delivered to a New York City marshal — an appointed officer whose authority “extends throughout the city of New York,” and to whom “all provisions of law relating to the powers, duties and liabilities of sheriffs in like cases” apply (N.Y. City Civ. Ct. Act § 1609). For a firm running executions at volume, the operational consequence is that the officer, not the firm, controls the service clock in CPLR 5231(d) and (e) — the firm’s deadline discipline is about delivery, indorsement of payments, and the accounting the officer must render, not about serving the employer itself.

Priority: first delivered wins, support outranks everything

Only one commercial income execution is satisfied at a time. “Two or more income executions issued against the same judgment debtor, specifying the same person or entity from whom the money is received and delivered to the same or different enforcement officers shall be satisfied out of that money in the order in which the executions are delivered to an officer authorized to levy” in the proper county (CPLR 5231(j)). Delivery, not service, sets the rank — which is why the earlier point about delivering to the correct county is a priority question, not housekeeping. If the officer cannot find the income source in the county and returns the execution, redelivery to another county’s sheriff within twenty days preserves the original priority.

Support does not wait in that line. “An order pursuant to this section shall take priority over any other assignment, levy or process” (CPLR 5242(g)), and the offset in CPLR 5231(b)(iii) is the arithmetic that enforces it: the support deduction comes out of the 25% band first, and the commercial execution takes only what remains. An income execution behind a large support order can sit fully suspended while remaining valid and in line.

Interest: the 2022 change that bites in collections

CPLR 5004(a) sets judgment interest at “nine per centum per annum, except where otherwise provided by statute” — but for “an action arising out of a consumer debt where a natural person is a defendant,” the rate is “two per centum per annum,” both on judgments entered on or after the amendment’s April 2022 effective date and on the unpaid portion of older judgments from that date forward. For a collections firm this is not a footnote: the accrual on the paper most firms hold dropped by seven points mid-stream, and an income execution issued before the change overstates the installments if never corrected. The statute anticipates this — CPLR 5231(b) provides that where an amended execution issues because the applicable interest rate changed, it retains the priority of the ongoing execution. Reissue the amended execution; do not ride the old arithmetic.

What is still unresolved

Stated plainly, the edges this guide does not settle. What counts as “gross income” versus “earnings” for the ten-percent ceiling when the debtor’s money is not a salary — CPLR 5231 speaks of “money from any source,” and its application to independent-contractor receivables is case-law territory. The Exempt Income Protection Act mechanics govern bank restraints, not income executions, and are outside this guide entirely. And the officer-fee arithmetic — poundage and the sheriff’s or marshal’s statutory fees, which affect the net remitted — was not verified from primary text for this page. All statements of law await attorney review.

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.