Wage garnishment in Texas: why the answer is a bank writ

Texas does not garnish wages for ordinary judgments: Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 28 exempts current wages for personal service, excepting only court-ordered child support and spousal maintenance. The working post-judgment tools are a writ of garnishment against the debtor’s bank under Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 63 and the turnover statute, § 31.002.

The constitutional bar, and the statutes that repeat it

The rule is in the constitution, where no legislature can soften it: “No current wages for personal service shall ever be subject to garnishment, except for the enforcement of court-ordered: (1) child support payments; or (2) spousal maintenance” (Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 28 — a provision of the 1876 constitution, amended in 1983 and 1999 to admit exactly those two exceptions).

The statutes say it twice more. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 63.004: “Except as otherwise provided by state or federal law, current wages for personal service are not subject to garnishment. The garnishee shall be discharged from the garnishment as to any debt to the defendant for current wages.” And Property Code § 42.001(b)(1) lists “current wages for personal services, except for the enforcement of court-ordered child support payments” among the personal property exempt from seizure without regard to the dollar caps that limit the rest of the exemption schedule.

The federal CCPA changes none of this. 15 U.S.C. § 1673 is a ceiling on garnishment where state law allows it, not a grant of garnishment where state law forbids it — a state is free to be more protective, and Texas is the clearest example in the country. An honest guide to “wage garnishment in Texas” is therefore a guide to everything else.

Where “current wages” stops

The protection attaches to wages while they are current — earned but unpaid, still in the employer’s hands. Texas courts have consistently treated wages that have been paid to the employee, including funds deposited into a bank account, as no longer “current wages,” which is precisely why the bank writ works. This guide states that boundary without a case citation, deliberately: it is settled in practice but it is case law, not statutory text, and the reviewing attorney should attach the controlling authority before this page publishes. The practical consequence needs no citation at all — a writ of garnishment served on the debtor’s bank shortly after payday reaches money that the same writ served on the employer could never touch.

The instrument that works: a chapter 63 writ against the bank

After judgment, a writ of garnishment is available where “a plaintiff has a valid, subsisting judgment and makes an affidavit stating that, within the plaintiff’s knowledge, the defendant does not possess property in Texas subject to execution sufficient to satisfy the judgment” (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 63.001(3)). The procedure runs under Rules 657 through 679 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.

The writ freezes what it catches. The Rule 661 form commands the garnishee “NOT to pay to defendant any debt or to deliver to him any effects, pending further order of this court,” and sets the answer date: from district or county court, “at 10 o’clock a.m. on the Monday next following the expiration of twenty days from the date of service hereof”; from justice court, the Monday after ten days. The answer states what the garnishee owed the defendant at service, owes at answer, and what effects it holds — the snapshot-plus-interval structure garnishment shares across states.

Service on the defendant is its own obligation with its own content requirements. Under Rule 663a, “The defendant must be served as provided in Rule 21a or Rule 501.4, as applicable, with a copy of the writ of garnishment, the application, accompanying affidavits, and orders of the court as soon as practicable after service of the writ on the garnishee,” and the face of the writ must display, in at least twelve-point type, a prescribed bilingual notice telling the defendant the money is frozen, that exemptions may protect it, and how to claim them. Since the 2022 amendments, the garnishor must also serve the Supreme Court–approved Notice of Protected Property Rights and the Protected Property Claim Form under Rule 679b. A writ executed perfectly against the bank and served defectively on the defendant is a dissolution motion waiting to be filed.

Turnover and receivership

Where the bank writ misses — property that is hard to levy, out of state, or hidden — the turnover statute reaches through the debtor personally. Under Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 31.002, a judgment creditor “is entitled to aid from a court of appropriate jurisdiction, including a justice court, through injunction or other means in order to reach property to obtain satisfaction on the judgment if the judgment debtor owns property, including present or future rights to property, that is not exempt from attachment, execution, or seizure.” The court may order the debtor to turn over nonexempt property to a sheriff or constable, apply it to the judgment, or appoint a receiver with authority to take possession and sell — and may enforce the order by contempt.

The limit is in the text three times over: nonexempt. Turnover does not convert exempt property into reachable property, so it cannot be used to take current wages any more than garnishment can. What it can reach is what the wage exemption no longer covers — money the debtor has been paid — along with receivables, non-exempt accounts, and rights to payment that a garnishment writ aimed at one garnishee would miss.

The support exception

The constitutional exceptions are not creditor tools, but they shape the field a commercial creditor works in. Income withholding for child support is mandatory in the support proceeding itself: “In a proceeding in which periodic payments of child support are ordered, modified, or enforced, the court or the Title IV-D agency shall order that income be withheld from the disposable earnings of the obligor” (Tex. Fam. Code § 158.001). Federal law caps that withholding at 50 to 65 percent of disposable earnings depending on the obligor’s circumstances (15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)(2)). A judgment debtor whose paycheck already carries a support withholding order arrives at the bank with proportionally less for a bank writ to catch — relevant to collectability scoring even though the commercial creditor never touches the paycheck itself.

Interest, and what is still unresolved

Post-judgment interest on a money judgment without a contract rate is set monthly: “On the 15th day of each month, the consumer credit commissioner shall determine the postjudgment interest rate to be applied to a money judgment rendered during the succeeding calendar month,” and the rate is the Federal Reserve prime rate on the date of computation, floored at five percent and capped at fifteen (Tex. Fin. Code § 304.003). The rate fixes for the judgment by its rendition month, so two judgments a month apart can accrue at different rates for life. Judgments on contracts providing an interest rate run under § 304.002 instead — check which statute the client’s judgment is under before computing a payoff.

Still unresolved, stated plainly: the controlling case authority for the boundary of “current wages” once paid and deposited; the current-year details of the Rule 679b protected-property claim procedure in local practice; and whether a given judgment accrues under § 304.002 or § 304.003. All statements of law on this page 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.