Garnishee vs Garnishor: Roles, Duties, and Limits

In a garnishment, the garnishee and the garnishor sit on opposite sides of the same court order: the garnishor is the creditor collecting the debt, and the garnishee is the third party — most often an employer or bank — that the court orders to hand over money belonging to the debtor. The names sound almost identical, but the roles, obligations, and risks are entirely different.

The Three Parties in a Garnishment

Every garnishment involves three people or entities, not two. The judgment debtor is the person who owes the money. They lost a lawsuit, and a court entered a judgment against them.

The garnishor, also called the judgment creditor, is the party who won that lawsuit and is now using the court’s power to collect on it. The garnishor is the one asking the court to reach into someone else’s hands for the debtor’s money.

The garnishee is that someone else. The garnishee does not owe the underlying debt and is not in a dispute with anyone. Their role is purely custodial: they happen to hold or owe money to the debtor — wages an employer is about to pay, a balance a bank is holding — and a court order compels them to redirect those funds to the garnishor instead.

A useful way to picture it: the garnishor pulls the lever, the garnishee’s hands are on the money, and the debtor is the person whose money it was. Mixing up which name goes with which role matters, because each party has different deadlines and different consequences for getting things wrong.

What the Garnishor Does

Before anyone’s paycheck or bank account can be touched, the garnishor has to do the legal legwork. First, they need a money judgment from a civil court that establishes the debtor owes a specific amount. Garnishment is a collection tool, not a way to prove the debt exists.

Once the judgment is in hand, the garnishor files an application asking the court to issue a writ of garnishment, the formal order that commands a third party to withhold the debtor’s assets. The application must identify the debt, state the amount owed, and show that at least 30 days have passed since the garnishor demanded payment from the debtor.¹

The garnishor then has to serve copies of the writ on both the garnishee and the debtor, usually through a process server or law enforcement officer, following the court’s procedural rules exactly. They also need to supply enough identifying information about the debtor, typically the last four digits of a Social Security number, so the garnishee can locate the correct payroll record or account. Sloppy paperwork or service on the wrong party can get the entire action dismissed.

One feature often surprises creditors: under federal law, a writ of garnishment is continuing. It doesn’t expire after a single paycheck or one bank sweep. It keeps running until the debt is fully satisfied, the court quashes the writ, or the garnishee runs out of the debtor’s assets to hand over.¹ When the debt is finally paid off, the garnishor is required to file a satisfaction of judgment so the garnishee knows to stop withholding.

What the Garnishee Must Do

The garnishee’s clock starts the moment the writ arrives. Under federal rules, the garnishee has 10 days to file a written answer with the court.¹ State deadlines vary but follow a similar pattern. That answer, sometimes called an Answer to Interrogatories, has to disclose whether the garnishee holds any of the debtor’s property and, if so, how much. A copy also has to be served on the debtor.

While the answer is pending, the garnishee has to immediately freeze or set aside the debtor’s funds up to the amount named in the writ. For employers, that means calculating the correct withholding from each paycheck. For banks, it means locking the balance that existed at the moment the writ was served. After a statutory waiting period designed to give the debtor time to claim exemptions, the garnishee remits the withheld funds to the court or directly to the garnishor.¹

Ignoring the writ is the most expensive mistake a garnishee can make. If the garnishee fails to answer and then fails to appear after the garnishor petitions the court for a compliance hearing, the court can enter a default judgment against the garnishee for the full amount of the debtor’s debt, even if the garnishee held far less. The court can also tack on attorney’s fees.¹ An employer or bank that treats a writ as someone else’s problem can end up personally liable for the entire judgment.

The Ceiling Both Sides Work Under

Both parties operate inside limits set by the Consumer Credit Protection Act. For ordinary consumer debts, the garnishor cannot take, and the garnishee cannot withhold, more than the smaller of two numbers: 25% of the debtor’s disposable earnings for the week, or the amount by which those earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage.² With the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour, that second figure works out to $217.50 per week. Anyone earning less than that in disposable pay is fully shielded from garnishment for consumer debts.

“Disposable earnings” isn’t gross pay, and it isn’t take-home pay either. It’s what’s left after only the deductions the law requires: federal, state, and local taxes, Social Security, and Medicare. Voluntary items like 401(k) contributions, health premiums, and union dues don’t come out first, so disposable earnings usually run higher than the net deposit that hits the debtor’s account.³

The caps shift for certain categories of debt. A garnishor enforcing a child support or alimony order can reach up to 50% of disposable earnings if the debtor is currently supporting another spouse or child, or up to 60% if not, with those figures rising by 5 percentage points when the support order covers arrears more than 12 weeks overdue.² The 25% cap doesn’t apply to federal or state tax debts at all.⁴ And the Department of Education can garnish up to 15% of disposable pay for federal student loans without needing a court judgment at all.

Certain federal benefits are off the table entirely, even when they’ve been deposited into a bank account. Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, veterans’ benefits, Railroad Retirement, and federal employee retirement payments are all protected. Banks receiving a garnishment order have to review the account within two business days, look back over the preceding two months, and leave any protected benefit deposits accessible to the account holder.⁵

If You’re the Employee, Not the Employer

People sometimes worry that being on the debtor side of a garnishment means being fired. Federal law makes it illegal for an employer to fire someone solely because their wages are being garnished for any single debt. An employer who violates the rule faces a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both.⁶

The protection has a real limit worth knowing: it covers garnishment for one debt. If a second, unrelated garnishment lands on the employer’s desk, the federal shield no longer applies. Some states extend broader protection covering multiple garnishments, but the federal floor is one.

A debtor who believes a garnishment is wrong — the funds are exempt, the amount is overstated, the debt was already paid or discharged in bankruptcy, or service was improper — can file a written objection, sometimes called a claim of exemption or a motion to quash, with the court that issued the writ. Deadlines can be short, sometimes as little as five business days after receiving notice, and missing the window can waive the right to contest the garnishment entirely.¹

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 3205 – Garnishment
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1672 – Definitions
4
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 30 – Wage Garnishment Protections of the Consumer Credit Protection Act
5
eCFR. 31 CFR Part 212 – Garnishment of Accounts Containing Federal Benefit Payments
6
GovInfo. 15 USC 1674 – Restriction on Discharge From Employment