Wage Garnishment on a Pay Stub: How to Show It Correctly
A garnishment is an after-tax deduction, but its legal cap comes from disposable earnings, a number the stub never prints. Here's how to get the line right.
Every other deduction on a pay stub is a number somebody chose. A premium, a percentage, a flat contribution: someone picked it, and the stub reports it.
A garnishment isn’t like that. The amount is the output of a statutory formula, and the input to that formula is a figure almost no pay stub prints. So the one line on the stub with a legal ceiling attached is also the one line nobody reading the stub can verify.
That gap produces the same two errors over and over. A bookkeeper takes 25% of net pay and under-withholds against a court order. Or subtracts the 401(k) and the health premium first, and under-withholds a different way. Both feel careful. Both are wrong.
This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. It covers how a garnishment is calculated and presented on a pay stub, not whether a particular order is valid or how to challenge one. Questions about an order itself go back to the court or agency that issued it.
Where the garnishment line sits, and why the position is not a style choice
A standard stub runs in a fixed order: gross earnings, then pre-tax deductions, then taxes, then after-tax deductions, then net pay.
A garnishment is an after-tax deduction. That usually gets presented as a formatting convention, but the placement falls out of the math.
The tax block defines the garnishment’s own ceiling. Withheld income tax, Social Security, and Medicare are what convert gross pay into disposable earnings, and disposable earnings are the base the legal cap is calculated from. Move the garnishment above the taxes and your columns still add up to the right net pay, but the ceiling becomes uncomputable from the document. The arithmetic balances while the compliance story falls apart.
On the stub itself, the line usually carries three things: a code, a current-period amount, and a year-to-date column. Common codes and what they signal:
| Code | Usually means |
|---|---|
GARN, WAGE GARN | Ordinary creditor judgment |
CHLD SUP, CS, IWO | Child support or alimony via an income withholding order |
IRS LEVY, FED LEVY | Federal tax levy |
STATE TAX LEVY | State tax levy |
ED GARN, STUDENT LOAN | Defaulted federal student loan (administrative wage garnishment) |
BANKR, CH13 | Chapter 13 trustee payment |
These are payroll-vendor conventions, not law. The same debt gets a different abbreviation at a different employer, and some systems run everything through one generic code. Which is why an employee usually can’t decode their own stub without asking, and why the label you pick matters more than it looks.
Disposable earnings: the number your stub doesn’t print
Almost everything else here depends on getting this one figure right, so it gets the most room.
DOL Fact Sheet #30 defines disposable earnings as gross pay minus the deductions required by law. Not gross, not net, and not gross minus everything sitting in the deduction column.
Deductions that reduce disposable earnings:
- Federal, state, and local income tax withholding
- The employee’s share of Social Security and Medicare
- The employee’s share of state unemployment or disability insurance, where withheld
- Retirement contributions that are required by law, such as mandatory public-employee plan contributions
Deductions that do not:
- Health, dental, and life insurance premiums
- Union dues
- Voluntary retirement contributions, including 401(k) and IRA
- Charitable giving and savings bonds
- Payroll advances and merchandise purchases
- Voluntary wage assignments
Read those two lists next to each other and the trap is obvious. On the stub, a 401(k) deferral and a Medicare withholding look identical: same column, same minus sign. Under the Consumer Credit Protection Act they do opposite things. One reduces the garnishment base and one leaves it alone.
So disposable earnings sit between gross and net, and usually match neither. On any stub carrying a 401(k) and a health premium, disposable earnings come out higher than net pay. Twenty-five percent of net is always too small; 25% of gross is always too large.
The pre-tax versus after-tax distinction is a separate question, and running the two together is where a lot of the confusion starts. A Section 125 health premium is pre-tax, so it reduces taxable wages. It still does not reduce disposable earnings. Two classifications, two jobs, which is why our pre-tax vs. post-tax deduction calculator is its own tool.
One more definitional edge: “earnings” under the CCPA covers wages, salaries, commissions, bonuses, and pension or retirement income. Tips are generally not treated as earnings for garnishment purposes.
If your stub format allows a disposable-earnings subtotal, print one. If it doesn’t, keep the worksheet filed with the stub. Several states require that an employee be told both the amount withheld and the method used to compute it, and reproducing that figure on demand beats rebuilding it from memory a year later.
Three rule sets, one paycheck
Garnishment is three separate arithmetics wearing the same name, and they can land on the same document in the same pay period.
Ordinary creditor garnishments
Credit cards, medical debt, auto deficiency judgments, private student loans. Under 15 U.S.C. 1673(a), the employer withholds the lesser of:
- 25% of disposable earnings, or
- the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage
The federal minimum wage is $7.25, so the protected floor is $217.50 per week. The DOL’s thresholds by pay period:
| Pay period | Nothing garnishable up to | Garnish the excess over this, between the two figures | Full 25% applies at or above |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | $217.50 | $217.50 | $290.00 |
| Biweekly | $435.00 | $435.00 | $580.00 |
| Semimonthly | $471.25 | $471.25 | $628.33 |
| Monthly | $942.50 | $942.50 | $1,256.66 |
Child support and alimony
These arrive as an Income Withholding Order and follow their own limits under 15 U.S.C. 1673(b)(2): 50% of disposable earnings if the worker supports another spouse or child, 60% if not, plus 5 percentage points if payments are more than 12 weeks in arrears. So 55% or 65% at the top. The 25% rule does not apply to support at all.
Federal tax levies
An IRS levy is not a percentage. The IRS leaves a fixed exempt amount based on filing status and dependents, then takes everything above it. The 2026 figures come from IRS Publication 1494:
| Filing status | Weekly, 0 dependents | Weekly, 3 dependents | Biweekly, 0 dependents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single | $309.62 | $615.38 | $619.23 |
| Married filing jointly | $619.23 | $924.99 | $1,238.46 |
| Head of household | $464.42 | $770.18 | $928.85 |
| Married filing separately | $309.62 | $615.38 | $619.23 |
Each additional dependent adds $101.92 per week. An employee who is 65 or older or blind, filing single or head of household, gets another $39.42 per week per box checked. Publication 1494 is reissued every December, so pull the current year’s table rather than reusing last year’s.
Defaulted federal student loans and other federal debt
Administrative wage garnishment for a defaulted federal student loan runs up to 15% of disposable pay under 20 U.S.C. 1095a, with no court order required, and it still can’t push the worker below the $217.50 weekly floor. The statute also bars any deduction until a borrower who was involuntarily separated from a job has been continuously reemployed for 12 months.
One caution, because this error is still in circulation. DOL Fact Sheet #30 is the July 2009 revision and cites a 10% ceiling from the Higher Education Act. The number is stale, and plenty of articles copy it anyway. The statutory ceiling is 15%. Other federal non-tax debts collected under the Debt Collection Improvement Act cap at 15% too.
State law, which usually wins
Where federal and state garnishment law conflict, the law producing the smaller garnishment governs. Four states (North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas) bar private-creditor wage garnishment outright. Twenty-seven states have enacted ceilings stricter than the federal limit, and in nine of those the exempt amount keys off the state or local minimum wage rather than the federal one. The gap is real. An NBER working paper puts 75th-percentile garnishment stringency at 19.4% of gross earnings in states following the federal cap, against 12.5% in states with stronger protections. Our state-by-state pay stub requirements post covers the wage-statement side of this.
Priority when orders stack
Support orders come first, behind only a federal tax levy entered before the underlying support order was established. The 25% CCPA ceiling is a total across ordinary garnishments, so if support already consumes the available disposable earnings, an ordinary creditor gets nothing that period. Support, tax levies, and Chapter 13 bankruptcy orders are themselves exceptions to the 25% rule and can push total withholding above it.
A worked example: one stub, two orders
One fictional weekly employee, carried the whole way through.
Gross pay: $1,000.00. Deductions this period:
| Line | Amount | Reduces disposable earnings? |
|---|---|---|
| Federal income tax | $88.06 | Yes |
| Social Security | $59.52 | Yes |
| Medicare | $13.92 | Yes |
| State income tax | $38.50 | Yes |
| Health premium (pre-tax) | $40.00 | No |
| 401(k) (pre-tax) | $50.00 | No |
Legally required deductions total $200.00, so disposable earnings are $1,000.00 − $200.00 = $800.00. Note that the $90.00 of voluntary deductions never enters this calculation, even though $40.00 of it is pre-tax.
Step one, the ordinary creditor cap. The lesser of:
- 25% of $800.00 = $200.00
- $800.00 − $217.50 = $582.50
The cap is $200.00.
Now compare that against the wrong methods, because this is where the money actually goes missing. Net pay before any garnishment is $710.00, so 25% of net gives $177.50, which is $22.50 short of the order every single week. Twenty-five percent of gross gives $250.00, which is $50.00 too much and takes money the employee is legally entitled to keep. Neither is close, and neither error is visible on the finished stub.
Step two, add a support order. A $250.00 per week Income Withholding Order arrives. The worker doesn’t support another spouse or child, so the support ceiling is 60% of $800.00 = $480.00. The $250.00 fits.
Support takes priority, and its withholding counts against the 25% ordinary-garnishment ceiling. Support alone is $250.00, already above the $200.00 ordinary cap, so the creditor garnishment goes to $0.00 this period. There’s no partial payment, and it stays at zero until the support obligation drops or disposable earnings rise.
The resulting deduction block, in the order it should print:
| Deduction | Current | YTD |
|---|---|---|
| Federal income tax | $88.06 | $2,818 |
| Social Security | $59.52 | $1,905 |
| Medicare | $13.92 | $445 |
| State income tax | $38.50 | $1,232 |
| Health premium (pre-tax) | $40.00 | $1,280 |
| 401(k) (pre-tax) | $50.00 | $1,600 |
| Child support (after-tax) | $250.00 | $2,000 |
| Creditor garnishment (after-tax) | $0.00 | $0 |
| Net pay | $460.00 |
Printing the zero-dollar creditor line is deliberate. It tells the employee the order exists and that nothing was taken, which is a question you’d otherwise field by phone.
What to actually print on the line
The minimum useful content is a label naming the purpose, the current-period amount, and a year-to-date figure.
The year-to-date column matters more here than anywhere else on the stub. Garnishments end when the debt is satisfied, and the spells tend to be short: the NBER analysis of administrative payroll data puts the median private-creditor spell at about three months, though some of that brevity comes from workers changing jobs rather than debts getting paid off. Without a running total, nobody on either side can tell how close the order is to satisfied. If YTD columns on your stub are inconsistent, our YTD explainer walks through what belongs in them.
Then there’s the confidentiality trade-off, which gets less attention than it deserves. State wage-statement laws generally require that deductions be itemized. Nothing requires you to print the creditor’s name, the case number, or the debt type in a form a coworker reading over a shoulder can decode.
A workable rule: purpose-level labels on the stub (“Child support,” “Creditor garnishment,” “Federal tax levy”), full detail in the withholding notice you send the employee separately. Specific enough to be honest, vague enough to be decent.
One more thing that trips people up. A garnishment does not change gross pay, taxable wages, or any tax line. It’s a reduction of net only, and it never appears on the W-2. The employee’s W-2 will show identical taxable wages whether or not a garnishment ran all year, because the money was earned and taxed first, then paid to a creditor on their behalf. Treating it as a wage reduction is one of the common pay stub errors that quietly corrupts a whole year of filings.
Employer duties and the mistakes that break a stub
Two obligations first.
You cannot fire someone over a single garnishment. 15 U.S.C. 1674 makes it a criminal offense to discharge an employee because earnings were garnished for any one indebtedness, punishable by a fine up to $1,000, up to a year in prison, or both. The protection does not extend to an employee garnished for two or more separate debts. Given that just over 1.1% of US workers were being garnished in any given month by the end of 2019, this is not a hypothetical policy question for anyone running payroll at scale.
Processing fees are usually allowed, with conditions. Most states let an employer recover a small per-disbursement fee. It comes out of the employee’s remainder, never out of the creditor’s share, and the cap is state-specific. Check the statute before you add the line.
Now the errors, in rough order of how often they show up:
- Computing the cap from net pay. The most common one, and it under-withholds every period.
- Subtracting the 401(k) or health premium from the base. Voluntary deductions don’t reduce disposable earnings. Same result, different route.
- Placing the garnishment above the tax block. Net pay still comes out right, and the legal ceiling becomes impossible to verify from the document.
- Omitting the YTD column. Nobody can tell how close the order is to satisfied.
- Using one unexplained code for three different orders.
GARNon a support order, a levy, and a judgment tells the employee nothing. - Ignoring a state cap lower than the federal one. The smaller garnishment governs, and 27 states are stricter.
- Stopping withholding on the employee’s say-so. You stop when the court or agency releases the order, not when the employee says the debt is paid.
If one of these already went out on a stub, don’t reissue quietly. The correction path is the same as any other stub error, and our guide on how to correct a pay stub covers the paperwork.
For questions that aren’t about the withholding amount or a termination, go back to the issuing court or agency. The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division enforces the CCPA caps and the anti-discharge rule, and not much else about your particular order.
The short version
Compute the cap from disposable earnings, which is gross minus legally required deductions and nothing else. Put the line below the tax block, label it by purpose, and carry a YTD figure so both sides can see the finish line.
The stub structure that makes this workable is unglamorous: a deduction section that separates tax, pre-tax, and after-tax categories, with a year-to-date field on each line. That taxonomy is the compliance structure. Tax lines reduce disposable earnings, pre-tax lines reduce taxable wages, after-tax lines reduce neither, and a garnishment always belongs in the third bucket.
Payslip44 builds stubs that way by default, with decimal-precise money math so a cap computed to the cent stays at the cent instead of drifting into rounding noise. It runs entirely on-device, which matters when the numbers on the line came out of a court order. Download it if you’d rather not rebuild the deduction block by hand every period.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does GARN mean on a pay stub?
It's a generic wage-garnishment deduction. GARN is a payroll-vendor abbreviation, not a legal term, so the same code can cover a creditor judgment, a support order, or a tax levy depending on the employer's system. The label alone doesn't tell you which debt is being collected, which is why you have to ask.
Is a garnishment taken out before or after taxes?
After. A garnishment is a post-tax deduction and reduces net pay only. It never changes gross pay, taxable wages, or any tax line. It has to sit below the tax block because tax withholding is part of what defines disposable earnings, and disposable earnings set the legal ceiling.
How much of my paycheck can legally be garnished?
For an ordinary creditor debt, the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount above $217.50 per week (30 times the $7.25 federal minimum wage). Support orders can reach 50% to 65%, defaulted federal student loans 15%, and IRS levies work from a fixed exempt amount rather than a percentage. State law can lower any of these.
What are disposable earnings, and are they the same as net pay?
No. Disposable earnings are gross pay minus deductions required by law: income taxes, Social Security, Medicare, mandatory state disability or unemployment insurance, and legally required retirement contributions. Voluntary deductions like health premiums, union dues, and 401(k) contributions do not reduce disposable earnings, so on most stubs disposable earnings are higher than net pay.
Can I be fired because my wages are garnished?
Not for a single debt. 15 U.S.C. 1674 makes it a criminal offense to discharge an employee because earnings were garnished for any one indebtedness, with a fine up to $1,000 and up to a year in prison for a willful violation. The protection does not extend to a worker garnished for two or more separate debts.
What happens if I have more than one garnishment order?
Support orders take priority, behind only a federal tax levy entered before the underlying support order was established. The 25% CCPA cap is a total ceiling across ordinary garnishments, so if a support order already consumes the available disposable earnings, an ordinary creditor gets nothing that period. Support orders, tax levies, and Chapter 13 bankruptcy orders are themselves exceptions to the 25% rule and can push total withholding past it.
Does the garnishment amount show on my W-2?
No. A garnishment reduces net pay, not taxable wages, so it doesn't appear on the W-2 at all. Your W-2 shows the same taxable wages whether or not you were garnished, because the money was earned and taxed first, then paid to a creditor on your behalf.
Can my employer charge me a fee for processing the garnishment?
Often yes, where state law permits it. The fee comes out of what's left after the garnished amount, not out of the creditor's share, and the allowable amount is set by state statute, usually a small per-disbursement charge. Check your state's rule before adding the line.