Wage Garnishment in Florida

How to stop it, and the exemption most people have never heard of.

If a creditor has a judgment against you, it can order your employer to take money out of every paycheck until the judgment is paid. In Florida that is a continuing writ — it does not stop on its own, and nobody has to come back to court to renew it.

But Florida gives head-of-family wage earners one of the strongest wage protections in the country, and most people who qualify never claim it.

If you provide more than half the support of a child or another dependent, and your disposable earnings are $750 a week or less, your wages are entirely exempt. Not 75% of them. All of them.

You have 20 days from receiving the notice to claim it, on a form called a Claim of Exemption and Request for Hearing. Miss that window and the money starts coming out while you sort it out.

If a garnishment notice has arrived, or money has already been taken, call today. (813) 231-2088.

Jump to a section

1. The head-of-family exemption
2. Your 20 days, and the form
3. If you are not exempt, what can they take
4. Money they cannot touch at all
5. Why it does not stop by itself
6. If nobody sent you the notice
7. What bankruptcy does
8. What to do this week

Part 1: The head-of-family exemption

Short answer: if you support a dependent and earn $750 a week or less after deductions, a creditor cannot garnish your wages at all.

Florida law protects the earnings of a head of family — defined as a person who provides more than one-half of the support for a child or other dependent.

Two rules follow, and the second one surprises people even more than the first.

At or below $750 a week. All of your disposable earnings are exempt. Nothing can be garnished.

Above $750 a week. Your earnings still cannot be garnished unless you agreed to it in writing — and not just any writing. The waiver has to be a separate document, in the same language as the contract, in at least 14-point type, in the form the statute prescribes. Almost nobody has signed one.

So for a great many working parents in Florida, the correct answer to a wage garnishment is not “how much can they take.” It is “they cannot take any of it.”

Two things to be precise about, because they decide cases:

• Disposable earnings means what is left after legally required deductions — taxes, Social Security. Not after rent, not after the car payment.
• “More than one-half the support” is the test. It is not the same as head of household for taxes, and it is not about being married or single.

The law behind this: Fla. Stat. § 222.11(1)(c) (head of family — a person providing more than one-half of the support for a child or other dependent); Fla. Stat. § 222.11(2)(a) (all disposable earnings of a head of family less than or equal to $750 a week are exempt from attachment or garnishment); Fla. Stat. § 222.11(2)(b) (disposable earnings greater than $750 a week may not be garnished unless the person has agreed otherwise in writing, in the prescribed form).

Part 2: Your 20 days, and the form

Short answer: the exemption is not automatic. You have to claim it, in writing, and there is a deadline.

When a creditor garnishes wages, the plaintiff is required to mail you a package — a copy of the writ of garnishment, a copy of the motion, and a document called the Notice to Defendant. That has to go out within five business days after the writ is issued, or three business days after it is served on your employer, whichever is later.

The notice comes with the form you need: Claim of Exemption and Request for Hearing. You file it with the clerk of court.

You have 20 days after the date you receive the notice.

Three things about that deadline are worth saying plainly.

It runs from receipt, not from filing. Service is by first-class mail, so the date the papers were filed and the date they reached you can be days apart. Count from the day it landed in your mailbox.

Twenty days is not long, and the papers do not look urgent. They look like more of the same mail you have been getting.

Filing the claim gets you a hearing. You are not asking permission to be exempt — you are asserting an exemption the statute already gives you, and asking the court to recognize it.

The law behind this: Fla. Stat. § 77.041 (Notice to Defendant; Claim of Exemption and Request for Hearing; the claim must be filed within 20 days after the date the defendant receives the notice; the plaintiff must mail the writ, the motion and the notice within five business days after issuance of the writ or three business days after service on the garnishee, whichever is later).

Part 3: If you are not exempt, what can they take

Not everyone qualifies as head of family. If you do not, federal law sets the ceiling.

For any workweek, a creditor may garnish the lesser of:

• 25% of your disposable earnings, or
• the amount by which your disposable earnings exceed thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage

Whichever number is smaller is the most they can take. If your disposable earnings for the week do not exceed thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage, nothing can be garnished at all — that is a floor, not a percentage.

A few things this does not cover. Child support and alimony orders, student loan administrative garnishment, and federal tax levies each run under different rules and different limits. If what is coming out of your check is one of those, the numbers above are not your numbers.

The law behind this: 15 U.S.C. § 1673(a) (maximum part of aggregate disposable earnings subject to garnishment — the lesser of 25 per centum of disposable earnings for the week, or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage).

Part 4: Money they cannot touch at all

Some money is protected no matter what, and it is worth knowing which of yours is.

Retirement accounts. Money and assets in tax-qualified plans and accounts are exempt from creditor claims — 401(a), 403(a) and 403(b) plans, IRAs and Roth IRAs, 457(b) plans, and others. The exception is a qualified domestic relations order or an elective share claim in a divorce.

Federal pension money received within three months before the legal process issues, where it is needed for the support of you or your family.

Social Security and most federal benefits are protected from ordinary creditor garnishment by federal law.

Head-of-family wages, as covered in Part 1.

One caution: a bank levy is a different process from a wage garnishment, and protected money that has been sitting in an account can get frozen even when it should not be. If your account was emptied rather than your paycheck reduced, that is a different problem with a different fix — call and say so.

The law behind this: Fla. Stat. § 222.21(1) (federal pension money received within 3 months, where necessary for support); § 222.21(2) (money and assets in IRS-qualified plans and accounts exempt from all claims of creditors, subject to the domestic relations exceptions); Fla. Stat. § 222.201 (a debtor may claim the federal exemptions listed in 11 U.S.C. § 522(d)(10)).

Part 5: Why it does not stop by itself

Short answer: in Florida a wage garnishment is a continuing writ. It runs until the judgment is paid or a court orders otherwise.

This is the part that catches people. A creditor does not have to go back to court each month. One writ tells your employer to take a portion of your salary or wages as they become due, every pay period, indefinitely — until the judgment is satisfied or the court says stop.

Your employer is also allowed to keep a small administrative fee: up to $5 for the first deduction and up to $2 for each one after that. Small, but it tells you something about the design — this is a machine set running, not a decision revisited.

Which is why the twenty-day window in Part 2 matters so much. Nothing about this process is self-correcting. If you are exempt and you do not say so, the deductions simply continue.

The law behind this: Fla. Stat. § 77.0305 (continuing writ of garnishment against salary or wages — periodic payment of a portion of the judgment debtor’s salary or wages as they become due, remaining in effect until the judgment is satisfied or until otherwise provided by court order; employer may collect up to $5 for the first deduction and up to $2 for each subsequent deduction).

Part 6: If nobody sent you the notice

The obligation to send you the Notice to Defendant is the plaintiff’s, and it is a requirement rather than a courtesy.

If your first indication that you were being garnished was a short paycheck — no envelope, no writ, no form — then something has gone wrong in a process that is supposed to tell you how to protect yourself.

That is worth raising, and raising early. Bring us whatever you did receive, including nothing, plus the pay stub showing the deduction and the date it started. The clerk’s file will show what was filed and when, and the two do not always match.

The same goes if the papers reached you at an old address, or were sent to someone else at your house, or arrived after the twenty days had already run.

Part 7: What bankruptcy does

Short answer: filing stops the garnishment immediately, and the judgment behind it can often be removed permanently.

The automatic stay takes effect the moment a case is filed. No hearing, no order — collection stops, and that includes an active wage garnishment. Your employer has to stop deducting once it has notice.

Bankruptcy can also do something the exemption alone cannot. A judgment lien that has attached to property you are entitled to exempt can often be avoided — removed, not just paused — so the judgment does not come back for the same property later.

And the honest other half. If this is one judgment and you are otherwise managing, claiming your exemption may be the whole answer and bankruptcy is a large tool for a small problem. Bankruptcy earns its place when the garnishment is one symptom among several — when there are more creditors behind this one, or the judgment is large enough that no exemption fixes the underlying arithmetic.

We will tell you which one we think you are. What bankruptcy costs.

The law behind this: 11 U.S.C. § 362(a) (the automatic stay, effective on filing); 11 U.S.C. § 522(f) (avoidance of judicial liens that impair an exemption).

Part 8: What to do this week

1. Find out whether you are head of family. Do you provide more than half the support of a child or another dependent? That one question is worth more than everything else on this page.
2. Work out your disposable earnings — gross pay minus legally required deductions only. Compare it to $750 a week.
3. Find the notice. If you have it, note the date you received it and count twenty days forward. If you never got one, see Part 6.
4. File the Claim of Exemption and Request for Hearing with the clerk. It is the form that comes with the notice, and filing it gets you in front of a judge.
5. Do not quit or change jobs to escape it. A continuing writ follows the judgment, not the employer, and leaving work usually costs more than the garnishment.
6. Keep every pay stub from the first deduction onward. If money was taken that was exempt, those stubs are how it gets recovered.
7. Call. Even if the twenty days have passed. There is usually more room than people think, and considerably more of it before the deadline than after.

(813) 231-2088 — the consultation is free.

About this article

Written by Alan Dexter Borden, a Florida consumer bankruptcy and debt defense attorney admitted to The Florida Bar in 2008 and admitted in all three of Florida’s federal districts.

Last reviewed: September 6, 2026.

This article is general information about Florida and federal law, not legal advice about your situation. Every case is different, and the deadlines and dollar figures described here can change. Reading this does not create an attorney-client relationship.