Georgia Wage Garnishment Laws: How Much Can They Take?

In Georgia, a creditor with a money judgment can garnish the lesser of two amounts from each paycheck: 25% of your disposable earnings, or the amount by which your weekly disposable earnings exceed $217.50. If you earn $217.50 or less in disposable weekly wages, an ordinary creditor cannot garnish anything. There is one important Georgia-only break most people never hear about: if the judgment being collected arose from a private student loan, the cap drops from 25% to 15% of disposable earnings — a protection the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act does not give you. These limits are codified at O.C.G.A. 18-4-5, as rewritten by SB 443 (Act 574), effective January 1, 2021.

Georgia's Garnishment Cap in Plain Terms

"Disposable earnings" means what is left after legally required deductions — federal and state income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. It is not your gross pay, and it is not your take-home after voluntary deductions like a 401(k) contribution or health insurance. The garnishment math runs on that disposable figure.

For an ordinary debt — a credit card balance, a medical bill, a personal loan, a car-loan deficiency — a Georgia creditor must first sue you, win a judgment, and then file a garnishment action. Once that happens, your employer is served and must withhold the smaller of:

• 25% of your weekly disposable earnings — or 15%, if the judgment arose from a private student loan (O.C.G.A. 18-4-5(a)(2)(A)); or
• the amount your weekly disposable earnings exceed $217.50 (O.C.G.A. 18-4-5(a)(2)(B)).

The $217.50 floor is written directly into the Georgia statute as a flat dollar figure — it is not indexed, and it does not move on its own if the federal minimum wage changes. The statute likewise hard-codes the underlying rate for non-weekly pay periods: "the proportionate fraction or multiple of 30 hours per week at $7.25 per hour" (O.C.G.A. 18-4-5(a)(3)). If Congress ever raised the federal minimum wage, the more protective federal floor under 15 U.S.C. 1673 would control until the General Assembly amended the Georgia number.

Georgia uses a continuing garnishment for wages, which means a single garnishment action keeps deducting from successive paychecks rather than requiring the creditor to refile each pay period. Under O.C.G.A. 18-4-4(c)(1), a continuing garnishment covers the day your employer is served and the next 1,095 days — roughly three years — and it can be renewed. SB 443 raised that period from 179 days, so the stakes of ignoring a garnishment are now roughly six times what they were before 2021.

The 15% Private Student Loan Cap — And Why You Have to Ask For It

This is the most overlooked provision in the Georgia garnishment chapter. O.C.G.A. 18-4-5(a)(2)(A) caps withholding at 15% of disposable earnings — not 25% — when "the judgment upon which the garnishment is based arose from a private student loan." A "private student loan" is defined in 18-4-5(a)(1) as an educational or student loan for postsecondary educational expenses that is not guaranteed under 20 U.S.C. Section 1070 et seq. In plain terms: a bank or private lender loan, not a federal loan.

The catch is in 18-4-5(a)(5). Your employer is "only deemed to have knowledge" that the judgment came from a private student loan — and is only responsible for adjusting the withholding down to 15% — if the summons of garnishment states that conspicuously on its face, or if a court order in the case says so. Absent one of those, your employer will lawfully keep taking 25%, and no one is required to volunteer the lower rate on your behalf.

So if you are being garnished on a private student loan judgment, the move is to file a defendant's claim (below) and ask the court for an order stating that the judgment arose from a private student loan, which drops the rate to 15%. Across a 1,095-day continuing garnishment, that is about a ten-percentage-point difference on every single paycheck.

Higher Limits for Support and Taxes

The 25% cap protects you only against ordinary judgment creditors. Two categories of debt can take much more:

• Child support and alimony: Under the federal CCPA, support orders can reach 50% to 65% of disposable earnings, depending on whether you support another spouse or child and how far behind you are. Georgia income-deduction orders for support follow these federal ceilings, and a continuing garnishment for support runs as long as you work for that employer and does not terminate until the arrearage is retired (O.C.G.A. 18-4-4(c)(3)).
• Unpaid taxes: The IRS and the Georgia Department of Revenue can garnish wages without first getting a court judgment, and the amount they leave you is set by tax tables, not the 25% rule.

Federal student loans do not belong on that list. The U.S. Department of Education and its guaranty agencies can administratively garnish up to 15% of disposable pay without a court judgment — that is less than the ordinary 25% ceiling, not more. What matters about federal loans in Georgia is the opposite point: they are expressly excluded from the state's 15% private-loan rule, because 18-4-5(a)(1) carves out loans guaranteed under 20 U.S.C. Section 1070 et seq.

When more than one garnishment hits the same paycheck, total withholding still cannot push you below the protected amount for ordinary creditors, but support and tax garnishments generally get priority.

What Income Is Exempt in Georgia

Certain funds are protected from garnishment regardless of the 25% formula, and they usually stay protected even after they land in your bank account — though commingling them with other money can complicate proving the exemption. O.C.G.A. 18-4-6 requires the Georgia Attorney General to publish and maintain the official exemption list, and every clerk of court must post it and furnish it on request. The official list published by the Georgia Department of Law includes:

• Social Security retirement, SSDI, SSI, and survivor benefits (42 U.S.C. 407)
• Veterans' benefits, including military pensions, retirement pay, and disability payments (38 U.S.C. 5301)
• Unemployment benefits (O.C.G.A. 34-8-252) and workers' compensation (O.C.G.A. 34-9-84)
• Public and need-based assistance, including Medicaid and aid to the aged, blind, and disabled
• Most pension, retirement, and IRA funds (O.C.G.A. 18-4-22), plus fourteen named Georgia public pensions
• Crime victim compensation and railroad retirement benefits

Federal law also requires banks to automatically protect a buffer of directly deposited Social Security and certain federal benefits when an account is frozen for garnishment. If your only income is exempt federal benefits, an ordinary creditor generally cannot reach it — but you may still need to assert the exemption to get a wrongly frozen account released.

How to Claim an Exemption and Stop or Reduce Garnishment

Georgia overhauled its garnishment law after a federal court found the older statute failed to give debtors adequate notice and a way to claim exemptions. Under the current chapter you have a real, enforceable right to be heard. The basic steps:

• Read the garnishment paperwork. The plaintiff must serve you with a statutory notice and a blank Defendant's Claim Form (the form is set out in O.C.G.A. 18-4-82). That notice also points you to the Attorney General's exemption list at law.ga.gov.
• File the Defendant's Claim — not a "traverse." Ask the clerk for the defendant's claim under O.C.G.A. 18-4-15 and use the 18-4-82 form. That is the debtor's filing. A traverse is a different instrument entirely: under O.C.G.A. 18-4-16 it is what the plaintiff files to say your employer's answer is untrue or legally insufficient. Asking the counter for a "traverse" will get you the wrong document. On the claim form, state why the money is exempt — wages below the threshold, exempt benefits, no valid judgment, an erroneous amount, or (if it applies) that the judgment arose from a private student loan and the 15% rate should govern.
• You get a hearing as a matter of right, within ten days. O.C.G.A. 18-4-15(d) requires the judge to order a hearing "not more than ten days from the date the claim is filed," says the hearing "shall be available to the defendant as a matter of right," and freezes things meanwhile: no further summons of garnishment may issue and no money may be disbursed until the hearing is held.
• Bring proof. Pay stubs showing disposable earnings, bank statements tracing exempt deposits, benefit award letters, and — for a student loan claim — the loan documents or the judgment paperwork showing where the debt came from.
• Negotiate a lower withholding and lock it in. O.C.G.A. 18-4-5(d) lets you and the creditor voluntarily reduce what your employer takes: sign the Modification of Continuing Garnishment form in O.C.G.A. 18-4-90, file it in the garnishment court, and serve it on your employer. Many creditors prefer a steady, smaller payment to the risk of a bankruptcy filing that wipes them out.

You Are Probably Not As Late As You Think

Do not assume a deadline has run. O.C.G.A. 18-4-15(a) lets the defendant become a party by filing a claim at any time before a judgment is entered, an order to disburse funds is issued, or the money is distributed by the court — whichever occurs first. It is a rolling right, not a short fuse.

In a continuing garnishment — the kind used for wages — the statute goes further. O.C.G.A. 18-4-15(h) permits a court to deny a late claim only "[e]xcept in a continuing garnishment or continuing garnishment for support." The court's power to throw your claim out as untimely is expressly withheld in a wage garnishment case. The one genuine 20-day number in the chapter (O.C.G.A. 18-4-20(a)) governs when money already paid into court is released to the creditor if nobody files anything — a reason to file promptly, not a reason to conclude you are barred. What you cannot do is re-litigate a ground you already raised and lost in the same case.

Your employer cannot fire you over one garnished debt. O.C.G.A. 18-4-5(c): "No employer shall discharge an employee by reason of the fact that such employee's earnings have been subjected to garnishment for any one obligation," even if more than one summons of garnishment is served on that same obligation.

Filing bankruptcy also triggers an automatic stay that immediately halts most wage garnishments, which is one reason garnishment is a common tipping point for debtors weighing that option.

Where to Verify Georgia's Rules

You can read the current garnishment chapter yourself. The full statutory text of O.C.G.A. Title 18, Chapter 4 — the 15% private-student-loan cap, the 1,095-day period, the exemption-claim procedure, and every court form — is in the signed enrolled act, SB 443 (Act 574), published by the Office of the Governor of Georgia, and the Office of Legislative Counsel's official summary of the 2020 general statutes confirms it took effect January 1, 2021. The Attorney General's statutorily required exemption list is at the Georgia Department of Law's garnishment exemption page. For help with abusive collection practices, contact the Georgia Department of Law's Consumer Protection Division. At the federal level, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act limits how third-party collectors can contact you, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau accepts complaints about debt collectors and garnishment-related conduct.

This article is general information about Georgia law, not legal advice. Garnishment cases turn on court deadlines and the facts of your particular judgment; consider talking to a lawyer or a legal aid office about your situation.

Official Georgia Sources

This page is based on Georgia law. Limits and deadlines change — verify the current details directly with the official Georgia sources below. This is general legal information, not legal advice.

• Georgia Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division (Department of Law) — official Georgia agency.
• File a Complaint — Georgia Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division
• O.C.G.A. § 10-1-390 et seq. — Georgia Fair Business Practices Act (Official Code of Georgia, hosted by the Consumer Protection Division)

Federal law also applies. Federal laws like the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act protect you nationwide, on top of Georgia’s own rules.