In Tennessee, a creditor with a court judgment can garnish the lesser of 25% of your disposable earnings or the amount by which your weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage. Because Tennessee has no separate state minimum wage, that federal floor controls: at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour (the rate in effect as of 2026), the first roughly $217.50 of weekly disposable earnings is fully protected, and only the dollars above that line are reachable, capped at one-quarter of the total. Tennessee does not give ordinary consumers a lower percentage cap than the federal rule, but it adds a protection most states do not: an extra exemption for each of your dependent children. That dependent exemption, explained below, can meaningfully shrink what a creditor actually collects — but only if you tell the right person about your children, and that person is your employer, not the court.
Tennessee Follows the Federal Cap, Plus a Dependent Exemption
The core formula comes from federal law. The Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA) sets a nationwide ceiling: a creditor cannot take more than 25% of your disposable earnings, and cannot touch earnings up to 30 times the federal minimum wage (15 U.S.C. 1673). Tennessee adopts this standard in its garnishment statute, Tennessee Code Annotated 26-2-106, which the Tennessee Attorney General quotes verbatim and describes as patterned after the federal cap (Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 19-10 (2019)). So far, Tennessee is the same as the federal baseline and the same as many other states.
Where Tennessee is different is the dependent-child exemption. Under Tennessee Code Annotated 26-2-107, a judgment debtor gets an additional exemption of $2.50 per week for each dependent child under the age of 16 who lives in Tennessee. That amount is subtracted from what would otherwise be garnishable, on top of the standard 25% / 30x protection. The official Tennessee garnishment writ spells the formula out: the maximum withheld is either 25% of disposable earnings "minus $2.50 for each of the [debtor's] dependent children under the age of sixteen (16) who resides in the State of Tennessee as provided in TCA 26-2-107," or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30x the federal minimum wage minus the same $2.50 per child, whichever is less (Administrative Office of the Courts, Execution: Garnishment or Levy form).
How you actually claim it: tell your employer. This is the most misunderstood point in Tennessee garnishment law, and getting it wrong costs you money every payday. The dependent-child exemption runs through payroll, not through the courthouse. Section 26-2-107 puts the burden on the judgment debtor to inform the employer of each dependent child claimed, and the exemption does not apply at all if you fail to tell the employer. The official AOC form confirms the mechanism: it is the employer, filling out the Answer of Garnishee, who answers line (b)(1)(H) — "How many children does the debtor have under sixteen (16) years of age living in Tennessee?" — then multiplies by $2.50 per week ($5.00 if you are paid biweekly, $5.42 semi-monthly, $10.83 monthly) and subtracts it from the withholding. Your employer has no way to know your children exist unless you say so. Tell your payroll or HR department in writing, keep a copy, and check your next pay stub to confirm the deduction shrank. Filing a paper about your children with the court clerk does not trigger this exemption — the Tennessee Supreme Court's own Protected Income and Assets (Affidavit of Claim Exemptions) form has no line for dependent children at all.
"Disposable earnings" is the key phrase. It means what is left after legally required deductions are taken out, such as federal income tax and Social Security and Medicare withholding. It is not your gross pay, and it is not your take-home pay after voluntary deductions like a 401(k) contribution or health insurance you elected. The garnishment percentage is always applied to the disposable figure, which is why the protected amount is larger than it first appears.
How a Wage Garnishment Starts in Tennessee
For ordinary consumer debts, a creditor cannot garnish your wages on its own. It must first sue you, win a money judgment, and then ask the court to issue a garnishment. Once the garnishment is served on your employer, the employer must withhold the allowed amount from each paycheck and pay it to the court clerk — not to the creditor. The official Notice to Employer is explicit: the employer must pay the withheld money "TO THE COURT NOT LESS THAN ONE TIME EACH CALENDAR THIRTY (30) DAYS," with the debtor's name and docket number on the payment [T.C.A. 26-2-215, 26-2-216(b)(1)(C)]. That detail matters to you: because the money passes through the clerk, the clerk is the one holding it — and under T.C.A. 26-2-408 no clerk may pay out garnished funds until your time to file a motion to quash has run or the court has ruled on such a motion (AOC clerk training, Feb. 2022). A debtor who moves fast can get back money that has already been taken.
Tennessee uses a continuing garnishment. Rather than forcing the creditor to file a fresh garnishment every payday, a single garnishment operates as a lien on your earnings until the judgment and costs are paid or until the payroll period immediately before six calendar months after service of the execution, whichever comes first [T.C.A. 26-2-214(b)(1)]. Six months is current law: a 2018 amendment replaced the old "three (3) months" with "six (6) months," so any packet or website still saying three months is out of date. After it expires, the creditor can have a new one issued, so a garnishment can keep repeating until the debt is satisfied.
Your employer cannot fire you because your wages are garnished for one debt. Federal law says exactly that and no more: "No employer may discharge any employee by reason of the fact that his earnings have been subjected to garnishment for any one indebtedness" (15 U.S.C. 1674(a)). Be clear-eyed about the limit — once a second, separate debt is garnished, that federal job protection no longer applies, and Tennessee has no statute that extends it. If a second garnishment is coming, your real protection is to stop the garnishment itself (an installment order or a written slow-pay agreement, below), not an anti-firing rule that does not reach you. If you were fired over a single garnishment, that is a violation you can raise with the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division.
What Income Is Exempt From Garnishment
Several categories of income are protected from ordinary creditors entirely, not just capped at 25%. The state's own Notice to Judgment Debtor lists examples of "exempt" money: Social Security benefits, SSI, unemployment benefits, veterans' benefits, and most government pensions (AOC Execution form). These exemptions come from a mix of federal and Tennessee law:
Social Security and SSI benefits are protected by federal law from garnishment by ordinary creditors.
Veterans' benefits, federal civil service and military retirement, and similar federal payments are generally exempt.
Unemployment compensation and workers' compensation benefits are protected under Tennessee law.
Most pensions and retirement accounts receive protection, with rules that vary by plan type.
Public assistance and certain other need-based benefits are exempt.
An important practical point: when exempt funds like Social Security are deposited into a bank account, they can still be protected, but you may have to prove their source if a creditor tries to levy the account. Keeping benefit deposits in a separate account, or being ready to trace the funds, makes it far easier to assert the exemption. Federal rules require banks to protect a portion of directly deposited federal benefits automatically, but you should still watch your account closely. Tennessee also lets you claim up to $10,000 of personal property — which can include money and bank funds — under T.C.A. 26-2-103, using the Supreme Court's Protected Income and Assets form.
Higher Garnishment for Child Support and Taxes
The 25% cap protects you from ordinary creditors, but it does not apply to every kind of debt. For child support and alimony, federal law allows 50% or 60% of disposable earnings to be withheld — 50% if you are supporting another spouse or child, 60% if you are not — rising to 55% and 65% when the support order runs more than 12 weeks behind (15 U.S.C. 1673(b); the same tiers are printed on the Tennessee garnishment form). For unpaid federal taxes, the IRS uses its own formula based on your filing status and dependents rather than the 25% rule; the Tennessee form states flatly that if the judgment is for state or federal taxes, no disposable earnings are exempt under 15 U.S.C. 1673(b). For federal student loans, the Department of Education can garnish up to 15% of disposable pay administratively, without first going to court. If your garnishment is for one of these obligations, do not assume the 25% ceiling applies.
How to Claim an Exemption or Reduce the Garnishment
You are not powerless once a garnishment is served, and the clerk must hand you the forms for free — T.C.A. 26-2-409 requires the state to supply court clerks with debtor forms, and the AOC publishes both a Motion to Quash Garnishment/Execution and Claim Exemption Rights and a Motion for Installment Payments (slow pay). Here is the deadline, stated plainly, from the notice the state puts in your hand: if you file your motion within twenty (20) days from the date the notice was mailed or given to you, the court must hear and decide it promptly and in no event later than fourteen (14) days from filing. A separate 20-day clock runs from any improper withholding of your wages [T.C.A. 26-2-216(b)(2)]. Do not wait on a callback from anyone before you file — go to the clerk's office and ask for the form.
File a motion to quash and claim exemptions. If the money being taken is exempt income (such as Social Security) or exceeds the lawful amount, file with the court clerk within those 20 days. Because T.C.A. 26-2-408 bars the clerk from paying funds out to the creditor until that window closes or the court rules, filing quickly is often how you get money back, not just how you stop future withholding.
Claim the dependent-child exemption — with your employer. Tell payroll, in writing, how many dependent children under 16 you have who live in Tennessee, so the $2.50-per-child weekly exemption ($5.00 biweekly, $5.42 semi-monthly, $10.83 monthly) is subtracted on the employer's Answer of Garnishee. Under 26-2-107 the exemption does not apply if you never inform the employer, and no court filing substitutes for that.
File a slow-pay motion. Tennessee Code Annotated 26-2-216 lets a judgment debtor ask the court for permission to pay the judgment in installments instead of by garnishment; the state's notice says that if you file it, "the garnishment of your wages will stop for as long as you make the payments ordered by the court."
Or skip the motion with a written agreement. If the creditor or its collection lawyer will agree to a payment plan, put it in writing. Under T.C.A. 26-2-218, a written slow-pay agreement signed by the parties and filed with the clerk has the same force and effect as an order of the judge staying the issuance, execution, or return of a writ of garnishment against wages — no motion, no hearing (AOC clerk training).
Challenge the underlying judgment. If you were never properly served with the original lawsuit, or the debt is not yours, you may be able to ask the court to set aside the judgment. A garnishment built on a defective judgment can fall with it.
Legal aid and consumer attorneys can help, but do not let the wait for a return call eat your 20 days — the clerk's office must give you the form for free, and you can file the motion while you are still looking for a lawyer.
Where to Verify and Get Help
Wage garnishment figures and the federal minimum wage can change, so confirm them before you rely on them. Read the state's own paperwork: the AOC Execution: Garnishment or Levy form reproduces the statutory formula, the six-month lien, the 20-day and 14-day deadlines, and the employer's calculation worksheet in full. Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 19-10 quotes T.C.A. 26-2-106 and 26-2-214 and explains the lien's duration and priority. The garnishment and exemption statutes are in Title 26, Chapter 2 of the Tennessee Code. For the federal cap see 15 U.S.C. 1673, and for the anti-firing rule see 15 U.S.C. 1674. The Tennessee Attorney General's Division of Consumer Affairs handles consumer complaints. This article is general information, not legal advice; when the numbers matter to your paycheck, check the statute and the official form rather than relying on a general summary.
Official Tennessee Sources
This page is based on Tennessee law. Limits and deadlines change — verify the current details directly with the official Tennessee sources below. This is general legal information, not legal advice.
Federal law also applies. Federal laws like the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act protect you nationwide, on top of Tennessee’s own rules.
Frequently asked questions
How much of my paycheck can a creditor garnish in Tennessee?
For ordinary debts, the lesser of 25% of your disposable earnings or the amount by which your weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage (about $217.50 protected at the $7.25 rate in effect as of 2026). From whichever figure is lower, the employer then subtracts $2.50 per week for each of your dependent children under 16 who live in Tennessee.
How do I actually claim Tennessee's dependent-child exemption?
You tell your employer, not the court. Under T.C.A. 26-2-107 it is the judgment debtor's responsibility to inform the employer of each dependent child claimed, and the exemption does not apply if you fail to do so. The employer performs the calculation on its Answer of Garnishee (line (b)(1)(H) asks how many children under 16 live in Tennessee), multiplies by $2.50 per week ($5.00 biweekly, $5.42 semi-monthly, $10.83 monthly) and subtracts it. Notify payroll or HR in writing, keep a copy, and check your next pay stub.
What income is completely exempt from garnishment in Tennessee?
Social Security, SSI, veterans' benefits, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation, most pensions and government retirement, and public assistance are generally exempt from ordinary creditors — the state's own Notice to Judgment Debtor lists these. You may need to prove the source of the funds if they sit in a bank account a creditor tries to levy, and you can separately claim up to $10,000 of personal property under T.C.A. 26-2-103.
How long does a wage garnishment last in Tennessee?
It is a continuing lien on your earnings until the judgment and costs are paid, or until the payroll period immediately before six calendar months after the garnishment was served, whichever comes first (T.C.A. 26-2-214(b)(1)). Six months is current law after a 2018 amendment — older sources saying three months are stale. When it expires, the creditor can have a new garnishment issued.
How do I stop or reduce a garnishment in Tennessee, and how long do I have?
You have 20 days from the date the notice was mailed or handed to you (or 20 days from any improper withholding) to file a motion with the court clerk, and the court must hear and decide it no later than 14 days after filing. The clerk must give you the forms free (T.C.A. 26-2-409): a Motion to Quash Garnishment/Execution and Claim Exemption Rights, or a Motion for Installment Payments (slow pay) under T.C.A. 26-2-216. Because the clerk cannot pay the money out to the creditor until your time to move to quash expires (T.C.A. 26-2-408), filing fast can get money back. If the creditor agrees to a payment plan, a written slow-pay agreement signed by both parties and filed with the clerk stays the garnishment with the same force as a judge's order (T.C.A. 26-2-218). And to get the $2.50-per-child exemption, tell your employer about your children under 16 — that one is not a court filing.
This article is general legal information, not legal advice, and may not reflect the most current law or the law in your jurisdiction. Laws vary by state and change over time. For advice about your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney.
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