In Utah, a creditor with a court judgment for an ordinary debt 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. With the federal minimum wage at $7.25 per hour as of 2026, that protected floor is roughly $217.50 per week — earnings below that line generally cannot be touched for a normal consumer debt. Utah follows the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act cap rather than offering the stronger protection some states do, so unlike Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and South Carolina (which bar most wage garnishment for ordinary debts), Utah does permit creditors to garnish wages once they have a judgment. The key fact for Utah debtors is that the cap is 25%, not 50% or 100%, and you have a short window after being served to file a written reply and claim any exemptions you are owed.
Utah's wage garnishment cap explained
Garnishment is the legal process a creditor uses to collect a money judgment by ordering your employer to withhold part of your paycheck and send it to the court or the creditor. In Utah, before this can happen for a typical credit card, medical, or personal-loan debt, the creditor must first sue you, win a judgment, and then obtain a writ of garnishment from the court.
The amount the creditor can take is limited by both federal and Utah law, and the two work together. The starting point is your disposable earnings — your pay after legally required deductions such as federal and state income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. Voluntary deductions like retirement contributions, health insurance premiums you elect, or union dues are not subtracted; they remain part of disposable earnings for garnishment math.
From that disposable-earnings figure, the maximum a creditor may garnish for an ordinary debt is the smaller of these two numbers:
- 25% of your disposable earnings for that pay period, or
- the amount by which your disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage for a week (proportionally adjusted for two-week, semi-monthly, or monthly pay periods).
This mirrors the federal CCPA limit (15 U.S.C. § 1673), and Utah's Consumer Credit Code adopts a consistent ceiling. The practical effect is that lower earners are protected: if 25% of your check would dip below the 30-times-minimum-wage floor, the creditor gets the smaller amount, and very low paychecks may yield nothing.
How a Utah garnishment runs: the 120-day continuing writ
Utah uses a continuing writ of garnishment for earnings, governed by Rule 64D of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. Rather than capturing a single paycheck, a continuing wage garnishment attaches to your earnings for up to 120 calendar days from when it takes effect, or until the judgment is paid in full — whichever comes first. During that period your employer withholds the allowed percentage from each paycheck and remits it.
If the judgment is not satisfied within the 120 days, the creditor can obtain a new writ and start another period. Your employer is required to answer the court's garnishment questions (interrogatories) and may be held liable if it ignores the writ, which is why withholding usually begins promptly.
What income is exempt in Utah
Several categories of income and money are protected from garnishment under Utah's exemption laws (notably the Utah Exemptions Act, Utah Code § 78B-5-505) and federal law. Common exempt sources include:
- Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and most federal benefits, which are protected by federal law even after deposit in many cases.
- Veterans' benefits and most public assistance and unemployment benefits.
- Certain retirement and pension funds, including many ERISA-qualified plans and IRAs within limits.
- Disability benefits and certain insurance proceeds.
- Child support and alimony you receive for the support of yourself or your children, within statutory limits.
One crucial trap: exempt funds can lose their automatic protection in practice once they are commingled with other money in a bank account, because a bank levy may freeze the whole account until you prove the source. If your account holds Social Security or other exempt deposits, keeping them separate and traceable makes it far easier to assert the exemption.