Exempt Property in Florida: What Creditors Can’t Touch

Exempt property in Florida covers everything a creditor cannot take from you to satisfy a debt, and the list is unusually generous: your primary home with no cap on value, your retirement accounts, life insurance and annuity proceeds, disability and workers’ compensation benefits, head-of-family wages, and set dollar amounts of personal property and vehicle equity. These protections apply whether a creditor has won a judgment in court or you have filed for bankruptcy, with specific carve-outs for federal taxes, child support, and debts you secured against the property itself.

Your Home

Florida’s homestead exemption is written into the state constitution, which makes it harder to erode than ordinary statutes. If you own and occupy a property as your primary residence, no court judgment can force its sale for most debts. Single-family houses, condominiums, and mobile homes all qualify, and there is no dollar cap. A $5 million home receives the same protection as a $150,000 one.¹

Size is the one spatial limit. Inside a municipality, the protected lot cannot exceed half an acre. Outside city limits, protection extends up to 160 contiguous acres.¹

Three debts cut straight through the exemption: unpaid property taxes, any mortgage or loan used to buy or improve the home, and liens for labor performed on the property itself, such as an unpaid contractor’s bill for a renovation. Fall behind on any of these and foreclosure remains available.¹

Buying a Home to Shield Cash

In Havoco of America, Ltd. v. Hill, the Florida Supreme Court held that a homestead purchased with the specific intent to put assets out of creditors’ reach is still fully protected. The constitution lists three exceptions, and intent to defraud is not one of them, so the court declined to add a fourth.²

Federal Cap for Recent Buyers in Bankruptcy

Federal bankruptcy law layers a separate limit on top of state protection. Any homestead equity you built up during the 1,215 days (about three years and four months) before filing is capped at $214,000 for cases filed on or after April 1, 2025. Equity acquired before that window is not affected.³

Wages

How much of your paycheck is protected depends on whether you qualify as a “head of family,” defined by statute as a person providing more than half of the financial support for a child or other dependent.⁴

For a head of family, all disposable earnings up to $750 per week are completely off-limits to creditors. Anything above $750 per week can be reached only if you agreed in writing, and the waiver must be in the same language as the underlying contract.⁴

Protected wages stay exempt for six months after they land in a bank account, provided you can trace them back to earnings. Mixing wages with other deposits doesn’t automatically kill the exemption, but you’ll have to prove which dollars came from your paycheck. A dedicated direct-deposit account makes that proof much simpler if a creditor tries to freeze your funds.⁴

If you are not a head of family, federal garnishment limits under the Consumer Credit Protection Act apply. A creditor can take the lesser of 25% of your disposable weekly earnings, or the amount by which those earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage. Below that 30-times threshold, nothing can be garnished.⁵

Personal Property and Vehicles

Two sources work together here. The Florida Constitution exempts up to $1,000 in personal property for any individual, whether or not you also claim a homestead. Furniture, electronics, and clothing fall under this.¹

Florida Statutes 222.25 adds four more categories:

Up to $5,000 in equity in a single motor vehicle. This figure was raised from $1,000 effective July 1, 2024.
Professionally prescribed health aids for you or a dependent, with no dollar limit.
Any federal earned income tax credit refund, including traceable deposits of that refund in a bank account.
An additional $4,000 wildcard in personal property of any kind, available only if you do not claim or receive a homestead exemption.

The EITC exemption and the $4,000 wildcard both drop away when the debt is for child or spousal support.⁶

Retirement Accounts

Florida fully exempts money held in a 401(k), 403(b), traditional IRA, Roth IRA, SEP, SIMPLE, pension plan, or deferred compensation plan that qualifies for tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code. State law sets no dollar cap on this protection.⁷

Inherited IRAs are protected too, which is a meaningful advantage over federal law. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that inherited IRAs are not “retirement funds” under the Bankruptcy Code and lose federal protection. Florida’s statute closes that gap: retirement funds transferred after an owner’s death, including rollovers into an inherited IRA, remain exempt from creditors, and the legislature made the provision retroactive to all inherited accounts regardless of when they were created.⁷

Benefits under the Florida Retirement System, covering state and local government employees, are separately exempt from legal process, as are the accumulated contributions and investments in the trust fund.⁸

One federal cap applies in bankruptcy: traditional and Roth IRA balances are protected only up to $1,711,975 for cases filed between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2028. Employer-sponsored plans like 401(k)s and pensions carry no federal dollar limit.³

Retirement exemptions do not block a qualified domestic relations order dividing accounts in a divorce, and they do not defeat a surviving spouse’s elective share claim under Florida probate law.⁷

Life Insurance, Annuities, and Disability Benefits

When a Florida resident dies, life insurance proceeds go to the named beneficiary and are exempt from the deceased person’s creditors. The policy or a valid assignment can override this, but absent that language, creditors cannot touch the payout.⁹

The cash surrender value of a life insurance policy, and the proceeds of any annuity contract issued to a Florida citizen or resident, are also protected. The living value of a whole life policy or an annuity is shielded, not just the death benefit. The exception is narrow: a policy or annuity specifically taken out for the benefit of the creditor pursuing the claim.¹⁰

Disability income benefits under any life, health, or accident insurance policy are fully exempt, with the same creditor-beneficiary carve-out.¹¹

Workers’ Compensation and Social Security

Workers’ compensation benefits cannot be levied, garnished, or attached, and this protection cannot be waived. Child support and alimony awards are the exception.¹²

Social Security benefits have a separate federal shield. The right to Social Security payments cannot be transferred, assigned, or reached by any creditor through garnishment, levy, or other legal process. This applies in every state and cannot be overridden by state law or bankruptcy proceedings.¹³

Education and Medical Savings

Money in a qualified tuition program under Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code is fully exempt from creditors, including Florida Prepaid College Trust Fund advance payment contracts and participation agreements. Protection covers contributions, distributions, plan assets, and plan income. Neither the account owner’s creditors nor the beneficiary’s creditors can reach these funds. The same statute shields medical savings accounts, Coverdell education savings accounts, and hurricane savings accounts.¹⁴

Debts That Can Still Reach Exempt Property

The IRS can attach a federal tax lien to virtually any property you own, including assets Florida law would otherwise protect. State exemption laws do not limit the reach of a federal tax lien, which means your homestead, retirement accounts, and other exempt property can all be collected against for unpaid federal taxes. The only property outside the lien’s reach is restricted land held in trust by the United States for a noncompetent individual Indian.¹⁵

Child support and alimony punch through several specific exemptions. The $4,000 non-homestead personal property wildcard, the earned income tax credit exemption, and workers’ compensation benefits can all be reached for support debts. Courts have also found ways to impose liens on homestead property when a former spouse uses the exemption to avoid paying support, particularly where the conduct is egregious.

Moving to Florida Before Filing Bankruptcy

Florida has opted out of the federal bankruptcy exemption system. A Florida bankruptcy filer must use Florida’s exemptions and cannot pick the federal list instead.¹⁶

Recent arrivals face a residency hurdle. Federal bankruptcy law requires 730 days of domicile in a state before you can claim that state’s exemptions. If you haven’t met the threshold, you generally use the exemptions of the state where you lived during the 180 days before the 730-day period. For someone who moved to Florida specifically for its protections, this waiting period is the most common obstacle.³

You Have to Claim Exemptions in Bankruptcy

Exempt property is not protected automatically in bankruptcy. You must list each asset you want to keep on Schedule C of the petition. Leaving an asset off that form can cost you property that would otherwise have been safe. Creditors and the bankruptcy trustee can object to any claimed exemption, and the court resolves disputes based on the governing statute and the value of the property.

1
FindLaw. Florida Constitution Art. X, Section 4
2
FindLaw. Havoco of America Ltd v. Hill (2001)
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 522 – Exemptions
4
Florida Senate. Florida Code 222.11 – Exemption of Wages From Garnishment
5
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 222.11 – Exemption of Wages From Garnishment
6
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Code 222.25 – Other Individual Property of Natural Persons Exempt From Legal Process
7
Florida Senate. Florida Code 222.21 – Exemption of Pension Money and Certain Tax-Exempt Funds or Accounts From Legal Processes
8
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 121.131 – Benefits Exempt From Taxes and Execution
9
Florida Senate. Florida Code 222.13 – Life Insurance Policies; Disposition of Proceeds
10
Florida Senate. Florida Code 222.14 – Exemption of Cash Surrender Value of Life Insurance Policies and Annuity Contracts From Legal Process
11
Florida Senate. Florida Code 222.18 – Exempting Disability Income Benefits From Legal Processes
12
Florida Senate. Florida Code 440.22 – Assignment and Exemption From Claims of Creditors
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 407 – Assignment of Benefits
14
Florida Senate. Florida Code 222.22 – Exemption of Assets in Qualified Tuition Programs, Medical Savings Accounts, Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, and Hurricane Savings Accounts From Legal Process
15
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Internal Revenue Manual 5.17.2 – Federal Tax Liens
16
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 222.20 – Nonavailability of Federal Bankruptcy Exemptions