Georgia Wage Garnishment Calculation: Caps, Floor, and Exemptions

In Georgia, the calculation of wage garnishment for most consumer debts comes down to comparing two numbers and taking the smaller one: 25% of your disposable earnings for the pay period, or the amount by which those earnings exceed $217.50 per week. Your employer runs that comparison every payday and withholds whichever result is lower. Different rules apply to child support, tax levies, and private student loans, and some income is off-limits entirely.

What Counts as Disposable Earnings

The percentage does not run against your gross pay or your take-home pay. It runs against your disposable earnings, which O.C.G.A. § 18-4-5 defines as what’s left after your employer subtracts only the deductions the law requires: federal income tax, Georgia state income tax, local taxes, and your share of Social Security and Medicare.¹

Voluntary deductions stay in the number. Health insurance premiums, 401(k) contributions, life insurance, union dues, and charitable payroll deductions are all part of disposable earnings even though you never see that money in your account. That makes the garnishable base larger than your actual take-home. If you put $200 a paycheck into a retirement plan, that $200 still counts when the garnishment math runs.

The Two-Part Cap

Georgia follows the framework in the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act, and for ordinary debts the statute imposes two limits that work together.² Your employer calculates both and withholds the smaller amount:

No more than 25% of your disposable earnings for that pay period.
Nothing at all from the first $217.50 per week (30 times the federal minimum wage of $7.25). Only earnings above that floor are reachable.¹

At lower earnings the floor protects you more; at higher earnings the 25% cap does. Someone whose disposable earnings are $217.50 or less per week cannot be garnished at all, because there is nothing above the floor to reach.

The 25% ceiling is a total across all garnishments, not a per-creditor allowance. If two creditors both have orders, they share that 25%; the employer cannot stack them.²

Two Worked Examples

Say your disposable earnings are $600 per week after mandatory withholdings.

25% calculation: $600 × 0.25 = $150.00
Floor calculation: $600 − $217.50 = $382.50
Smaller number wins: $150.00 is garnished.

Now say your disposable earnings are $250 per week.

The 25% cap tends to produce the lower number once disposable earnings pass roughly $290 per week. Below that, the floor kicks in first.

Adjusting the Floor for Your Pay Schedule

The $217.50 is a weekly figure. If you’re paid on a different cycle, the statute requires a proportionate multiple.¹ Common conversions:

Weekly: $217.50
Biweekly: $435.00
Semi-monthly (twice a month): $471.25
Monthly: $942.50

The 25% side of the calculation doesn’t change with pay frequency; only the dollar floor scales. Payroll systems should apply the correct multiple automatically, but it’s worth a look at your pay stub if the withholding seems off.

When the Cap Is Lower or Higher

Georgia gives borrowers with private student loan judgments a break that most states do not. The cap drops from 25% to 15% of disposable earnings, and the floor still applies, so the employer takes the lesser of 15% or the amount above $217.50 per week.¹ Federal student loans are a separate matter: the U.S. Department of Education can garnish up to 15% administratively without going to court, and the match with Georgia’s 15% figure is a coincidence of different statutes.

Family support obligations go the other direction. Under the Consumer Credit Protection Act, child support and alimony can reach:

50% of disposable earnings if you’re supporting another spouse or child
60% if you’re not
An additional 5% on top of either figure if you’re more than 12 weeks in arrears, so 55% or 65%³

IRS wage levies don’t use a percentage at all. Instead, the IRS calculates a fixed exempt amount based on your filing status, standard deduction, and dependents, spreads it across your pay periods, and takes everything else. The exempt-amount tables come from Publication 1494, which the IRS sends to your employer along with the levy.⁴ For workers with few dependents, a levy can take considerably more than 25%.

Income That Can’t Be Garnished

Some income is fully protected from private creditors no matter how much you earn. Social Security retirement benefits and Supplemental Security Income are shielded under federal law.⁵ Veterans’ benefits carry a similar federal exemption from attachment or seizure by creditors.⁶ These protections follow the money into a bank account, though tracing gets harder if the funds are mixed with regular wages.

Georgia’s own statute protects funds sitting in an IRA, pension, or retirement account while they remain there. Once you take a distribution, the protection narrows: the distributed amount is treated like any other disposable earnings and is subject to the standard 25%-or-floor calculation.⁷

How Long a Garnishment Runs

A continuing garnishment in Georgia stays active for 1,095 days (roughly three years) from the date the summons is served on your employer. During that stretch, your employer withholds every pay period. If the debt isn’t paid off by then, the creditor has to file a new garnishment action to keep going.⁸

Child support garnishments don’t expire. They continue as long as you work for that employer and don’t terminate until the arrearage is paid.⁸

If the Withholding Looks Wrong

If your employer is taking more than the law allows, or if the money being taken comes from a protected source, you can file a claim of exemption with the clerk of court where the garnishment is pending. Georgia lets you file it any time before the court enters a judgment, issues a disbursement order, or releases the garnished funds.⁹

The claim has to state the specific basis (that the funds are Social Security, for instance, or that the withholding exceeds the statutory cap) and must be served on both the creditor and your employer. Once you file, a judge is required to schedule a hearing within 10 days, and no further garnished money can be disbursed until that hearing happens.⁹ Filing freezes the payout while the court sorts things out.

Can You Be Fired Over a Garnishment

Not for one debt. O.C.G.A. § 18-4-5(c) prohibits an employer from firing you because your earnings are being garnished for a single debt, even if the creditor files more than one summons for that same obligation.¹ Federal law backs this up with criminal penalties: an employer who willfully fires a worker over a single-debt garnishment faces up to a $1,000 fine, up to a year in prison, or both.¹⁰

The protection covers one debt. If garnishments for two or more separate debts land on your employer, neither Georgia nor federal law shields your job.

1
Justia. Georgia Code 18-4-5 – Maximum Part of Disposable Earnings Subject to Garnishment; Adverse Employment Action Prohibited
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
3
Administration for Children and Families. Is There a Limit to the Amount of Money That Can Be Taken From My Paycheck for Child Support?
4
Internal Revenue Service. Information About Wage Levies
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 407 – Assignment of Benefits
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 38 USC 5301 – Nonassignability and Exempt Status of Benefits
7
Justia. Georgia Code 18-4-6 – Exemption From Garnishment
8
Justia. Georgia Code 18-4-4 – Process of Garnishment; Period of Garnishment
9
Justia. Georgia Code 18-4-15 – Parties to Garnishment; Basis for Exemption; Form; Challenge to Garnishment
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1674 – Restriction on Discharge From Employment by Reason of Garnishment