Missouri Garnishment Statute: Limits, Exemptions, and Challenges

Under Missouri garnishment laws, a creditor holding a court judgment against you can take the lesser of 25% of your disposable weekly earnings or the amount by which those earnings exceed $217.50, and can also reach money in your bank accounts. Social Security, veterans’ benefits, retirement distributions needed for support, and specific categories of property up to set dollar caps stay out of reach. Child support, tax debts, and federal student loans follow their own, harsher rules.

A Judgment Comes First

No creditor can garnish your wages or bank account in Missouri without a court judgment. Section 525.010 of the Missouri Revised Statutes limits garnishment to cases where the creditor has obtained a judgment through attachment or execution and then formally summons the garnishee, meaning your employer, your bank, or anyone else holding your money.¹ A collection agency calling you cannot go directly to your employer.

Once entered, a Missouri judgment stays enforceable for ten years from the date it was entered or from the last payment made on it, and after that it is presumed paid unless revived.² It also accrues interest the whole time it sits unpaid: 9% per year on contract-based debts, or the federal funds rate plus 5% on personal injury and other tort judgments. A $10,000 contract judgment grows by $900 a year, so slow-drip garnishment costs more than the sticker price suggests.

How Much of Your Paycheck a Consumer Creditor Can Take

Wage garnishment is the most common form, and Missouri applies the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act cap. The math starts with your disposable earnings, not your gross pay. Disposable earnings are what remains after legally required deductions: federal, state, and local income taxes, your share of Social Security and Medicare, state unemployment insurance, and any retirement contributions required by law.³ Voluntary deductions like health insurance premiums, union dues, or elective 401(k) contributions do not reduce disposable earnings for garnishment purposes.

For ordinary consumer debts — credit cards, medical bills, personal loans — the weekly withholding cannot exceed the lesser of:⁴

25% of your disposable earnings for that pay period, or
The amount by which your disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage ($7.25 × 30 = $217.50 per week).

Whichever figure is smaller controls. If your weekly disposable earnings are $217.50 or less, nothing can be garnished. On $300 in disposable pay, 25% is $75 and the amount over $217.50 is $82.50, so the creditor gets $75. Lower-income workers keep proportionally more of their pay because of the second prong.

Missouri also allows continuous wage garnishment. One garnishment order can attach your wages on an ongoing basis until the judgment is paid in full or you leave that employer, with no renewal required each pay period.⁵

Child Support, Taxes, and Student Loans Follow Different Rules

The 25% cap does not apply to every debt. Several categories cut deeper.

Child support garnishment takes priority over other garnishments and reaches:⁶

50% of disposable earnings if you are supporting another spouse or child;
60% if you are not supporting anyone else;
An additional 5% (55% or 65%) if you are more than 12 weeks behind.

The U.S. Department of Education can garnish up to 15% of disposable earnings for defaulted federal student loans through administrative wage garnishment, without a court judgment.³

IRS and state tax levies operate outside the CCPA framework entirely. The IRS calculates an exempt amount based on your filing status and dependents and can levy the rest. Both federal and state tax collections take priority over consumer-debt garnishments.

Bank Account Garnishment

When a creditor targets your bank account, the garnishment order goes to your financial institution. The bank freezes funds up to the judgment amount, and you receive notice of the freeze. Unlike wage garnishment, which trickles a percentage from ongoing income, a bank garnishment can sweep the balance sitting in the account when the order is served.

Missouri lets the bank deduct a one-time processing fee of up to $20 from the garnished funds, or a different amount if you previously agreed to one.⁷ That fee comes off the top and does not reduce your judgment balance.

If your account contains direct-deposited federal benefits, your bank must automatically shield those funds before honoring the garnishment. Federal regulations require the bank to review deposits from the previous two months and protect an amount equal to the total federal benefits deposited during that lookback window.⁸ Anything above that protected amount can be frozen, and you can challenge an improper freeze in court.

Income and Property Missouri Protects

Exemptions are where debtors either keep money or lose it. Missouri’s list is specific, and knowing what is on it matters more than any single procedural step.

Exempt Income

The following income is off-limits to consumer-debt garnishment under Missouri and federal law:⁹¹⁰

Social Security and SSI benefits
Veterans’ benefits
Unemployment compensation and public assistance
Disability and illness benefits
Alimony and support payments up to $750 per month
Retirement plan distributions from 401(a), 403(b), IRA, Roth IRA, and similar qualified plans, to the extent reasonably necessary for your support

Exempt Property

Missouri caps property exemptions at specific dollar amounts:⁹

Household goods and furnishings: $3,000 total for furniture, appliances, clothing, books, and similar items
Jewelry: a wedding ring up to $1,500, plus up to $500 for other personal jewelry
Motor vehicles: $3,000 in value
Tools of the trade: $3,000 for work tools, professional books, or implements
Mobile home: $5,000 if it is your primary residence and not attached to real property you own
Wildcard: $600 for any property of any kind not otherwise covered
Health aids: professionally prescribed, no dollar cap
Life insurance: unmatured contracts, plus up to $15,000 of matured proceeds for funeral and burial expenses of a spouse, child, or parent

The homestead exemption protects $15,000 of equity in your primary residence, or $5,000 in a mobile home; spouses cannot double it. A head of household gets an additional $1,250 on the wildcard plus $350 per dependent.

Challenging a Garnishment

After you receive notice of a garnishment, you have 20 days to file a claim of exemption or other objection with the court. Missing that deadline can end your ability to contest the garnishment, so treat it as a hard cutoff.

Common grounds include:

Exempt funds — the garnishment targets income or property protected under Missouri or federal law
Calculation errors — withholding exceeds the legal maximum
Procedural defects — improper notice or invalid service
Judgment problems — the underlying judgment has expired, been satisfied, or was improperly obtained

If the court agrees, it can modify or dissolve the garnishment. Anything more complicated than a clean exemption claim usually goes better with an attorney.

When More Than One Creditor Is Collecting

Missouri sets priority among creditor garnishments of equal standing by who served the employer first.⁵ Your employer must tell any later-arriving creditor about the senior garnishments already in place.

Across categories, the running order is child support, then federal tax levies, then state tax levies, then consumer-debt and student-loan garnishments. Total withholding still cannot exceed the applicable maximums, so a consumer creditor stuck behind a 50% child support order may get nothing until that obligation shrinks.

Can You Be Fired Over a Garnishment

Federal law protects you from being fired because your wages are being garnished for any single debt, and a willful violation carries a fine of up to $1,000, up to a year in prison, or both.¹¹ The protection covers one debt only. Once orders from two separate creditors arrive, the federal anti-discharge shield no longer applies.

Missouri adds a narrower but stronger rule for child support. If you are fired within 30 days of a support withholding order taking effect, the law presumes retaliation, and the employer must overcome that presumption with clear and convincing evidence.¹²

How Bankruptcy Interrupts Garnishment

Filing bankruptcy triggers an automatic stay that immediately halts garnishment. Your employer must stop withholding and your bank must release frozen funds until the court lifts the stay or your case ends. If several garnishments were pulling from your paycheck, your take-home returns to full for the duration.

You may also recover wages garnished shortly before filing. Federal bankruptcy law lets debtors claw back wages garnished within 90 days before filing, provided the total recovered exceeds $600 and your exemptions cover those wages. Recovery is not automatic. You have to request it inside the bankruptcy proceeding.

1
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 525.010 – Who May Be Summoned as Garnishees
2
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 408.040 – Interest on Judgments
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #30: Wage Garnishment Protections of the Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA)
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
5
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 525.040 – Effect of Garnishment Notice
6
Administration for Children and Families. Is There a Limit to the Amount of Money That Can Be Taken from My Paycheck for Child Support
7
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 525.230 – Garnishee Fee and Costs
8
eCFR. 31 CFR Part 212 – Garnishment of Accounts Containing Federal Benefit Payments
9
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 513.430 – Property Exempt from Attachment and Execution
10
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Can a Debt Collector Take My Federal Benefits
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1674 – Restriction on Discharge from Employment by Reason of Garnishment
12
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Missouri Code 454.505 – Garnishment of Wages for Child Support