Writ of Garnishment in Arkansas: Wage Limits and Exemptions

A writ of garnishment in Arkansas is a court order that lets a creditor collect a debt by forcing a third party — usually your employer or your bank — to hand over money or property that belongs to you. Most writs follow a court judgment, federal and state law cap how much can be taken from your paycheck, and several categories of income are off-limits entirely if you claim them in time.

When a Creditor Can Get a Writ

In most cases, a creditor must first sue you and win a judgment. Once they become a judgment creditor, they can ask the court to issue a writ directed at anyone holding your money or property. That third party is called the garnishee.

Arkansas also allows pre-judgment garnishment, but with a real cost to the creditor: they must post a bond worth double the garnishment amount. The bond protects you if the lawsuit or the garnishment turns out to be wrongful.¹

Every writ carries a warning to the garnishee. Arkansas uses one version for employers and another for non-employers like banks. Both warn that ignoring the writ for 30 days can result in a personal judgment against the garnishee — for the full amount owed in the non-employer version, or for the non-exempt wages the debtor had earned on the date of service in the employer version.¹

How the Writ Gets to You and Your Employer or Bank

On the day the writ is issued, the creditor files written questions, called interrogatories, with the court clerk. Those interrogatories ask the garnishee to disclose exactly what wages, funds, or property of yours they hold.²

The clerk attaches a Notice to Defendant to the writ. The notice tells you your wages or property have been garnished, lists examples of protected income under state and federal law — Social Security, SSI, veterans’ benefits, unemployment compensation, workers’ compensation — and tells you that you can request a hearing to assert exemptions.³

Service on the garnishee follows the same rules as a summons. Within five days of serving the garnishee, the creditor or their attorney must also mail you a copy at your last known home address by first-class mail. If the post office returns it undeliverable, the creditor must send it to your workplace instead.³

Once served, the garnishee has 30 days to answer the interrogatories and disclose what they hold.

How Much of Your Wages Can Be Taken

Federal law sets the ceiling that controls most Arkansas wage garnishments. For ordinary consumer debts, the maximum a creditor can take each week is the lesser of 25% of your disposable earnings or the amount by which your weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which comes out to $217.50 per week.⁴

If your disposable earnings are $217.50 or less per week, nothing can be garnished.
If they fall between $217.50 and $290 per week, only the amount above $217.50 can be taken.
If they reach $290 or more per week, up to 25% can be garnished.

Child support and alimony garnishments run on a different scale. Federal law allows up to 50% of disposable earnings if you’re supporting another spouse or child, or 60% if you’re not. If payments are more than 12 weeks overdue, another 5% can be taken.⁵

Arkansas layers its own protection on top. The first $25 per week in net wages is absolutely exempt, with no filing required. Net wages here means gross pay minus income taxes, Social Security, group retirement, and group health and life insurance premiums.⁶

Laborers and mechanics can exempt up to 60 days of wages, but only by filing a sworn statement confirming that those wages fit within the debtor’s constitutional personal property exemption.⁶

The employer withholds the smaller of the state and federal limits. For most workers the federal 25% cap controls; for very low earners, the $25 state floor can matter.

Continuing Garnishment of Wages

When the garnishee is an employer, the writ does not expire with a single paycheck. Arkansas creates a continuing lien on the employee’s wages, and the employer must keep withholding non-exempt earnings until the judgment is paid in full. The lien ends only if the employment relationship ends or the underlying judgment is vacated or changed.⁷

Income and Funds That Are Exempt

Several federal benefits are generally shielded from garnishment: Social Security, SSI, veterans’ benefits, TANF, unemployment compensation, and workers’ compensation.³ The exceptions are narrow. The federal government can garnish Social Security for delinquent federal taxes, and benefits can be reached to enforce child support or alimony.⁸

Automatic Protection for Direct-Deposited Benefits

If federal benefits are direct-deposited into your bank account and the account is garnished, federal rules require the bank to automatically protect two months of benefit deposits. The bank looks back at federal deposits made in the two months before it received the garnishment order and shields that amount from freezing.⁹

This automatic protection applies only to direct deposits. If you receive paper checks and deposit them yourself, the bank is not required to run the lookback, and your whole account can be frozen. You would then have to go to court to prove the money came from protected benefits.¹⁰

Filing an Exemption Claim

Most exemptions require you to act. After the garnishee is served, you can file an exemption claim with the court clerk. Within five days of filing, you or your attorney must notify the creditor by fax and mail.³

The timing then shifts to the creditor. If the creditor does not contest the exemption in writing within 10 days, no hearing is needed, and the court issues a writ of supersedeas that stops the garnishment. If the creditor stays silent, the exemption stands.³

Doing nothing is the costly mistake. If you never file the claim, the court has no reason to protect your money, even when every dollar in the account came from Social Security.

What Happens If a Garnishee Ignores the Writ

If the garnishee fails to answer within 30 days, the creditor can ask the court to order the garnishee to appear in person. The hearing must take place within 10 days of the garnishee receiving that notice, unless the court sets a later date.¹¹

At the hearing, if the court finds the garnishee was holding the debtor’s money or property when the writ was served, it can enter judgment against the garnishee for that amount, minus any state or federal exemption. The court can add attorney’s fees and other reasonable expenses on top of the underlying debt.¹¹

Can You Be Fired Over a Garnishment

Federal law protects your job when a single debt is being collected. An employer cannot fire you because your earnings are being garnished for any one debt, no matter how many garnishment proceedings or levies are involved for that debt. An employer who violates the rule faces a fine of up to $1,000, up to one year in prison, or both.¹²

The protection stops at one debt. If your wages are being garnished for two or more separate debts, federal law no longer bars termination on those grounds. If you are close to that line, consolidating debts or paying off smaller judgments can keep you on the right side of it.

1
Justia. Arkansas Code 16-110-401 – Grounds
2
Justia. Arkansas Code 16-110-403 – Filing of Interrogatories
3
Justia. Arkansas Code 16-110-402 – Procedure in Issuing Writs of Garnishment
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
5
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 30 – Wage Garnishment Protections of the Consumer Credit Protection Act
6
Justia. Arkansas Code 16-66-208 – Exemptions – Wages
7
Justia. Arkansas Code 16-110-415 – Garnishment of Wages
8
Social Security Administration. SSR 79-4 – Levy and Garnishment of Benefits
9
Legal Information Institute. 31 CFR Appendix C to Part 212 – Examples of the Lookback Period and Protected Amount
10
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Can a Debt Collector Take My Federal Benefits, Like Social Security or VA Payments
11
Justia. Arkansas Code 16-110-407 – Failure of Garnishee to Answer
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1674 – Restriction on Discharge From Employment by Reason of Garnishment