Wage Garnishment in Arizona

Reviewed and updated August 25, 2026 by Nathan J. Brelsford.

A wage garnishment is the end of a lawsuit, not the beginning of one. Somebody sued, got a judgment, and asked the court for a writ. Most people find out when the paycheck is short and payroll can't explain why.

Arizona protects far more of your paycheck than it did a few years ago. It protects so much more that a lot of the garnishments running right now are calculated wrong. And in the ordinary case, a bankruptcy filing stops one the day it's filed — not weeks later, not after a hearing.

What a Creditor Can Actually Take

Arizona voters rewrote this rule in November 2022. Proposition 209 took effect December 5, 2022 and amended A.R.S. § 33-1131. A judgment creditor may now take the lesser of two amounts:

• 10% of your disposable earnings for that workweek, or
• the amount by which your disposable earnings exceed 60 times the applicable minimum hourly wage.

Disposable earnings aren't what's left after your bills. They're what's left after amounts required by law to be withheld — federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, state income tax. Your rent, your car payment, your 401(k) contribution and your insurance premium don't reduce the number. The statute also reaches more than wages: salary, bonuses, commissions, and payments from a pension, retirement program or deferred compensation plan all count.

The second half of that test is where the real protection lives, and almost nobody knows about it. The applicable minimum wage is whichever is highest — federal, state or local — measured when the earnings are payable.

Minimum wage rates effective January 1, 2026. Local rates apply where the work is performed.

Where you work	2026 minimum wage	Weekly disposable earnings that can't be touched
Most of Arizona	$15.15	$909.00
Tucson	$15.45	$927.00
Flagstaff	$18.35	$1,101.00

If your disposable earnings fall below that line, a judgment creditor gets nothing — no matter how big the judgment is. Above it, the two tests race each other and the creditor takes whichever result is smaller. Outside Tucson and Flagstaff, the flat 10% cap doesn't start controlling until disposable earnings pass about $1,010 a week. Below that, the floor is doing the work and the creditor gets less than 10%.

What That Looks Like on a Real Salary

Here's the same rule applied to annual pay, for a single filer with no dependents working outside Tucson and Flagstaff.

Illustration only. Assumes a single filer with no dependents, the 2026 federal standard deduction and rate brackets, 7.65% Social Security and Medicare, and Arizona withholding at the 2.0% default rate on Form A-4. Dependents, a joint return, a higher Arizona election or a higher tax bracket all change disposable earnings and the garnishment with them. Your paycheck is the number that governs, not this table.

Annual gross pay	Approximate weekly disposable earnings	Most a creditor can take, per week	Per year
Under about $57,500	Up to $909	$0	$0
$60,000	$946	$37	about $1,920
$75,000	$1,156	$116	about $6,010
$100,000	$1,484	$148	about $7,720
$125,000	$1,812	$181	about $9,420

That first row is the one to sit with. A single Arizonan with no dependents earning under roughly $57,500 has a paycheck a judgment creditor can't reach at all. Add a spouse or dependents and the protected salary goes higher still. The $60,000 row shows the transition zone — the creditor gets about 3.9% there, not 10%, because the 60× floor is what's limiting them.

If you find a page that says 25%, it's out of date. That was Arizona law before December 5, 2022. In Silence v. Betts, No. 1 CA-CV 23-0178 (Ariz. App. Div. One, June 27, 2024, amended July 26, 2024), the Court of Appeals held that pay periods falling after the effective date are governed by the amended statute, because those earnings hadn't yet matured when Prop 209 took effect. The date the judgment was entered doesn't matter. For any paycheck payable to you now, the number is 10%.

When They Can Take More

Support orders. Under § 33-1131(C), the 10% cap doesn't apply to an order for the support of any person. Half your disposable earnings is exempt instead, so up to 50% can be withheld for child support or spousal maintenance.

Tax debt. Section 33-1131(D) takes state and federal tax debts outside these exemptions entirely. The IRS and the Arizona Department of Revenue aren't bound by the 10% figure.

And anything owed to the federal government. Arizona's cap only governs garnishments that come out of an Arizona judgment. A federal agency doesn't need one — see below.

How a Garnishment Starts

The creditor sues, wins a judgment — often by default, because the person never answered — and then applies for a writ of garnishment. Your employer, called the garnishee, is served, and the clock starts.

Deadlines under A.R.S. §§ 12-1598 et seq. The employer's answer period appears as ten business days on the writ form issued by the Administrative Office of the Courts; the statute itself says ten days.

Step	Who acts	Deadline
Writ of garnishment issued and served on your employer	Creditor	Any time the judgment is enforceable
Employer starts withholding and holding your nonexempt earnings	Employer	On service of the writ, before any order is entered
Employer files its answer stating whether earnings are owed	Employer	Within 10 business days of being served
Notice and copies delivered to you	Creditor	Within 3 business days after the employer is served
Written objection filed and hearing requested	You	Within 10 days of receiving the answer or nonexempt earnings statement, unless good cause is shown for filing later
Hearing held	Court	Begins within 10 days of the request and no later than 15 days, subject to continuance for good cause
Order of Continuing Lien entered	Court	Within 45 days after the answer is filed, or the employer is discharged and the money it's holding goes back to you
Money released to the creditor	Employer	Only after the signed order

Your check gets short right away. The employer withholds on service of the writ and holds the money. What waits for the signed order is the handover to the creditor, not the deduction itself.

The 45-day deadline is the creditor's problem, and they do miss it. If no objection is filed and no Order of Continuing Lien is entered within 45 days of the answer, the garnishee is discharged and the withheld earnings are released back to the judgment debtor.

Once the order is entered, it keeps working. It isn't a one-time grab. It stays attached to your paycheck until the judgment is paid, you leave that job for more than 60 days, the creditor releases it, or the proceedings are stayed. A bankruptcy filing is what "stayed" means.

The Hardship Rule Doesn't Work Like It Used To

Arizona has a statute, A.R.S. § 12-1598.10(F), that lets a judge reduce a garnishment on clear and convincing evidence of extreme economic hardship. It was never rewritten after Prop 209. By its own terms it applies only when the judgment debtor "is subject to the twenty-five percent maximum disposable earnings provision under section 33-1131, subsection B," and it reduces withholding "from the twenty-five percent to not less than fifteen percent."

Nobody earning wages today is subject to a 25% maximum, so the condition the statute sets no longer describes anyone. The courts still publish hardship guidance and hardship requests are still filed and heard, but the text hasn't been conformed, the appellate courts haven't resolved what the reduction now means, and outcomes vary. People arrive expecting a hardship hearing to be the way out. Prop 209 gave with one hand what the old hardship rule used to give with the other — a much lower cap for everyone, and a much less predictable argument for going below it.

Garnishments That Skip the Courthouse

Everything above assumes an Arizona judgment. A large category of garnishments never involves an Arizona court at all, and Arizona's 10% cap has nothing to say about them. If you owe money to the federal government, this is the section that matters.

Type of debt	How much	Court judgment required?
Defaulted federal student loans	Up to 15% of disposable pay	No. The Department of Education or a guaranty agency issues it, with 30 days' written notice
Other non-tax federal debt — SBA and EIDL loans, VA and HUD overpayments, USDA loans, federal salary overpayments	Up to 15% of disposable pay, or 25% combined where more than one withholding order applies	No. The agency or the Treasury Department issues it, with 30 days' written notice
IRS levy on wages	Everything except an exempt amount set by filing status and dependents (Publication 1494)	No
Arizona Department of Revenue	Not limited by the 10% cap, per § 33-1131(D)	No
Child support or spousal maintenance	Up to 50% of disposable earnings, and it takes priority over federal withholding orders	No separate suit. The support order itself carries income withholding
Offset of Social Security or other federal benefits	15% of the monthly benefit, and never below the first $750 a month	No. Treasury Offset Program

Federal Debt Is the Dangerous Category

The Debt Collection Improvement Act, at 31 U.S.C. § 3720D, lets any federal agency owed a delinquent non-tax debt garnish up to 15% of your disposable pay without ever filing suit. The agency sends written notice at least 30 days out, you have 15 days to request a hearing, and the hearing official has 60 days to decide. If you're subject to more than one withholding order, the total is capped at 25% of disposable pay.

Compare the floors and you'll see why this category is worse. Arizona protects the first $909 a week of disposable earnings from a judgment creditor. The federal floor is set by 15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)(2) at thirty times the federal minimum wage — $7.25 an hour, unchanged since 2009. That's $217.50 a week. A paycheck Arizona law puts completely out of reach can still be garnished 15% by a federal agency.

Two protections do apply. If you were involuntarily separated from a job, nothing can be taken until you've been reemployed continuously for twelve months. And an employer can't fire you, refuse to hire you, or discipline you because your wages are subject to one of these orders.

Federal "disposable pay" is also defined slightly differently than Arizona's: under 31 C.F.R. § 285.11 it's what's left after health insurance premiums and amounts required by law to be withheld. Arizona's definition doesn't back out the insurance premium.

SBA and EIDL Loans

This is the live issue for Arizona small business owners right now. In April 2026, the SBA sent 562,000 pandemic-era loans — COVID EIDLs and PPP loans — worth $22.2 billion to Treasury for collection. It was the largest referral package in the agency's history. Treasury collects with the tools above: administrative wage garnishment, tax refund offset, and benefit offset.

Whether that reaches your paycheck turns on two questions, and the answers are in your loan file. The CARES Act let SBA waive the personal guaranty on COVID EIDLs of $200,000 or less, and SBA did. So if the borrower was an LLC or a corporation and no guaranty was signed, the debt belongs to the company, not to you. If you operated as a sole proprietor, there's no separate entity to stand behind — the debt is yours. Above $200,000, a personal guaranty was generally required. People are often wrong about which situation they're in, and the loan documents settle it.

An important contrast with student loans: an SBA or EIDL balance is ordinarily dischargeable in bankruptcy, the same as other unsecured business debt. Student loans are not, absent a showing of undue hardship. Where the loan is secured by collateral, or where the agency alleges a misrepresentation in the application, it gets more complicated — but the default assumption for a defaulted EIDL is very different from the default assumption for a defaulted student loan.

Student Loans Are Live Again

The Department of Education restarted administrative wage garnishment on defaulted federal loans in January 2026, after several years of pause and mandatory 30-day notices sent to millions of borrowers through 2025. If you defaulted years ago and assumed the matter had gone quiet, it hasn't. The same 15% cap, $217.50 weekly floor, twelve-month reemployment protection and anti-retaliation rule all apply.

Offsets Are Not Garnishments, But They Take the Same Money

Treasury also collects federal debt by offset — intercepting your federal tax refund, and reducing federal benefit payments. Social Security retirement and disability benefits can be offset up to 15% of the monthly payment, but the first $750 a month is protected. Supplemental Security Income is not subject to offset at all.

Your Bank Account Is a Separate Target

A non-earnings garnishment freezes what's sitting in the account the day the bank is served. It's a snapshot rather than a continuing lien, but it can catch an entire paycheck the morning after it lands.

Arizona exempts $5,600 held in a single account at one financial institution as of January 1, 2026. That comes from A.R.S. § 33-1126(A)(9), which sets a $5,000 base and adjusts it every January 1 for the increase in the cost of living, rounded up to the nearest $100. You have to claim it — the bank doesn't apply it for you, and there are deadlines. One limit worth naming: under § 33-1126(D), those exemptions don't protect property from a judgment for child support arrearages.

Arizona is a community property state, and spouses get caught by this. A debt incurred during the marriage for the benefit of the community is a community debt. The spouses have to be sued jointly on it, and a judgment on that debt reaches community property — which includes both spouses' wages. People are regularly surprised to see a garnishment land on the paycheck of the spouse who never signed anything.

How Long This Can Go On

Longer than most people assume. Under A.R.S. § 12-1551, a judgment is enforceable for ten years from entry and can be renewed by affidavit for another ten. Interest runs the whole time — at the rate in the written agreement, or absent one, the lesser of 10% a year or prime plus one percent. Prop 209 capped interest on medical debt judgments at the lesser of the one-year Treasury yield or 3% a year, which is a large difference over a decade.

On a big judgment collected against a modest paycheck, the arithmetic can be grim: the balance grows faster than the garnishment retires it. That's the situation where a garnishment isn't a temporary hardship but a permanent condition, and it's the most common reason people finally call me. Whether it's better to try settling the judgment or to file is a real question, and it turns on how much you can raise and how many other creditors are lined up behind this one.

What Bankruptcy Does

The moment a bankruptcy petition is filed, 11 U.S.C. § 362 imposes the automatic stay. It's a federal injunction that takes effect on filing, and in the ordinary case it doesn't wait for a judge. It prohibits the continuation of any judicial proceeding against you, the enforcement of a judgment, and any act to collect a debt that predates the filing. A wage garnishment is all three. The same injunction stops a foreclosure sale, a repossession, and a bank account garnishment.

That includes the federal administrative garnishments. A § 3720D withholding order for an SBA loan, an EIDL, a VA or HUD overpayment or a defaulted student loan is an act to collect a prepetition debt, and the stay reaches it the same way it reaches a writ out of an Arizona court. The exceptions are set out below.

What that looks like in practice: we file, the case number comes back promptly, and I notify the creditor's counsel and your payroll department the same day. Payroll typically needs the case number and a copy of the notice, and most large employers stop the deduction on the next unprocessed payroll run. Where a creditor's lawyer drags, the case number and the statute do the arguing.

If you've filed before, the stay may be limited or may not arise at all. Under § 362(c)(3), one prior case dismissed within the preceding year means the stay terminates after 30 days unless the court extends it on motion. Under § 362(c)(4), two or more dismissals within the preceding year means no stay arises automatically and it has to be requested. Both are usually fixable, but they have to be planned for before filing. Tell me about any prior case at the consultation.

Chapter 7 or Chapter 13?

Filing fees per the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona, schedule effective December 1, 2023.

	Chapter 7	Chapter 13
Garnishment stops	On filing	On filing
Court filing fee	$338	$313
Time to discharge	About 3 to 4 months	3 to 5 years
The debt behind the garnishment	Wiped out if it's dischargeable, and that creditor can't restart	Paid through a plan sized to what you can afford
Non-dischargeable tax or support arrears	Doesn't help	Arrears can be cured over the life of the plan
A house or vehicle with equity above the exemption	Not necessarily protected	Often protected, if the plan is feasible and pays unsecured creditors at least the value of the non-exempt equity

In a Chapter 7, the stay holds the garnishment off and the discharge a few months later bars that creditor from restarting it. In a Chapter 13, the stay holds and the debt moves into a plan payment sized to your budget rather than to a percentage of your pay. For debts a discharge can't touch — recent taxes, support arrears — Chapter 13 is often the only tool that stops the bleeding, because it turns an open-ended garnishment into a fixed monthly number with an end date.

Your exemptions carry over, and Arizona's exemption amounts are generous after Prop 209 and annual indexing: $437,600 in homestead equity, $16,500 in a vehicle ($27,500 where the debtor or a dependent has a physical disability), and $5,600 in a bank account, all as of January 1, 2026. Retirement accounts are broadly exempt too, with one trap worth naming — amounts contributed within 120 days before filing are excluded from that protection.

What Waiting Costs You

The stay stops the next deduction. It doesn't reverse the last one. Money already handed over to the creditor is, as a practical matter, gone. Plan around that rather than hoping to claw it back.

There is a narrow provision — 11 U.S.C. § 522(h) — that occasionally lets a debtor undo a garnishment payment made in the 90 days before filing. It only reaches money the debtor could have claimed as exempt, and in Arizona that's a hard gate to get through. The wage exemption was already applied when the garnishment was calculated: the 90% stayed in your paycheck and only the nonexempt 10% went to the creditor, so there's no wage exemption left to claim on it. Arizona also has no general wildcard exemption to fall back on. Add the $600 floor in consumer cases and the fact that anything recovered beyond what you can exempt goes to the estate rather than to you, and this stops being a plan and starts being a long shot. I'll look at it. Don't count on it.

So the lever that actually works is timing. Every pay period you wait is money you don't get back. On the $75,000 example above, a garnishment takes about $116 a week — roughly $500 a month, $1,500 a quarter, permanently. A federal administrative garnishment at 15% takes more. If you're going to file anyway, the difference between filing this month and filing in three months is measured in real dollars, and it's usually more than the cost of the case.

Bring your last three months of pay stubs to the consultation. They tell me what's being taken, whether the calculation is even correct, and how fast the clock is running against you.

The Exceptions

Four kinds of debt behave differently. "Bankruptcy doesn't stop it" is too blunt for most of them.

Support obligations. The ongoing deduction keeps coming out. Section 362(b)(2)(C) excepts income withholding for a domestic support obligation from the stay, and it covers that withholding whether the income is yours or property of the bankruptcy estate — so filing doesn't interrupt current support. Support also isn't dischargeable in either chapter.

But the arrears are a different question, and this is where Chapter 13 earns its keep. Past-due support is a priority claim, and § 1322(a)(2) requires the plan to pay priority claims in full. So the arrearage gets cured on a fixed schedule over three to five years while you keep paying current support — instead of sitting there open-ended while an enforcement agency works on it. The stay also reaches collection of support from property of the estate; the exception in § 362(b)(2)(B) is written to cover collection from property that isn't estate property. For someone buried in back support, Chapter 13 is usually the best tool available, even though the withholding never pauses.

Criminal fines and restitution. Not dischargeable, and criminal proceedings aren't stayed.

Student loans are discharged only on a showing of undue hardship. The stay does pause an administrative wage garnishment while the case is open, and a Chapter 13 can hold it off for the length of the plan.

Recent income taxes. Some tax debt is dischargeable and some isn't, and the rules turn on dates. That's a conversation, not a rule of thumb, and it's the one I get asked about most. I'm admitted to the United States Tax Court, so tax questions inside a bankruptcy case stay with me instead of getting referred out.

If You're Being Garnished Right Now

1. Find out who holds the judgment and which court it's in. The paperwork your employer received names the case. Ask payroll for a copy.
2. Check the date on the employer's answer. The objection window is ten days from when you received it, later only on a showing of good cause. Objecting is how you raise a miscalculation or a claim that the earnings are exempt.
3. Do the math on the floor. If your disposable earnings are under $909 a week and someone is taking money anyway, the calculation is wrong.
4. Keep your last three months of pay stubs. They establish what was taken and when, which is what the 90-day recovery question turns on.
5. Don't move money out of a garnished account and don't quit the job. Both create problems worse than the garnishment.

This page is general information about Arizona law, not legal advice, and reading it doesn't create an attorney-client relationship. Figures current as of August 25, 2026. Minimum wage rates and exemption amounts adjust every January 1.