Writ of Garnishment in Arkansas: Wage Limits and Exemptions

A writ of garnishment in Arkansas is a court order that lets a creditor reach the debtor’s money or wages through a third party, usually an employer or a bank. Most writs follow a court judgment, but Arkansas also allows pre-judgment garnishment if the creditor posts a bond worth double the amount sought.¹ The rest of what matters is timing: you have short, specific windows to claim exemptions, and the creditor has short, specific windows to challenge them.

When a Creditor Can Get a Writ

The usual path starts with a judgment. Once a creditor holds one, they can ask the court for a writ directed at any third party (the “garnishee”) who has the debtor’s money or property. That includes employers, banks, and anyone else holding funds on the debtor’s behalf.

Pre-judgment garnishment is available too, but the double-amount bond is the price of admission. That bond exists so the debtor can recover losses if the garnishment turns out to be wrongful.¹

The writ itself carries a warning notice to the garnishee. Arkansas uses one version for employers and another for non-employers such as banks. Both warn that ignoring the writ for 30 days can produce a personal judgment against the garnishee: the full amount owed for non-employer garnishees, or the non-exempt wages the debtor had earned as of service for employer garnishees.¹

What Happens After the Writ Is Served

On the same day the writ issues, the creditor files written questions (interrogatories) with the clerk asking the garnishee to disclose what belongs to the debtor.²

The clerk attaches a Notice to Defendant to the writ. That notice tells the debtor their 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 explains that the debtor can request a hearing to assert exemptions.³

The writ and notice are served on the garnishee like a summons. Within five days of that service, the creditor or the creditor’s attorney must mail a copy to the debtor’s last known home address by first-class mail. If the post office returns it undeliverable, the creditor sends it to the debtor’s workplace.³

One wrinkle worth knowing if you’ve been through this before: if the creditor files additional garnishments on the same debt within 12 months of the first, they don’t have to mail a fresh Notice to Defendant each time.³

How Much of Your Paycheck Can Be Taken

Both federal and state caps apply, and the employer must withhold whichever amount is smaller. For most Arkansas workers, the federal cap is the binding one.

For ordinary consumer debts, federal law limits garnishment to the lesser of 25% of your disposable earnings or the amount by which your weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage ($7.25/hour), which comes to $217.50 per week.⁴ In practice:

$217.50 or less per week in disposable earnings: nothing can be garnished.
Between $217.50 and $290 per week: only the amount above $217.50 can be taken.
$290 or more per week: up to 25% of disposable earnings can be garnished.

Child support and alimony orders operate under 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, an additional 5% can be garnished.⁵

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

Beyond that automatic floor, laborers and mechanics can exempt up to 60 days of wages, but only if the debtor files a sworn statement with the court confirming those 60 days of wages are less than the debtor’s total constitutional personal property exemption and that the debtor doesn’t own enough other personal property to exceed that constitutional limit.⁶

Income and Funds That Are Off Limits

Certain income is generally beyond a creditor’s reach altogether. Under federal law, creditors typically cannot garnish Social Security benefits, SSI, veterans’ benefits, TANF payments, unemployment compensation, or workers’ compensation.³ Narrow exceptions exist: the federal government can garnish Social Security for delinquent federal taxes, and those benefits can be reached to enforce child support or alimony.⁷

If federal benefits reach your bank account by direct deposit, a separate federal rule kicks in. When the bank receives a garnishment order, it must review the account for federal benefit deposits made during the two months before the order arrived and automatically protect that amount from the freeze.⁸

The catch: this automatic lookback applies only to direct deposits. If you receive benefits by paper check and deposit them yourself, the bank has no obligation to run the lookback. Your entire account can be frozen, and you would have to go to court to prove the money is protected.⁹

Filing an Exemption Claim in Arkansas

Outside the automatic protections above, exemptions don’t apply on their own. You have to file for them. Once the garnishee is served, the debtor files an exemption claim with the court clerk. Within five days of filing, the debtor or their attorney must notify the creditor by fax and mail.³

Then the ball is in the creditor’s court. If the creditor doesn’t contest the claim in writing within 10 days, no hearing happens. The court issues a writ of supersedeas, and the garnishment stops.³

The most expensive mistake a debtor can make is doing nothing. Without a filed claim, the court has no reason to protect the money, even if every dollar in the account traces back to Social Security.

How Long Wage Garnishment Lasts

When the garnishee is an employer, a single writ doesn’t stop at one paycheck. Arkansas law creates a continuing lien on the employee’s wages: the employer keeps withholding non-exempt earnings and holding them subject to the court’s order until the judgment is fully paid. The lien ends earlier only if the employment ends or the underlying judgment is vacated or changed.¹⁰

The garnishee has 30 days to answer the interrogatories and disclose what they hold. If they ignore the writ, the creditor can ask the court to order the garnishee to appear, and the court can enter a judgment against the garnishee for the amount they were holding when served, minus anything exempt, plus attorney’s fees and reasonable expenses.¹¹

Can Your Employer Fire You Over a Garnishment

Federal law protects your job for a single debt. An employer cannot fire you because your earnings are being garnished for any one debt, no matter how many garnishment proceedings or levies are tied to 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 that ground. Workers in that position may want to look at whether smaller judgments can be paid off or consolidated to stay under the one-debt line.

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
Social Security Administration. SSR 79-4 – Levy and Garnishment of Benefits
8
Legal Information Institute. 31 CFR Appendix C to Part 212 – Examples of the Lookback Period and Protected Amount
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Can a Debt Collector Take My Federal Benefits, Like Social Security or VA Payments
10
Justia. Arkansas Code 16-110-415 – Garnishment of Wages
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