Massachusetts Wage Garnishment Laws
Massachusetts does not call it garnishment. It calls it trustee process, and the rules protect a debtor’s paycheck far more aggressively than federal law does. While most states let a creditor reach 25 percent of disposable pay, Massachusetts exempts the greater of 85 percent of gross wages or 50 times the state minimum wage every week under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 246. This guide explains how trustee process actually works, what is protected, the narrow exceptions, and why none of it matters until you know where the debtor works.
The Short Version
In Massachusetts, garnishing wages is done through “trustee process,” where the employer is named as the trustee that holds the debtor’s pay. Under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 246, section 28, the law reserves the greater of 85 percent of gross wages or 50 times the greater of the federal or Massachusetts hourly minimum wage each week, and only the amount above that floor can be reached. With the Massachusetts minimum wage at fifteen dollars an hour, that protected floor is roughly seven hundred fifty dollars a week, far more generous to the debtor than the federal 75 percent rule. None of it works, though, unless the creditor can name the employer who holds the wages. That is a locate, and it is what we do as a public-records research firm, typically within 24 hours.
Watch: Trustee Process in Massachusetts
How wage attachment works in the Bay State, and what is protected.
Watch Overview
What Massachusetts Calls Trustee Process
The terminology trips up creditors from other states.
If you have collected debts in other states, the word “garnishment” is what you expect to file. In Massachusetts you will not find it on the docket. The Commonwealth folds wage attachment into a broader mechanism called trustee process, governed by Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 246 — a chapter literally titled “Trustee Process.” The idea is procedural: the creditor names a third party who holds money belonging to the debtor as the “trustee,” and the court orders that trustee to hold and eventually turn over what is reachable. When the third party is an employer holding a paycheck, trustee process functions exactly like wage garnishment elsewhere, just under a different name and a different rulebook.
Practically, this means an employer served with a Massachusetts trustee process summons becomes the trustee of its own employee’s wages. The employer must answer the court, disclose what it owes the debtor, and reserve the protected portion while withholding the rest. The mechanics matter because they determine who the creditor has to identify and serve: not just the debtor, but the specific employer that will act as trustee. Name the wrong employer, or a former one, and the trustee answers that it holds nothing, and the attachment collects zero.
The Trustee Summons and the Twenty-Day Answer
The procedure is concrete. Once a creditor holds a money judgment and obtains the court’s authorization, a trustee summons issues and is served on the employer. Under the Massachusetts Rules of Civil Procedure governing trustee process, the trustee must file an answer, under oath or under the penalties of perjury, within twenty days of service of the summons, unless the court directs otherwise. That answer has to disclose plainly, fully, and particularly what goods, effects, or credits of the debtor were in the trustee’s hands when the summons arrived. For an employer, that means stating the wages it owes the named employee, reserving the exempt floor described below, and holding the non-exempt balance subject to the court’s order. An employer that ignores the summons risks being “charged” as trustee for the full amount the court could otherwise have reached, which is why a correctly served, correctly identified employer almost always responds rather than gambling on default.
Supplementary Process Comes First
For an ordinary money judgment, trustee process against wages is usually not the opening move. Massachusetts creditors typically begin with a supplementary process action under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 224, a separate post-judgment proceeding in which the debtor is summoned to court to be examined under oath about income, employment, and assets. The supplementary process examination is where the creditor confirms whether the debtor is employed, by whom, and at what wage, and the court can then enter a payment order or authorize attachment of the non-exempt portion of wages. The takeaway for sequencing is simple: the creditor still has to know where to point the inquiry. A debtor who appears and truthfully reports a current employer is one outcome; a debtor whose file lists an employer that ended months ago wastes the entire proceeding. Either way, the value of the step rises or falls on whether the employer on the page is the employer in real life.
The 85 Percent Exemption Rule
Why a Massachusetts paycheck is harder to reach than almost anywhere else.
Here is where Massachusetts breaks sharply from the rest of the country. Under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 246, section 28, when wages for personal labor are attached, the law reserves and exempts the greater of 85 percent of the debtor’s gross wages or 50 times the greater of the federal or Massachusetts hourly minimum wage for each week. Only the slice above that protected amount can ever reach the creditor.
Two details make this unusually protective. First, the 85 percent is measured against gross wages, not the smaller “disposable earnings” figure federal law uses, so the protected base is larger from the start. Second, the 50-times floor pins to whichever minimum wage is higher, and the Massachusetts minimum wage of fifteen dollars an hour easily beats the federal seven dollars and twenty-five cents. Fifty times fifteen dollars is a protected weekly floor of about seven hundred fifty dollars. A debtor earning under that floor in a given week has nothing attachable at all; a debtor earning more keeps the greater of that floor or 85 percent of gross. For many working debtors in the Commonwealth, the math leaves the creditor with very little to take.
How the Math Works, Week by Week
Because the statute protects the greater of the two figures, the right way to read it is as a per-week floor that almost always lands in the debtor’s favor. Walk through it at the current Massachusetts minimum wage of fifteen dollars an hour, where fifty times the minimum wage is a protected floor of seven hundred fifty dollars a week.
Take a debtor grossing six hundred dollars in a week. That is already below the seven-hundred-fifty-dollar floor, so the entire paycheck is exempt and the creditor reaches nothing. Take a debtor grossing eight hundred dollars. Eighty-five percent of gross is six hundred eighty dollars, but the fifty-times floor of seven hundred fifty dollars is larger, so the protected amount is seven hundred fifty dollars and only fifty dollars sits above the line that week. Take a higher earner grossing fifteen hundred dollars. Eighty-five percent of that is twelve hundred seventy-five dollars, which now exceeds the seven-hundred-fifty-dollar floor, so the protected figure climbs to twelve hundred seventy-five dollars and the creditor can reach the remaining two hundred twenty-five dollars. The pattern is unmistakable: only at solidly above-average wages does a Massachusetts paycheck yield a meaningful slice, and even then it is a thin one. The floor is recalculated for each week, or portion of a week, that wages were earned but not paid, so the protection refreshes every pay period rather than being spent once.
Massachusetts vs. Federal Limits
Same paycheck, very different outcomes.
| What It Measures | Federal (CCPA, 15 U.S.C. 1673) | Massachusetts (MGL ch. 246, sec. 28) |
|---|---|---|
| Protected percentage | 75 percent of disposable earnings | 85 percent of gross wages |
| Base figure used | Disposable earnings (after required deductions) | Gross wages (before deductions) |
| Weekly dollar floor | 30 times federal minimum wage (about two hundred eighteen dollars) | 50 times the greater min wage (about seven hundred fifty dollars) |
| Practical effect | Up to 25 percent of disposable pay reachable | Often far less than 15 percent reachable MA |
| Name used | Wage garnishment | Trustee process |
| Child support carve-out | Up to 50-60 percent allowed | Defers to federal limits for support orders |
The pattern is consistent: every Massachusetts column tilts toward the debtor. A creditor used to recovering a quarter of a paycheck in another state will find the Commonwealth’s floor swallowing most or all of an average wage. That is exactly why locating a higher-earning debtor’s correct employer, and acting before they change jobs, is the difference between a collectible judgment and a paper one. The broader patchwork of wage garnishment laws by state shows just how far Massachusetts sits from the federal baseline.
Exceptions to the Exemption
The protection is strong, but it is not absolute.
Section 28 carves out one major category. The generous exemption does not apply to proceedings that enforce a divorce, separate maintenance, or child support order. In those family-law matters, the federal limits on what may be trusteed, assigned, or attached govern instead — meaning a far larger portion of pay can be reached to satisfy support obligations. A parent behind on a court-ordered support amount cannot hide behind the 85 percent rule.
Where the Federal Floor Takes Over
Even where the generous state exemption falls away, federal law sets the outer ceiling. The federal Consumer Credit Protection Act, codified at 15 U.S.C. 1673, caps what any garnishment can reach at twenty-five percent of disposable earnings for ordinary debts, and provides higher limits for support orders. For a support obligation, the federal cap rises to fifty percent of disposable earnings when the obligor is supporting another spouse or child, and up to sixty percent when the obligor is not, with an additional five percent allowed when the arrears run more than twelve weeks behind. So a Massachusetts support-enforcement attachment is governed by the federal percentages, not the eighty-five-percent state floor, while an ordinary creditor remains bound by both the protective state floor and, as a backstop, the federal twenty-five-percent ceiling. In practice the state floor is so much more protective that it controls the outcome for ordinary debts, and the federal numbers control for support.
Pensions, Retirement Accounts, and the Contribution Limit
The statute also extends protection well beyond ordinary wages. The same section shields pensions broadly, and Massachusetts defines “pension” expansively for this purpose: it sweeps in individual retirement accounts, annuities, 401(a) plans, 403(b) annuities, Keogh plans, simplified employee pension plans, and other ERISA-covered retirement holdings, all reserved in the trustee’s hands and exempt from attachment. The carve-out is narrow but real. Amounts an individual deposited into such a plan in excess of seven percent of total income in the five years before the judgment or a bankruptcy filing fall outside the shield, a rule aimed squarely at debtors who try to dump cash into a retirement account on the eve of collection. For the ordinary debtor with ordinary retirement savings, though, the practical result is that a creditor pursuing wages will not find an easy second target in the pension. The wage floor refreshes each pay period, and the retirement accounts sit largely off-limits, which is why timing also matters under the Massachusetts debt collection statute of limitations — a stale judgment combined with a low collectible balance can make pursuit uneconomical.
Why It All Hinges on the Employer
Trustee process is only as good as the trustee you name.
Every protection above assumes one thing the creditor must supply: the identity of the employer holding the wages. Trustee process does not run against “wherever the debtor works.” It runs against a named third party served with a summons, and that party answers only for what it actually holds. If the debtor changed jobs, works through a staffing agency, is paid as a contractor, or simply does not work where your file says, the trustee answers that it holds nothing, the writ collects zero, and the creditor has burned a filing.
This is the wall most Massachusetts wage attachments hit, and it is a locate problem, not a legal one. As a public-records research firm operating under FCRA, GLBA, and DPPA permissible-purpose rules, our investigation team rebuilds a debtor’s current employment from public records and licensed sources, so the trustee you name is the one actually cutting the paychecks. Finding the employer is the step that turns a favorable judgment into money, and it pairs directly with our work on finding an employer for wage garnishment.
Beyond the Paycheck: Bank Funds and Priority
Trustee process reaches more than wages, and timing decides who gets paid.
Bank Accounts Are Also Trustee Process
Wages are only one form of “credits” a trustee can hold. A debtor’s bank is itself a classic trustee, and a creditor can serve a separate trustee summons on the bank to reach the debtor’s account balance. Here too the statute builds in a debtor cushion: under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 246, section 28A, a natural person is entitled to an exemption of two thousand five hundred dollars in funds held at a Massachusetts bank, and no person may claim more than that single two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar exemption at one time. Businesses, trusts, and organizations get no such exemption. The practical consequence is that a bank attachment can reach the balance above two thousand five hundred dollars in a lump sum, which often recovers more in one stroke than a wage attachment grinds out over many weeks — but only if the creditor knows which bank holds the account. That, like the employer, is a locate.
Multiple Creditors and Who Comes First
When more than one creditor is chasing the same paycheck or account, Massachusetts generally rewards the diligent. The creditor whose trustee summons is served first attaches first, and an employer answering as trustee reserves the non-exempt portion for the attachment already in hand before honoring a later one. Family-support orders are the major exception: a support obligation is enforced under the more aggressive federal percentages and effectively jumps the ordinary queue. For an ordinary judgment creditor, the lesson is that speed and accuracy compound — being first to serve the correct trustee can mean the difference between collecting the thin non-exempt slice and finding it already claimed by someone who moved sooner.
A Judgment That Lives Twenty Years
A Massachusetts money judgment is enforceable for twenty years, and a creditor who keeps the judgment and its execution active preserves that entire runway. Because the wage floor resets every pay period and a debtor’s circumstances change — a raise, a new and better-paying employer, an inheritance landing in a bank account — the same judgment can support successive trustee attachments over many years. The creditor who lets the file go cold forfeits that window; the one who periodically re-traces the debtor’s employment and accounts keeps converting a paper judgment into actual recovery long after the original collection attempt. Twenty years is a long time to keep a locate current, which is exactly why re-tracing, not re-litigating, is usually the productive move.
Why a Massachusetts Attachment Comes Back Empty
The usual reasons trustee process collects nothing.
Stale Employer on File
The debtor left the job months ago, so the named trustee truthfully answers that it holds no wages.
Paid as a Contractor
Reclassified as a 1099 worker, the debtor has no wages for an employer to hold under trustee process.
Earnings Below the Floor
Weekly pay falls under the 50-times minimum wage floor, leaving nothing legally attachable that week.
Staffing-Agency Pay
The check comes from a temp agency, not the worksite, so the obvious employer is the wrong trustee.
Just Switched Jobs
The debtor moved employers between your judgment and the writ, and the locate is already out of date.
Support Order in Play
An existing child-support attachment already claims the larger federal share, leaving little for other creditors.
From Judgment to Trustee
How we turn a name into a serveable, correct employer.
Send What You Have
The debtor’s name, last known address, date of birth, old employer, or any identifiers become the starting point for the locate.
We Trace Employment
Current employment is rebuilt from public records and licensed sources, cross-checked against addresses and associates.
We Verify the Trustee
The employer of record is confirmed and the proper legal entity identified, so you name the right party as trustee.
You File Trustee Process
Hand the verified employer to your attorney and serve the trustee summons under MGL ch. 246, while the lead is fresh.
Who We Help
We do the locate; you handle the filing.
Judgment Creditors
Correct employer to name as trustee
Collections Attorneys
Employment verified before filing
Debt Buyers
Stale portfolios re-traced for assets
Landlords
Wage source found after eviction judgment
Small-Business Owners
Self-collecting on an unpaid invoice
Family-Law Counsel
Obligor employment for support orders
Whoever you are, the obstacle is identical: trustee process cannot attach wages held by an employer you have not identified. We locate the current employer through professional skip tracing, confirm the entity that actually issues the paychecks, and document what we found. It pairs naturally with our guide on how to find someone’s current employer and, where you also need to weigh what is reachable, the rules on Massachusetts asset exemptions for creditors. We do not file your trustee process or give legal advice, but for a legitimate judgment-enforcement matter, a verified employment locate typically comes back within 24 hours.
Our Commitment
We find the employer so your trustee process can actually collect — the correct, current paying entity to name as trustee under MGL ch. 246, not a guess from a stale file. Lawful, court-ready employment locating for creditors, attorneys, and businesses since 2004.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Massachusetts call wage garnishment something different?
Yes. Massachusetts uses “trustee process” under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 246, where the employer holding the wages is named as the trustee. When that trustee is an employer, trustee process works like wage garnishment in other states, just under different terminology and rules.
How much of my wages can be garnished in Massachusetts?
Section 28 of chapter 246 reserves and exempts the greater of 85 percent of gross wages or 50 times the greater of the federal or Massachusetts hourly minimum wage each week. Only the amount above that protected floor can be reached by an ordinary creditor.
What is the protected weekly floor right now?
With the Massachusetts minimum wage at fifteen dollars an hour, 50 times that is a protected floor of about seven hundred fifty dollars a week. Earnings below that floor in a given week are not attachable at all, which makes Massachusetts far more protective than the federal rule.
How is Massachusetts different from federal garnishment limits?
Federal law protects 75 percent of disposable earnings or 30 times the federal minimum wage. Massachusetts protects 85 percent of gross wages or 50 times the greater minimum wage, measured against gross rather than disposable pay, so substantially less is reachable.
Does the exemption apply to child support?
No. Section 28 excludes divorce, separate maintenance, and child support orders. For those, the federal limits on what can be attached apply instead, which allow a much larger share of pay to be reached to satisfy a support obligation.
Can a creditor reach a pension or retirement account?
Chapter 246 also shields pensions broadly, including IRAs, annuities, 401(a), 403(b), Keogh, and ERISA-covered plans, with a narrow limit on large contributions made shortly before a judgment. Most ordinary retirement holdings are protected from trustee process.
Why do I need the debtor’s employer to garnish wages?
Trustee process runs against a named employer served as trustee, and that party answers only for what it actually holds. If you name a former or wrong employer, it reports no wages and the writ collects nothing. Identifying the current employer is essential.
How fast can you locate a debtor’s employer, and what do you need?
For a legitimate judgment-enforcement matter, a verified employment locate typically comes back within 24 hours. Send whatever you have, such as a name, last known address, date of birth, or a former employer, and our investigation team builds from there.
Have a Judgment But No Employer?
Massachusetts trustee process only collects when you name the right trustee. We locate the debtor’s current employer so your attachment under MGL ch. 246 actually reaches wages — typically within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
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