Oregon Wage Garnishment Laws
Oregon does not follow the familiar federal garnishment math. Instead of protecting a multiple of the minimum wage, Oregon law lets a debtor keep the greater of seventy-five percent of disposable earnings or a flat weekly dollar floor set by statute under ORS 18.385 — a floor that lawmakers raised on a schedule and that now sits well above the federal number. What almost no guide says out loud is that Oregon raised only half of its exemptions. A second, parallel track for child support, spousal support and restitution debts still runs on the pre-2025 figures, and in ORS 18.395 (1)(d)(B) the legislature wrote in terms that the inflation adjustment does not reach it. Which track a debt falls on decides whether a paycheck is worth garnishing at all, and which paycheck it even is. This guide explains both tracks, resolves what the July twenty twenty-seven minimum-wage tie actually points at, walks the writ-of-garnishment procedure step by step, works real examples, and shows how a public-records research firm finds the one thing a writ cannot work without: a current, confirmed employer.
The Short Version
Under Oregon’s wage exemption, ORS 18.385, a creditor may take only the amount of a paycheck that exceeds the protected portion, and the protected portion is the greater of two figures: seventy-five percent of the debtor’s disposable earnings, or a flat weekly dollar amount fixed in the statute. That weekly floor was raised on a phased schedule, and the current step is already in force: for wages payable on or after July first of twenty twenty-six and before July first of twenty twenty-seven, the protected weekly minimum is $400, up from the $338 that governed wages payable through June thirtieth of twenty twenty-six. The statute writes out its own separate dollar figure for each longer pay period rather than prorating the weekly one, and from July first of twenty twenty-seven it stops naming amounts altogether and sets the floor at thirty times the Oregon minimum wage in ORS 653.025, recalculated and published each year by the State Court Administrator. Because that flat number sits far above the federal benchmark, low and moderate earners in Oregon are protected from garnishment entirely while many higher earners still see the standard twenty-five-percent bite. But all of that describes only one of Oregon’s two exemption tracks. If the writ carries an attestation that the debt arises out of a child support or spousal support obligation, or out of a money award judgment that includes restitution, ORS 18.385 (6) substitutes a completely separate set of figures that begins at $254 a week — the pre-2025 number, written without a single date bracket, index, or forward tie. The same split runs through the homestead exemption, the vehicle exemption, the protected bank balance, the employer’s calculation form and the debtor’s notice of exemptions. None of this matters, though, until a creditor knows where the debtor works — the writ is served on the employer, not the debtor. We find the employer; you serve the writ.
Watch: How Oregon Garnishment Works
The flat-dollar floor and the ninety-day writ, explained.
Watch Overview
The Oregon Rule: Greater-Of, Flat-Dollar Floor
Why Oregon protects more pay than the federal default.
Most states bolt their garnishment limit onto the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act, which protects whichever is larger of two amounts: the slice of pay above twenty-five percent of disposable earnings, or the slice above thirty times the federal minimum wage. With the federal minimum frozen at $7.25 an hour, that second figure works out to $217.50 a week — a number that has not moved in years. Oregon broke away from that arithmetic.
Under ORS 18.385, Oregon exempts the greater of seventy-five percent of disposable earnings or a flat weekly dollar amount written into the statute. The percentage half mirrors the federal twenty-five-percent ceiling, so a high earner sees roughly the same cap. The flat-dollar half is where Oregon diverges sharply: rather than thirty times a stale federal wage, the legislature set an explicit weekly floor and then raised it on a schedule. That floor is the practical heart of Oregon garnishment, because for most working debtors it, not the percentage, decides what a creditor actually collects.
Disposable earnings, defined
The math always runs on disposable earnings — gross pay minus the deductions the law requires the employer to make, such as federal and state income tax withholding, Social Security, and Medicare. Voluntary deductions like a retirement contribution or health-plan premium are not subtracted first; they come out of the portion the debtor keeps. Getting disposable earnings right is the foundation of every garnishment calculation, and it is the first line on the form Oregon makes the employer complete.
The Flat Weekly Floor and the Step-Up
The protected minimum, and how it scales by pay period.
Oregon’s flat floor is not a single permanent number, and the figure that governs depends on when the wages are payable, not on when the writ was issued. ORS 18.385 (2)(a) lists the weekly amounts in sequence: $254 for wages payable before January first of twenty twenty-five, $305 from that date, $338 for wages payable on or after July first of twenty twenty-five and before July first of twenty twenty-six, and $400 for wages payable on or after July first of twenty twenty-six and before July first of twenty twenty-seven. That last figure is the one in force today. For wages payable on or after July first of twenty twenty-seven the statute names no dollar amount at all: the weekly floor becomes thirty times the minimum wage specified in ORS 653.025 (1), and under subsection (3) the State Court Administrator calculates the exemption amounts each year on or before July first, rounds to the nearest dollar, publishes them on the Judicial Department website, and the adjusted figures take effect that July first.
Longer pay periods do not use the weekly figure, and they are not simply the weekly figure multiplied out. ORS 18.385 (2) writes a separate dollar amount for each period. For wages payable in the year beginning July first of twenty twenty-six the statute sets $832 for a two-week period, $912 for a half-month, and $1,792 for a one-month period, against the $400 weekly figure — each of them higher than a straight proration of the weekly amount would produce. Only a pay period that matches none of those, which the statute handles as any other period longer than one week, is computed by multiplying the weekly amount by the number of days in the period divided by seven and rounding to the nearest dollar. A creditor or employer working a biweekly or monthly payroll has to apply the matching statutory period figure, not the weekly one, or the exempt portion comes out wrong.
Weekly Floor: $400
For wages payable on or after July 1, 2026 and before July 1, 2027 the protected weekly minimum is $400. A debtor keeps the greater of that or seventy-five percent of disposable pay.
Indexed Floor
The statute stops naming a dollar figure. The weekly minimum becomes thirty times the Oregon minimum wage under ORS 653.025 (1), recalculated and published by the State Court Administrator each July.
Separate Statutory Figures
For wages payable in the year from July 1, 2026 the statute sets $832 for two weeks, $912 for a half-month and $1,792 for a month. Only odd periods use the days-divided-by-seven proration.
Oregon Runs Two Exemption Systems
The 2024 overhaul raised one track and froze the other in place.
Oregon did not raise its garnishment exemptions. It raised half of them. The 2024 overhaul stepped the ordinary weekly wage floor from $254 to $305 to $338 to $400, and from twenty twenty-seven ties it to thirty times the Oregon minimum wage so that it rises every July on its own. It left the support-and-restitution floor sitting at $254 — the pre-2025 number, with no schedule, no index, and no forward tie of any kind. Seven provisions of ORS chapter 18 turn on one repeated phrase, a debt that arises out of a child support or spousal support obligation or a money award judgment that includes restitution, and wherever that phrase appears the statute writes a second, lower, and expressly un-indexed version of the same exemption.
The trigger is procedural, not merely descriptive. Under ORS 18.385 (6) the second track engages when the writ of garnishment includes or is attached to a notice from a state or federal child support agency, or an attestation that the debt arises out of support or a restitution money award. Absent that attachment, the ordinary figures govern. One point deserves care, because it is where most summaries go wrong: on the support track the seventy-five percent exemption in ORS 18.385 (1) still applies unchanged. Only the dollar floor drops. This is not the federal fifty-to-sixty-five-percent support rule, which belongs to a different instrument — ORS 18.375 (4) expressly excludes administrative income-withholding under ORS 25.372 to 25.427, 419B.408 and ORS chapter 110 from the definition of “garnishment” altogether.
| Instrument | Ordinary Track | Support / Restitution Track | Indexed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly wage floorKEY | $400 through June twenty twenty-seven, then thirty times the state minimum wage | $254, flat | Ordinary yes, from twenty twenty-seven. Support: no schedule, no index, no date brackets at all |
| Two weeks / half-month / month | $832 / $912 / $1,792 | $509 / $545 / $1,090 | Same split |
| Homestead, ORS 18.395 (1) | $150,000 single, $300,000 combined household | $40,000 single, $50,000 combined household | ORS 18.395 (1)(d)(B) says the indexing “does not apply” to the support amount |
| Vehicle, ORS 18.345 (1)(d) | $10,000 | $3,000 | Neither |
| Employer’s calculation form, ORS 18.840 | Line 5 is a dated ladder — $254, $305, $338, $400 — plus blanks the garnishor must fill from the Judicial Department website | Subsection (2) prescribes a separate form whose Line 5 is a flat four-way choice of $254, $509, $545 or $1,090, with no dated ladder at all | — |
| Debtor’s notice of exemptions | ORS 18.845: “$___ per workweek for wages earned before (date) and $___ per workweek for wages earned after (date)” | ORS 18.846: “$254 per workweek.” Full stop. | — |
| Protected bank balance, ORS 18.785 | $2,500 base protected account balance, CPI-indexed | Paragraph (2)(a)(C) switches off (b), (c)(A), (e), (f) and (j) — so there is no base protected account balance at all | — |
| Judgment lifespan, ORS 18.180 | Ten years, renewable | Restitution money award fifty years; child support thirty-five; spousal support installments twenty-five | — |
One statute, two notices, and only one of them moves
The clearest place to see the split is in the two debtor notices Oregon prints in its own statute book. A debtor garnished on an ordinary consumer judgment receives the ORS 18.845 form, which protects the greater of seventy-five percent of take-home wages or “$___ per workweek for wages earned before (date) and $___ per workweek for wages earned after (date),” followed by a note instructing the garnishor to insert the applicable years and amounts published on the Judicial Department website under ORS 18.385 (3). The same debtor, garnished instead on a support or restitution debt, receives the ORS 18.846 form, and paragraph (1)(b) of that form reads, in its entirety, “$254 per workweek.” One form has blanks and a duty to look up a moving number. The other prints a number that has not moved since before twenty twenty-five and carries no mechanism to move it.
Why a creditor should care which track a debt sits on
The gap between the two weekly floors is $146 today, and it widens every July first once the ordinary track begins indexing. That is not an academic difference, and the same paycheck answers both tracks differently. Take weekly disposable earnings of $400. For an ordinary judgment creditor the greater-of test compares seventy-five percent, which is $300, against the $400 floor; the floor wins, the entire check is exempt, and the writ returns nothing. Reached instead under a restitution money award, that check is measured against $254, so the greater-of test lands on the seventy-five percent limb — $300 exempt and $100 collectible every week. A creditor holding a restitution or support award is working a materially larger pool of garnishable paychecks than an ordinary creditor pursuing the same population of debtors, which is a concrete reason to identify a specific employer rather than assume the wages are out of reach.
The homestead half of the split has a further wrinkle that no ordinary creditor gets. Under ORS 18.398, a court hearing a matter based on a child support judgment may in its discretion decline to allow all or part of a claimed homestead exemption, weighing the policies the section sets out: protecting the debtor’s family home, maintaining dependent children from the financial resources of both parents, and refusing to let the homestead exemption operate as a shield for evading support. No comparable discretion exists against an ordinary consumer judgment.
Oregon’s Flat Floor vs. the Federal 30x Rule
Same percentage cap, very different protected minimum.
| Feature | Federal Default (CCPA) | Oregon (ORS 18.385) |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage cap | Up to twenty-five percent of disposable earnings | Up to twenty-five percent (debtor keeps seventy-five percent) |
| Protected floorKEY | Pay above thirty times the federal minimum wage, about $217 a week | A flat statutory weekly dollar floor, currently $400 for wages payable in the year from July twenty twenty-six |
| How floor is set | Tied to the frozen federal minimum wage | Named in the statute through June twenty twenty-seven, then thirty times the Oregon minimum wage, recalculated annually |
| Which applies | Whichever protects more pay | The greater of the percentage or the flat floor |
| Effect on low earners | Many remain garnishable above the low federal floor | Far more workers fall entirely below the protected minimum |
| Support and restitution debts | Higher percentages allowed by separate rules | ORS 18.385 (6) keeps the seventy-five percent exemption intact and drops only the dollar floor, from $400 to a frozen $254 |
| Tax debts | Separate federal levy tables apply | ORS 18.385 (8): the dollar floors vanish for state tax but seventy-five percent survives — unless a special notice issues, and then that goes too |
The percentage columns look identical because Oregon adopted the same twenty-five-percent ceiling the federal law uses, governed at the federal level by 15 U.S.C. 1673. The difference is entirely in the floor. Because Oregon’s flat minimum is nearly double the federal benchmark and keeps rising, a debtor whose disposable pay falls under the Oregon floor is fully protected even though the same paycheck would be partly garnishable under the federal rule. That is the single fact that most often surprises out-of-state creditors trying to collect in Oregon.
The July 2027 Tie: Which Oregon Minimum Wage?
Oregon has three minimum wages. The garnishment floor reaches for exactly one of them.
From July first of twenty twenty-seven, ORS 18.385 (2)(a)(E) stops naming a dollar amount and sets the weekly floor at “the minimum wage specified in ORS 653.025 (1), multiplied by 30.” Subsection (1), and only subsection (1). That matters more in Oregon than it would almost anywhere else, because Oregon’s minimum wage is regional, and the two regional rates live in subsections (2) and (3) — neither of which the garnishment statute reaches. ORS 653.025 (2)(h) sets the rate inside the urban growth boundary of a metropolitan service district at $1.25 per hour more than the subsection (1) rate; ORS 653.025 (3)(h) sets the rate in a nonurban county at $1 per hour less. Oregon’s own wage-exemption calculation form removes any doubt about which one feeds in, naming the agency directly: “the minimum wage that the Bureau of Labor and Industries calculates under ORS 653.025 (1) multiplied by 30.”
So the twenty twenty-seven floor is already computable. The Bureau of Labor and Industries publishes the current rates for July first of twenty twenty-six through June thirtieth of twenty twenty-seven as $16.80 for the Portland metro area, $15.55 standard, and $14.55 non-urban. The standard rate is the ORS 653.025 (1) rate — the published figures satisfy the statute’s own arithmetic exactly, since $15.55 plus $1.25 gives the $16.80 metro rate and $15.55 minus $1.00 gives the $14.55 non-urban rate. Thirty times $15.55 is $466.50.
The derived 2027 figures, labelled as derived
These products are our arithmetic, computed from the multipliers in ORS 18.385 (2) and the rate BOLI publishes today. They are not printed anywhere and they are not the operative twenty twenty-seven figures, which depend on a rate BOLI will not set until April thirtieth of twenty twenty-seven and which the State Court Administrator will not publish until on or before July first of that year. On today’s standard rate the weekly floor would be $466.50 (thirty times), two weeks about $933 (sixty times), a half-month about $1,011 (sixty-five times) and a month about $2,022 (one hundred thirty times). The half-month and monthly products land on a half-dollar and are rounded here; ORS 18.385 (3) gives that rounding to the State Court Administrator, to the nearest dollar.
Two things follow that a creditor or an employer should plan around now. First, the step is large and it can only go up: from $400 to at least $466.50 is a rise of about seventeen percent, and it cannot be smaller, because ORS 653.025 (5)(b) adjusts the standard rate for “the increase, if any” in the U.S. City Average Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers from March to March, rounded to the nearest five cents. An index that cannot fall produces a floor that cannot fall.
Second, and this is the part almost nobody notices: a Portland worker gets a garnishment floor built on a wage their employer may not lawfully pay them. A metro employee must be paid at least $16.80 an hour, and thirty times their own lawful minimum would be $504.00 — but ORS 18.385 reaches only subsection (1), so their protected floor is $466.50. Oregon’s highest-cost region has its garnishment protection measured by the standard rate. The effect runs the other way at the bottom of the map: a non-urban worker lawfully paid $14.55 would get $436.50 on their own regional rate, and instead receives a floor of $466.50 — more protection than their own wage floor would produce.
Worked Examples: What a Creditor Actually Collects
Run the greater-of test, then take only what exceeds it.
The procedure is always the same. Compute disposable earnings, find seventy-five percent of that figure, compare it to the flat floor for that pay period, keep whichever is larger as the exempt amount, and garnish only what is left. These examples use the weekly floor of $400, which governs wages payable on or after July first of twenty twenty-six. On a biweekly, semimonthly or monthly payroll the comparison figure is the statute’s own period amount — $832, $912 or $1,792 — not this weekly number.
Example one: a lower earner, now fully protected
Suppose a worker’s weekly disposable earnings are $400. Seventy-five percent of that is $300, but the flat floor of $400 is larger, so the exempt amount is the whole $400 and the garnishable amount is zero. This is exactly the paycheck the step-up changed: measured against the old $338 floor the same worker would have handed over $62 a week, and against the federal thirty-times benchmark of about $217.50 the creditor could have reached $182.50. Under the current Oregon floor the writ returns nothing.
Example two: the crossover
The floor stops mattering the moment seventy-five percent of disposable pay exceeds it, which happens at weekly disposable earnings of about $533.33. Just below that line the debtor keeps the flat $400; just above it the debtor keeps three-quarters of the check. At $600 of weekly disposable earnings, seventy-five percent is $450, which is larger than the $400 floor, so the exempt amount is $450 and the creditor may garnish $150 — exactly twenty-five percent.
Example three: a higher earner
At $1,000 of weekly disposable earnings, seventy-five percent is $750, far above the floor, so the creditor takes the full twenty-five percent, or $250. The lesson across all three is that the flat floor shields lower paychecks completely, the percentage caps higher ones, and the crossover moves upward every time the legislature raises the floor — which is why the July twenty twenty-six step-up from $338 to $400 pushed a band of Oregon workers out of reach of garnishment entirely.
The Writ-of-Garnishment Procedure
From judgment to a check from the employer.
Get and Confirm the Judgment
A creditor must first hold an Oregon money judgment. Under ORS 18.180 (3) its remedies run ten years from entry, extendable by certificate under ORS 18.182, and once recorded it becomes a lien on the debtor’s real property.
Identify the Garnishee
A wage garnishment is served on the employer, the garnishee — never on the debtor alone. Without a current, correct employer the writ has nowhere to land.
Issue and Deliver the Writ
The writ is prepared and delivered to the employer with the required notice and forms. A private writ reaches wages owing on delivery plus the next ninety days — but a county writ and a state-agency notice run until the debt is paid.
Employer Calculates and Pays
The employer completes the wage-exemption calculation, withholds only the nonexempt portion each payday, and remits it, accounting for the writ within the statutory response window.
Two procedural details trip up creditors more than any others. First, an ordinary writ is forward-reaching but finite: it captures ninety days of wages and then expires, so a balance that is not fully collected requires a fresh writ. Second, the employer is the one who runs the exemption math on a standardized form, and an employer that miscalculates — or simply ignores the writ — can be held answerable, which is why a clean, correctly addressed writ matters as much as the underlying judgment.
Oregon has three writ durations, not one
The ninety-day rule is real but it is only the default, and the two exceptions are worth more to the creditors they cover than the rule is to everybody else. ORS 18.625 (2) is the ordinary case: a writ garnishes wages from delivery until the earlier of ninety days or the date the garnishment is released or satisfied in full. ORS 18.625 (3) then carves out county collections: a writ issued on behalf of a county or county agency garnishes wages “until the full amount owed to the county or county agency is paid” or the writ is released, and such a writ must contain language reasonably designed to notify the employer of that fact. ORS 18.855 (3) carves out the state: notwithstanding ORS 18.625, a notice of garnishment issued by a state agency garnishes wages “until the full amount of the debt is paid” or the notice is released.
So a county court-fine or a state tax notice sitting on an Oregon payroll is not a ninety-day instrument at all — it is perpetual until satisfied. For an employer, the practical consequence is that the ninety-day calendar habit is wrong for two whole classes of writ. For a private creditor, the consequence is competitive: a government garnishment ahead of you in the queue does not fall away on a schedule.
The jeopardy instrument: a special notice of garnishment
One Oregon device suspends the wage exemption entirely. Under ORS 18.855 (6), if a state agency is collecting a state tax and has reason to believe the debtor “intends to leave the state or do any other act that would jeopardize collection of the tax,” it may issue a special notice of garnishment, and earnings garnished under it “are not subject to a claim of exemption under ORS 18.385.” The trade is narrow in scope: a special notice reaches only property and wages already in the employer’s hands when it is delivered, and expressly does not garnish wages earned after delivery. Consistently, ORS 18.855 (7) provides that a wage exemption calculation form is not delivered with a special notice — there is nothing left to calculate.
The Calculation Form, Carve-Outs & Priority
The form the employer fills out, and the debts that play by different rules.
The wage-exemption calculation form, and where “the greater of” actually comes from
Oregon does not leave the math to guesswork. The state prescribes a wage-exemption calculation form at ORS 18.840 that the employer completes for each pay period during the life of the writ, and a copy must be delivered to the employer with every writ. The form is worth reading closely, because it is the source of the phrase this whole subject turns on. ORS 18.385 never uses the words “the greater of.” The form does, at Line 6: “Wages exempt from garnishment (Line 4 or 5, whichever is greater)” — where Line 4 is “Normal exemption (Enter 75 percent of Line 3)” and Line 5 is “Minimum exemption (check one).” Line 3 is disposable wages, Line 7 subtracts the exemption to give nonexempt wages, Line 8 subtracts anything already withheld for the same period under a support withholding order or a writ with priority, and Line 9 is what the creditor actually receives. Cite ORS 18.840 for the greater-of rule and ORS 18.385 (1) and (2) for its two limbs.
Line 5 also shows the twenty twenty-seven transition arriving. The checkbox ladder runs $254, $305, $338, $400 by date — and then two blank rows the garnishor must fill from the Judicial Department website. The form’s own instruction is explicit that this burden falls on the creditor, not the employer: “For wages paid on or after July 1, 2027, the garnishor is required to update this form with the applicable year and wage exemption amounts published on the Judicial Department website pursuant to ORS 18.385 (3). The garnishor is required to include the wage exemption amounts for wages earned before and after July 1 of the year the garnishment was issued.” From next July, an Oregon creditor whose writ straddles a July first must state two floors on the employer’s form and two on the debtor’s notice.
The employer’s own $2 fee, and the floor that outranks it
Under ORS 18.736, an employer who has to make payments under a wage writ “may collect a $2 processing fee for each week of wages, or fraction of a week of wages,” withheld from the debtor’s own wages, in addition to what goes to the creditor, and collected only after the final payment under the writ. But subsection (2) subordinates the fee to the exemption: it “may not be collected if withholding of the fee would reduce the debtor’s net disposable income below the minimum amounts prescribed by ORS 18.385.” The flat floor protects the debtor even against the employer’s own administrative charge.
Support, restitution, and tax carve-outs
The flat-dollar protections were written for ordinary consumer and commercial debts, and their raised floor does not extend to debts for child support, spousal support, or criminal restitution — but the way it fails to extend is specific, and it is set out in the two-track section above. Under ORS 18.385 (6) the seventy-five percent exemption survives untouched and only the dollar floor falls, from $400 to $254. Tax debts work differently again. ORS 18.385 (7) switches off subsections (1) through (6) entirely for an order of a court of bankruptcy and for any debt due for federal tax. ORS 18.385 (8) switches off only subsections (2) through (6) for state tax — leaving the seventy-five percent limb standing — unless a state agency issues a special notice of garnishment under ORS 18.855 (6), at which point subsection (1) goes too. Read the asymmetry: for a state tax debt the dollar floors vanish but three-quarters of the check survives, right up until the jeopardy instrument issues.
Multi-creditor priority, and the trap that costs a second creditor everything
Oregon generally lets only one ordinary wage garnishment run against a debtor at a time. Under ORS 18.627 the first writ delivered to an employer has priority, and a later creditor’s writ waits in line until the earlier one is satisfied or expires, with a narrow exception where the first garnishment is taking less than the full nonexempt amount — in which case the employer makes concurrent payment of the balance on the later writ. Support orders and tax levies can take priority over a pending consumer garnishment.
Here is the clause that decides whether being second is worth anything. ORS 18.627 (2) directs the employer to pay on later writs in delivery order “as long as each writ continues to be effective under ORS 18.625,” and then adds: “Any delay in payment under a writ by reason of this subsection does not affect the expiration of the writ’s effect at the time specified in ORS 18.625.” A second-in-line writ’s own ninety-day clock keeps running while it waits its turn. If the first writ occupies the full ninety days, the second can expire having collected nothing at all, and that creditor must issue and serve again from the beginning. Timing is therefore strategic in a way most guides miss: the first correctly served writ on a confirmed employer does not merely collect first, it can consume the entire life of everyone else’s.
The statute’s own instructions work the overlap example. In Example 4 on the ORS 18.840 form: two writs are outstanding for a monthly-paid debtor, the first expiring October sixteenth and the second not until November fifteenth. The employer must “prepare two wage exemption calculation forms” for October wages and pay under both — the first covering October first to fifteenth, the second covering the whole month, with the amounts withheld under the first subtracted on Line 8 to determine what the second writ reaches.
Challenging a Garnishment and Fixing Errors
The claim-of-exemption path when the math is wrong.
A debtor who believes too much is being withheld — or that the wages are exempt entirely — can challenge the garnishment. Oregon’s writ packet includes a notice of exemptions and a challenge-to-garnishment form, and the debtor files it with the court to assert that the exempt amount was miscalculated, that the income is a protected source, or that the flat floor was misapplied. The court then resolves the dispute and orders any over-withheld amount returned. The practical takeaway for a creditor is that a sloppy or aggressive calculation invites a challenge that delays collection and can claw money back; a clean writ on a correctly identified employer is the one that holds up.
The deadline is 120 days for wages and 30 for everything else
Oregon puts two different clocks on a challenge, and the wage clock is unusually generous. Under ORS 18.700 (2) a debtor challenges by completing the form provided by ORS 18.850 and delivering the original to the court administrator for the court with authority over the writ, plus a copy to the garnishor. The challenge must be delivered “within 120 days after a copy of the writ of garnishment is delivered to the debtor, if the garnishee is the employer of the debtor and the challenge is based on an exemption that is claimed for wages,” or “within 30 days” if the challenge is made on any other basis. So a wage challenge can arrive well after an ordinary ninety-day writ has already expired and been paid out — which is precisely why an aggressive calculation is a poor bet. And ORS 18.700 (4) removes the usual friction: a court “shall not require the payment of any fee” for filing a challenge to a garnishment.
Oregon’s anti-discharge rule is broader than the federal one
ORS 18.385 (11) states the whole rule in a single line: “An employer may not discharge any individual because the individual has had earnings garnished.” Compare the federal protection at 15 U.S.C. 1674(a), which reaches discharge only for garnishment “for any one indebtedness” — the familiar reading being that a second unrelated garnishment can cost a worker the job. Oregon’s sentence carries no such limitation on its face. Two neighbouring subsections close the circle: ORS 18.385 (9) forbids a court to make, execute or enforce any order or process in violation of the section, and ORS 18.385 (10) provides that “any waiver by an individual of the provisions of this section is void.” A contractual consent-to-garnishment clause is therefore unenforceable in Oregon, no matter how it was signed.
Errors most often arise from the very thing this page keeps returning to — the employer. A writ served on a former employer, a staffing agency the debtor left, or a misspelled business name does not garnish anything; it bounces, the ninety-day clock runs, and the creditor starts over. The single most reliable way to avoid a void writ is to confirm where the debtor actually works before the writ issues, which is a locate problem, not a legal one.
Beyond the Paycheck: Bank, Homestead & the 2024 Reform
Wages are one stream; Oregon’s exemption overhaul reshaped the others too.
The same wave of Oregon legislation that put the wage floor on its rising schedule also rebuilt the exemptions that protect a debtor’s other property, and a creditor who understands only the paycheck rule is missing half the enforcement picture. The reform did three things at once: it raised the flat wage floor, it sharply increased the homestead exemption, and it created a brand-new exemption for funds sitting in a bank account. Each one narrows where a judgment can actually reach.
The bank-account exemption
Before the reform, a creditor who located a debtor’s bank account could garnish the balance with relatively little protected. Oregon now shields a set amount of money in a debtor’s account — an exemption of $2,500, adjusted for inflation over time — so a bank garnishment only reaches funds above that protected cushion. The provision is ORS 18.785 (2)(j), which calls it the “initial base protected account balance”, measures it as the combined total across all of the debtor’s accounts at that financial institution, and directs the State Court Administrator to index it each year on or before July first against the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, West Region (All Items) and publish the adjusted figure on the Judicial Department website. For a creditor weighing whether to garnish a bank account or wait for wages, the floor changes the math: a modest balance may be entirely exempt, while a larger one is only partly reachable.
Two qualifications matter, and both cut in directions a creditor can use. First, the base protected account balance is a second-track casualty like everything else: under ORS 18.785 (2)(a)(C), where the writ is attached to an attestation that the debt arises out of support or a restitution money award, paragraphs (b), (c)(A), (e), (f) and (j) do not apply — and (j) is the $2,500. Against a support or restitution writ there is no base protected account balance at all. Second, $2,500 is not the whole bank story even on the ordinary track. ORS 18.348 is a separate protection: funds that were already exempt from execution when they went into the account — including exempt wages under ORS 18.385 — stay exempt on deposit “as long as the exempt funds are reasonably identifiable”, but subsection (2) caps that at $7,500. Commingling does not destroy the protection; subsection (4) directs that first-in, first-out accounting be used to identify the exempt funds.
The homestead exemption — and the second set of figures that is still live law
The homestead exemption protects equity in a debtor’s primary residence from a judgment lien’s forced sale, and the 2024 reform raised it sharply. ORS 18.395 (1)(a) now exempts a homestead to the value of $150,000, and where two or more members of a household are judgment debtors their combined exemptions may not exceed $300,000. Under ORS 18.395 (1)(d)(A) the State Court Administrator indexes those amounts each year on or before July first against the West Region CPI, rounding to the nearest $100.
What is easy to get wrong here — and most sources do — is that Oregon’s other homestead figures are not history. $40,000 and $50,000 were the pre-2024 ordinary amounts, and the reform did not simply retire them. It re-used them as the support-and-restitution track. ORS 18.395 (1)(b) is current law today: for debts of the owner arising out of a child support or spousal support obligation or a money award judgment that includes restitution, the homestead is exempt to the value of $40,000, with combined household exemptions capped at $50,000. And these are the only Oregon homestead figures the legislature expressly refused to index — ORS 18.395 (1)(d)(B) says the indexing in subparagraph (A) “does not apply to the amount of any exemption specified for a debt that arises out of a child support or spousal support obligation or a money award judgment that includes restitution.” The ordinary homestead rises with the CPI every July; the support homestead is frozen at $40,000 by design.
For a creditor the consequence is stark. Against an ordinary judgment, a recorded lien still attaches to Oregon real property, but the protected equity that must be cleared before a forced sale yields anything is now $150,000 or $300,000 — so for most homeowners with ordinary equity the homestead is effectively off the table. Against a support or restitution judgment, only $40,000 or $50,000 stands in the way, and ORS 18.398 lets the court decline the exemption altogether in a child support matter. Same house, same debtor, two completely different answers.
How long the underlying judgment lasts
All of this runs on a live judgment, and Oregon’s clock is another place the two tracks diverge. ORS 18.180 (3) provides that judgment remedies for a judgment in a civil action “expire 10 years after the entry of the judgment,” and ORS 18.182 lets a creditor extend them by filing a certificate of extension in the court that entered the judgment. Support and restitution creditors are given far longer: a criminal money award for restitution runs fifty years under ORS 18.180 (4), the child support portion of a judgment thirty-five years under (5), and unpaid spousal support installments twenty-five years under (6). Renewal mechanics, liens and the rest of the enforcement toolkit are covered in our guide to Oregon judgment collection.
The practical lesson is that wages are frequently the most reachable asset a typical Oregon debtor has, precisely because the homestead and a cushion of bank funds are now so well protected. That makes confirming the employer even more decisive: if the paycheck is the realistic target, the writ has to land on the right garnishee, which is precisely the locate problem the rest of this page addresses.
Why the Whole Thing Hinges on the Employer
A perfect judgment is worthless without a current paycheck source.
Changed Jobs
The debtor left the employer on file; a writ served there garnishes nothing and the ninety-day window burns.
Gig or 1099 Income
ORS 18.375 (3) makes the payer an “employer” even where the worker is an independent contractor for other purposes. The payer is reachable; the problem is identifying it.
Paid Through a Staffing Agency
The actual garnishee is the agency, not the worksite, and a writ to the wrong entity simply fails.
Self-Employed
A business owner draws from their own company, so the garnishee has to be identified through entity records.
Moved Out of State
The debtor took a job elsewhere, raising domestication and a fresh locate before any Oregon writ can apply.
Stale Employer on File
The employer named in the original paperwork is months out of date and no longer issues the debtor a check.
Oregon defines both “earnings” and “employer” broadly
Several of the scenarios above are locate problems rather than legal ones, and ORS 18.375 is the reason. Subsection (2) defines earnings as compensation paid or payable for personal services “whether denominated as wages, salary, commission, bonus or otherwise,” and expressly “includes periodic payments pursuant to a pension or retirement program.” Subsection (3) defines employer as any entity or individual who engages a person to perform work or services for compensation given in periodic payments or otherwise, “even though the relationship of the person so engaged to the employer may be as an independent contractor for other purposes.” A commission-only salesperson, a bonus, a pension administrator and the company paying a 1099 contractor are all within reach of an Oregon wage writ. What stops a creditor is almost never the statute’s scope. It is not knowing the name and address of the entity writing the checks.
This is the gap a public-records research firm closes. We confirm where an Oregon debtor currently works so the writ is served on a real, paying garnishee the first time. We do that from public records, licensed databases and lawful sources of record — never by pretexting: nobody here poses as a landlord, a co-worker, a prospective employer or a debt collector to talk an address or a payroll detail out of anyone. Our wider skip tracing services rebuild a debtor’s current picture from public records and licensed databases, and this page pairs naturally with our guides on finding an employer for wage garnishment and the broader question of how to find someone’s current employer. For the rules in other jurisdictions, our wage garnishment laws by state hub maps the whole country.
Who We Help in Oregon
We do the locate; you enforce the judgment.
ORS 18.385 Judgment Holders
Current employer confirmed for the writ
Oregon Creditor Counsel
Garnishee identified before the writ issues
Recovery Firms
Oregon paychecks located for enforcement
Small-Business Owners
Self-collected judgments enforced
Rental Property Owners
Money judgments against former tenants
Support Enforcement
Obligors located on the $254 second track
Whichever you are, the obstacle is identical: an Oregon writ is only as good as the employer it names. We confirm that employer — and, where wages are not the right target, point to the rest of the enforcement picture. This page connects to our companion guides on the Oregon asset exemptions creditors have to work around and the Oregon debt collection statute of limitations that sets the outer clock. For a legitimate judgment-enforcement matter, a verified employer locate typically comes back within 24 hours. We are a public-records research firm and Nor are we a consumer reporting agency: the employer confirmation we deliver is not a consumer report and may not be used to decide employment, tenancy, credit, or insurance eligibility. And because a writ is easy to claim, we look hardest at requests where the real object seems to be a person rather than a paycheck: domestic violence, stalking, and harassment are the vectors we watch for, and those requests earn more scrutiny at intake instead of a faster search.
Our Commitment
We find what an Oregon writ cannot work without — a current, confirmed employer for the garnishee — so your judgment turns into a collected paycheck instead of a bounced writ. Lawful, court-ready locating for creditors, collection attorneys, and agencies since 2004.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much of a paycheck can be garnished in Oregon?
Under ORS 18.385 a creditor may take only the part of disposable earnings that exceeds the protected amount, and the protected amount is the greater of seventy-five percent of disposable pay or the flat weekly floor. Above the crossover the cap is effectively twenty-five percent of disposable earnings.
What is Oregon’s flat weekly garnishment floor right now?
It is $400 a week. ORS 18.385 (2)(a)(D) sets that figure for wages payable on or after July first of twenty twenty-six and before July first of twenty twenty-seven; it replaced the $338 that applied for the year before. Longer pay periods have their own statutory amounts of $832 for two weeks, $912 for a half-month and $1,792 for a month. From July first of twenty twenty-seven the floor becomes thirty times the minimum wage in ORS 653.025 (1) — the standard rate, not the higher Portland metro rate or the lower non-urban one — recalculated each year by the State Court Administrator. On the standard rate BOLI publishes today, $15.55, that would put the weekly floor at about $466.50.
How is Oregon different from the federal garnishment rule?
Both cap garnishment at twenty-five percent of disposable earnings, but the floor differs. The federal rule protects pay above thirty times the frozen federal minimum wage, about $217 a week, while Oregon sets a flat statutory floor nearly double that and rising, so far more workers are protected entirely.
Who calculates the exempt amount?
The employer does, using Oregon’s prescribed wage-exemption calculation form referenced at ORS 18.840. The form walks through gross pay, required deductions, the seventy-five-percent figure, and the applicable flat floor to reach the nonexempt amount withheld each payday.
How long does an Oregon writ of garnishment last?
Oregon has three durations, not one. An ordinary private writ reaches the wages owing when it is delivered and those owing over the next ninety days, then expires under ORS 18.625 (2), so an unsatisfied balance requires a fresh writ. But a writ issued on behalf of a county or county agency garnishes wages until the full amount owed is paid, under ORS 18.625 (3); and a notice of garnishment issued by a state agency does the same, under ORS 18.855 (3), notwithstanding the ninety-day rule. Government garnishments in Oregon are perpetual until satisfied.
Can more than one creditor garnish at the same time?
Generally no. Under ORS 18.627 the first writ delivered has priority and a later creditor waits until the earlier writ is satisfied or expires, with a narrow exception when the first is taking less than the full nonexempt amount, in which case the employer pays the balance concurrently. Support orders and tax levies can take priority. The trap for a second creditor is in ORS 18.627 (2): a waiting writ’s own ninety-day clock keeps running, so if the first writ occupies the full ninety days the second can expire having collected nothing and must be issued and served again.
Are the raised exemptions the same for child support and restitution debts?
No, and the difference is bigger than most guides say. Where a writ carries an attestation that the debt arises out of a child support or spousal support obligation or a money award judgment that includes restitution, ORS 18.385 (6) substitutes a separate set of amounts that begins at $254 a week, with $509, $545 and $1,090 for the longer periods. Those figures carry no date brackets, no index and no forward tie, so they have not moved since before 2025 while the ordinary track climbed to $400. One thing does not change: the seventy-five percent exemption in ORS 18.385 (1) still applies on the support track. Only the dollar floor drops.
Why do you need the debtor’s employer, and how fast can you find it?
An Oregon wage writ is served on the employer, so the wrong or stale employer means the writ garnishes nothing and the ninety-day window is wasted. We confirm the current employer from public records and licensed databases, and for a legitimate enforcement matter a verified locate typically comes back within 24 hours.
Have the Judgment, Not the Employer?
An Oregon writ only collects when it names the right garnishee. We confirm where the debtor actually works so your writ lands on a real paycheck — typically within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
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