Tennessee Wage Garnishment Laws
Tennessee follows the federal lesser-of cap on garnishment, but it layers on a quirk most states do not: an additional weekly exemption of two dollars and fifty cents for every dependent child under sixteen the debtor supports. That single line, in Tennessee Code section 26-2-107, changes the math on every ordinary garnishment in the state. This guide walks through the cap, the per-child reduction with worked examples, the slow-pay motion that can stall collection, the garnishee answer the debtor’s employer must file, and the support and tax carve-outs that ignore the twenty-five-percent ceiling entirely. It also explains the step that comes first for any creditor: finding where the debtor actually works.
The Short Version
Tennessee garnishment starts from the same federal formula every state uses: an ordinary creditor can take the lesser of twenty-five percent of weekly disposable earnings, or the amount by which those earnings exceed thirty times the federal minimum wage (about two hundred seventeen dollars and fifty cents a week, which acts as a protected floor). What makes Tennessee distinctive is section 26-2-107: the debtor can shield an extra two dollars and fifty cents per week for each dependent child under sixteen who lives in Tennessee, but only if the employer is told about those children. Child support and unpaid taxes blow past the twenty-five-percent cap, reaching as high as sixty-five percent for support arrears.
A garnishment runs until the judgment is paid or six months passes, whichever comes first, after which the creditor must request a fresh writ. A debtor can file a slow-pay motion to convert the garnishment into court-supervised installments. But none of this happens until the creditor knows where the debtor works, because a wage garnishment in Tennessee is served on the employer. That is the locate we do, and for a legitimate judgment-enforcement matter it typically comes back within 24 hours.
Watch: How Tennessee Garnishment Works
The cap, the per-child exemption, and the locate that comes first.
Watch Overview
The Tennessee Garnishment Cap
Federal math, with a Tennessee twist nobody else has.
Start with the part Tennessee shares with the rest of the country. Both Tennessee law and the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act at 15 U.S.C. section 1673 cap an ordinary creditor garnishment at the lesser of two amounts: twenty-five percent of the debtor’s weekly disposable earnings, or the amount by which those disposable earnings exceed thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage. Tennessee Code section 26-2-106 restates this limit for state writs. “Disposable earnings” means what is left after legally required deductions such as federal and state taxes and Social Security come out, not gross pay and not take-home after voluntary deductions.
At today’s federal minimum wage of seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour, thirty times that figure is about two hundred seventeen dollars and fifty cents. That number functions as a hard floor: if a debtor’s weekly disposable earnings are at or below it, an ordinary creditor garnishment reaches nothing at all. Above it, the creditor takes whichever of the two formulas yields the smaller bite. For most full-time wage earners the twenty-five-percent figure is the smaller one, so it tends to govern in practice.
Then Tennessee adds the per-child reduction
Here is where Tennessee parts ways with the federal baseline. Under section 26-2-107, a debtor in Tennessee may shield an additional two dollars and fifty cents per week for each dependent child under the age of sixteen whom the debtor supports and who resides in the state. This is not automatic. The debtor has to put the employer on notice of the qualifying children for the reduction to be applied to the withholding. It is a small per-child figure, but it stacks across children and across every pay period the garnishment runs, and it is a feature creditors routinely overlook when they assume Tennessee is a plain federal-cap state.
The Math, Worked Out
How the cap and the per-child reduction actually combine.
No children, six hundred a week
A debtor with six hundred dollars in weekly disposable earnings. Twenty-five percent of that is one hundred fifty dollars. The earnings over the floor are six hundred minus two hundred seventeen dollars and fifty cents, or three hundred eighty-two dollars and fifty cents. The creditor takes the lesser of the two, so one hundred fifty dollars is withheld each week.
Two qualifying children
Same six-hundred-dollar paycheck, but the debtor supports two children under sixteen living in Tennessee and has notified the employer. The base garnishment is still one hundred fifty dollars, then the per-child reduction subtracts two dollars and fifty cents twice, a total of five dollars. The employer withholds one hundred forty-five dollars instead.
Near the floor
A part-time debtor with two hundred forty dollars in weekly disposable earnings. Twenty-five percent is sixty dollars; the amount over the floor is only twenty-two dollars and fifty cents. The lesser figure controls, so just twenty-two dollars and fifty cents is taken, and one qualifying child would shave that to twenty dollars.
The lesson across all three is the same: the per-child reduction never enlarges the garnishment, it only shrinks it, and it bites hardest as a percentage when the paycheck is small. Multiple children compound the effect over the life of a writ, which is why getting the notice to the employer matters and why creditors should expect a slightly lighter recovery on Tennessee debtors who have minor children at home.
What Counts as Disposable Earnings
Get this base figure wrong and every number above is wrong.
Every calculation on this page begins with one number: disposable earnings. Tennessee, tracking the federal definition, treats disposable earnings as the portion of a worker’s pay left after subtracting amounts the law requires to be withheld. That is a narrower idea than most people expect, and the distinction decides how much a creditor actually collects.
Deductions that come out before the garnishment is figured include federal income tax, Tennessee has no general state income tax on wages, Social Security and Medicare, and any other withholding mandated by law such as an existing court-ordered support order. What does not reduce disposable earnings are voluntary deductions: contributions to a retirement plan, health-insurance premiums the worker elects, union dues, charitable giving, or a repayment the worker arranged with the employer. Those come out of the worker’s share, not the creditor’s, so a debtor cannot shrink a garnishment simply by signing up for more voluntary deductions.
The reason this matters to a creditor is that the twenty-five-percent cap and the thirty-times-minimum-wage floor are both applied to this disposable figure, not to gross pay and not to net take-home after voluntary items. A debtor earning a healthy gross salary who loads up on voluntary deductions still has a disposable-earnings number that is meaningfully higher than the cash that hits their bank account, and the garnishment is computed on that higher disposable figure. Understanding the base also explains why bonuses, commissions, and overtime are reachable: they are earnings, and once required withholding comes out of them, they fold into the disposable total the cap is measured against.
Tennessee vs. the Federal Baseline
What is the same, and what Tennessee changes.
| Rule | Federal Baseline (CCPA) | Tennessee (Title 26, Ch. 2) |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary cap | Lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or earnings over 30x minimum wage. | Same lesser-of cap, restated at section 26-2-106. |
| Per-child reduction | None. The federal cap stops at the lesser-of formula. | Extra two dollars fifty cents per week per dependent child under 16 in Tennessee, section 26-2-107. |
| Protected weekly floor | About two hundred seventeen dollars fifty cents at the current minimum wage. | Identical floor adopted by reference. |
| How exemptions are claimed | Debtor asserts exemptions per applicable law. | Debtor notifies employer of children; files a claim of exemption with the court for other protections. |
| Garnishment lifespan | Set by state procedure. | Until the judgment is satisfied or six months pass, then a new writ is needed. |
| Support and tax carve-outs | Higher limits and administrative collection allowed. | Same: up to sixty-five percent for support, no 25% cap for tax levies. |
Debts That Ignore the Cap
Not every garnishment stops at twenty-five percent.
The twenty-five-percent ceiling and the two-hundred-seventeen-dollar floor apply to ordinary judgment creditors, the kind chasing credit-card balances, medical bills, broken leases, and unpaid loans. Several categories of debt are expressly carved out and reach far deeper into a paycheck.
Child support and alimony
Income withholding for domestic support runs on the federal support limits, not the consumer cap. Up to fifty percent of disposable earnings can be taken when the debtor is supporting another spouse or child, and up to sixty percent when they are not. If the debtor is more than twelve weeks behind, an additional five percent applies, pushing the ceiling to fifty-five or sixty-five percent. The per-child reduction in section 26-2-107 does not soften a support withholding.
Taxes and federal debts
Unpaid state and federal taxes are collected administratively and are not bound by the consumer-cap math. Defaulted federal student loans can be garnished administratively at up to fifteen percent of disposable earnings, though that collection still respects the thirty-times-minimum-wage floor. These creditors generally do not need a court judgment first, which is part of why they bypass the ordinary writ process entirely.
Multiple garnishments
When more than one ordinary garnishment is outstanding, the total still cannot exceed the single twenty-five-percent cap; creditors line up and are generally paid in the order their writs landed. A support order or tax levy, however, takes priority and is calculated under its own higher limit before an ordinary creditor sees anything. The practical consequence for a junior creditor is patience: a debtor already paying child support near the support ceiling may have nothing left within the ordinary cap, and the writ sits dormant at the employer until the senior obligation clears.
The anti-firing protection
One more federal rule carries into Tennessee and shapes how a garnishment plays out. An employer may not fire a worker because their earnings were garnished for any one debt, no matter how many times that single debt is presented for collection. The protection is per-debt, not blanket, a second garnishment from a different creditor can change the calculus, but the rule keeps a single judgment from costing the debtor their job, and it keeps the garnishee answering for an employee who stays on payroll. For a creditor, that stability is useful: a debtor who keeps the job keeps generating the disposable earnings the writ feeds on.
The Tennessee Garnishment Procedure
From judgment to withholding, step by step.
Get the Judgment
An ordinary creditor must first win a money judgment in a Tennessee court. Support and tax authorities are the exceptions that can collect without one.
Identify the Employer
A wage garnishment is served on the garnishee, the debtor’s employer. Without a current, correct employer, the writ has nowhere to land.
Serve the Garnishment Summons
The court issues a garnishment summons to the employer directing it to withhold the capped amount from the debtor’s disposable earnings each pay period.
Garnishee Answers
The employer must file an answer stating whether the debtor works there and what is owed in wages, then begin withholding and remit funds to the court.
The debtor’s counter-moves run alongside these steps. A debtor can file a claim of exemption to assert the per-child reduction, the protected floor, or other exempt funds, and the employer is bound by what the court ultimately orders. Crucially, the debtor can also file a slow-pay motion under Tennessee Code section 26-2-216 asking the court to set affordable installment payments; when granted, this stays the wage garnishment and converts withholding into direct payments to the court. A garnishment that is not paid out within six months expires, and the creditor must obtain a new writ to keep collecting, so a granted slow-pay order can meaningfully slow a creditor’s recovery.
How a Garnishment Gets Reduced or Stopped
The moves a Tennessee debtor can make, and what each does to a creditor’s recovery.
A garnishment is not the last word. Tennessee gives a debtor several lawful ways to shrink, pause, or end the withholding, and a creditor who understands them can anticipate the delay instead of being surprised by it.
File a claim of exemption
The most direct response is a claim of exemption filed with the court that issued the writ. This is how the per-child reduction under section 26-2-107 gets enforced if the employer is not already applying it, and it is also how a debtor protects funds that are exempt outright, certain public benefits, support received, and the protected weekly floor. The court reviews the claim, may hold a hearing, and orders the employer to adjust the withholding accordingly. For a creditor, an exemption claim rarely ends collection, but it can trim the weekly take and adds a step before money flows.
The slow-pay installment motion
The bigger lever is the slow-pay motion under section 26-2-216. Rather than letting the employer withhold the capped percentage, the debtor asks the judge to approve a manageable installment plan and pay the court directly. When the judge grants it, the wage garnishment is stayed, the employer stops withholding, and the debtor’s payments arrive on a schedule the court set. The trade for the creditor is real: recovery slows to whatever installment the court found reasonable, and because an unsatisfied writ expires at six months, a stay can run the clock on the original garnishment entirely.
Bankruptcy and settlement
Filing bankruptcy triggers an automatic stay that halts most garnishments immediately, which is why a debtor under serious wage pressure sometimes files. Short of that, many garnishments end the quiet way, with a negotiated settlement or payoff once the debtor feels the bite of the withholding. None of these outcomes changes the creditor’s first problem, though. Every one of them assumes the garnishment reached the right employer in the first place, because a writ served on a former employer never withholds a dollar for the debtor to fight over.
Why the Writ Stalls in Tennessee
A garnishment is only as good as the employer it names.
No Employer on File
You won the judgment but have no idea where the debtor works, so the garnishment summons has no garnishee to serve.
The Debtor Changed Jobs
The employer you served laid the debtor off or the debtor quit, and the answer comes back saying nobody by that name is on payroll.
Paid as a Contractor
The debtor is treated as a 1099 contractor or paid in cash, which complicates ordinary wage withholding and demands a different approach.
Out-of-State Payroll
The debtor lives in Tennessee but is paid through an out-of-state employer, raising service and jurisdiction questions on top of the locate.
Six-Month Clock Ran Out
The writ expired before the balance cleared, and you need to confirm the debtor is still employed there before reissuing.
Outdated Employment Data
The employer name in your file is years old and the debtor has moved through two jobs since, so the summons chases a stale lead.
Every one of these failures traces back to the same gap: the writ names an employer, and the employer has to be current and correct. That is the part of Tennessee garnishment that is not a legal question at all. It is a locate. We confirm where a debtor works now, before you spend filing fees and the six-month clock on a summons that lands nowhere. Our guide to finding a debtor’s employer for wage garnishment covers the lawful sources, and our walk-through on finding someone’s current employer explains how an old payroll record gets refreshed into a serveable one.
Who We Help
We find the employer; you serve the writ.
Judgment Creditors
Employer found for the writ
Collections Attorneys
Garnishee identified, verified
Collection Agencies
Debtor payroll located
Small Landlords
Former tenants traced to work
Small-Claims Winners
Self-represented, enforcing alone
Medical Billers
Unpaid accounts collected
Whoever you are, the wall is the same: you cannot garnish wages until you know who signs the debtor’s paycheck. We are a public-records research firm; we locate the current employer lawfully through skip tracing, verify it, and hand you a garnishee you can actually serve. From there the Tennessee rules above take over. This page pairs naturally with our state-by-state breakdown of wage garnishment laws across the country for creditors with debtors in more than one state, and with our Tennessee references on asset exemptions creditors face, the debt-collection statute of limitations, and bankruptcy exemptions if the debtor files. For a legitimate judgment-enforcement matter, a verified employer locate typically comes back within 24 hours.
Our Commitment
We find where your Tennessee debtor works so your garnishment summons reaches a real garnishee, not a dead employer. Lawful, court-ready employer and asset locating for creditors, collections attorneys, and judgment holders since 2004.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much of a paycheck can a creditor garnish in Tennessee?
For an ordinary judgment creditor, the lesser of twenty-five percent of weekly disposable earnings or the amount those earnings exceed thirty times the federal minimum wage, which is about two hundred seventeen dollars and fifty cents a week. Tennessee Code section 26-2-106 adopts this lesser-of cap from the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act.
What is Tennessee’s per-dependent-child exemption?
Under section 26-2-107, a debtor can shield an additional two dollars and fifty cents per week for each dependent child under sixteen whom they support and who lives in Tennessee. It is not automatic; the debtor must notify the employer of the qualifying children before the reduction is applied to the withholding.
Does the per-child reduction apply to child support garnishments?
No. The two-dollar-fifty per-child reduction applies to ordinary creditor garnishments. Child support and alimony withholding run on the higher federal support limits, reaching up to fifty or sixty percent of disposable earnings, plus an extra five percent when the debtor is more than twelve weeks in arrears.
How long does a Tennessee wage garnishment last?
A garnishment runs until the judgment is satisfied or six months pass, whichever comes first. If the balance is not cleared in that window, the creditor must request a new writ to keep collecting, which is why confirming the debtor is still employed there matters before reissuing.
What is a slow-pay motion?
It is a debtor’s request under section 26-2-216 for the court to set affordable installment payments. When granted, it stays the wage garnishment and converts the withholding into direct payments to the court, which can slow a creditor’s recovery while keeping the debtor on a payment schedule.
What must the employer do when served?
The employer, called the garnishee, must file an answer stating whether the debtor is employed and what wages are owed, then withhold the capped amount each pay period and remit it to the court. A garnishment cannot proceed until the correct, current employer is served.
Can taxes or student loans take more than twenty-five percent?
Yes. Unpaid taxes are collected administratively outside the consumer cap, and defaulted federal student loans can be garnished at up to fifteen percent of disposable earnings, subject to the same thirty-times-minimum-wage floor. These collectors generally do not need a court judgment first.
Do you garnish wages or collect the debt for me?
No. We are a public-records research firm. We locate where your Tennessee debtor currently works so your attorney or the court can serve the garnishment summons on the right employer. For a legitimate judgment-enforcement matter, a verified employer locate typically comes back within 24 hours.
Don’t Have the Debtor’s Employer?
A Tennessee wage garnishment is only as good as the employer it names. We find where your debtor works now so your summons reaches a real garnishee, typically within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
Start Your Request →
