Texas Wage Garnishment Laws
Texas is one of a small handful of states where a private creditor cannot garnish a paycheck for an ordinary debt, and the protection is written into the state constitution rather than the consumer code. But four things still take money out of a Texas paycheck, and for the two Texas controls, Texas wrote its own numbers: a flat 50 percent ceiling shared between child support and spousal maintenance, not the federal tiers every other page prints. This guide covers what the constitution protects, what Chapter 158 allows, which income is only partly exempt, and what a creditor must know before a writ works at all.
The Short Version
A private creditor holding a Texas judgment for credit-card balances, medical bills, a personal loan or any ordinary contract debt cannot garnish your wages. Article XVI, Section 28 of the Texas Constitution says no current wages for personal service shall ever be subject to garnishment, and names only two exceptions: court-ordered child support and spousal maintenance. Federal law supplies two more, IRS levies and defaulted federally guaranteed student loans. For the two Texas controls, Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 158.009 caps withholding at a flat 50 percent of disposable earnings and Sec. 8.106 makes maintenance share that same 50 percent rather than add to it, so the higher federal tiers do not apply here. Everything else stops at the paycheck, but only while it is a paycheck: once deposited, the money is no longer “current wages” and the account can be frozen. Unpaid commissions are the other soft spot, exempt only to a capped quarter under Prop. Code Sec. 42.001(d).
Watch: Texas Wage Garnishment, Explained
Why a Texas paycheck is protected and what creditors do instead.
Watch Overview
It Is in the Constitution, Not the Code
Why the Texas protection is stronger than a statutory formula.
Most states limit wage garnishment through a consumer-protection statute that caps how much of a paycheck a creditor can take, usually a percentage of disposable earnings. Texas does something fundamentally different. The protection lives in Article XVI, Section 28 of the Texas Constitution, which states that “no current wages for personal service shall ever be subject to garnishment, except for the enforcement of court-ordered” child support or spousal maintenance. There is no percentage formula for ordinary debt because there is no garnishment at all: the amount a credit-card company can take from a Texan’s wages is zero.
Because the rule is constitutional rather than statutory, it is also far harder to erode. A legislature can amend a statute in an ordinary session; changing the Texas Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers followed by approval from the voters. The section’s own history shows how slowly that machinery turns. As adopted on 15 February 1876 it protected current wages absolutely, with no exception written into it at all. Child support was added by the amendment approved on 8 November 1983, and spousal maintenance by the amendment approved on 2 November 1999. In a century and a half, the list of things Texas law itself lets reach a paycheck has grown exactly twice.
The constitution does not stand alone, either. The legislature reinforced the same outcome in the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, where Sec. 63.004 provides that, except as otherwise provided by state or federal law, current wages for personal service are not subject to garnishment. Its second sentence is the one a payroll department actually needs and almost nobody quotes: the garnishee shall be discharged from the garnishment as to any debt to the defendant for current wages. The employer is discharged by the statute itself; it does not have to litigate its way there. The Property Code echoes the exemption a third time at Sec. 42.001(b)(1), which puts current wages for personal services outside every dollar limit in Chapter 42. A judgment creditor who wants ordinary debt paid out of Texas wages is not arguing about a percentage cap, as they would in most states. They are arguing against the constitution, and they lose.
The most expensive mistake an out-of-state collector makes here is paying a lawyer to chase a wage-withholding order the constitution forbids. Texas is not the only state that protects pay this way, and our breakdown of which states bar wage garnishment, and how their statutes differ sets them alongside each other; everything below is Texas only, and specifically the part of Texas law that decides what actually leaves a paycheck.
The Two Words That Decide Everything
“Current wages” is the phrase the whole protection turns on.
The constitution does not protect “money you earned.” It protects current wages for personal service, and that distinction is the most important thing to understand about Texas collection. The protection attaches to compensation for personal labor, not to money generally.
The moment the character of that money changes, the protection can fall away. Both the constitutional text and Sec. 63.004 shield current wages, and a deposit is where Texas treats that status as ending: the Texas State Law Library’s guide to collecting a debt states that Texas allows a bank account to be frozen and that once wages are deposited the funds can be frozen and possibly seized. Be precise about where that rule comes from: no Texas statute says in so many words that a deposit ends the exemption. It is the product of case law construing “current wages,” which is why a particular account can sometimes be defended on its facts and why a Texas attorney should look at yours before you rely on the general rule. This is the hinge creditors plan their entire post-judgment strategy around.
A worked example of the hinge
Take a Texan with a $3,000 Friday paycheck and a credit-card judgment against them. On Friday morning, while the money sits in payroll, the creditor cannot touch a cent. On Friday afternoon the same $3,000 arrives in a checking account by direct deposit and the same creditor can serve a writ on that bank. Nothing changed but the location, and the legal status flipped.
What deposited money does and does not lose
Conversion is not absolute, and a careful debtor or attorney can still defend part of an account. Some deposits keep their own federal protections after they land in a bank, most notably Social Security, Supplemental Security Income and veterans’ benefits, which a bank must shield by tracing them. Ordinary wages keep no protection of their own after deposit, because the constitution shields current wages rather than money sitting in an account.
The Four Things That Can Still Reach a Texas Paycheck
Two are in the constitution; two come from federal law.
Court-Ordered Child Support
Named directly in Article XVI, Section 28 and enforced by income withholding under Family Code Chapter 158. Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 158.009 caps what the employer takes at 50 percent of the obligor’s disposable earnings. That is the entire ceiling: Chapter 158 has no 60 percent tier and no twelve-week step-up.
Spousal Maintenance
The second exception written into the constitution, and it does not come with a ceiling of its own. Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 8.106 tells the employer to withhold the lesser of the ordered amount or the amount that, added to child support already being withheld, equals 50 percent of disposable earnings. One combined ceiling, shared with support.
IRS Tax Levies
Federal tax law overrides the state constitution. Through a Notice of Levy the IRS can require a Texas employer to withhold, leaving the taxpayer only an exempt amount set by filing status and dependents. No state provision blocks it.
Defaulted Federal Student Loans
For federally guaranteed student loans in default, administrative wage garnishment can reach a Texas paycheck. The federal cap is 15 percent of disposable pay, subject to the floor in the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act.
Why the Texas number is not the federal number
Nearly everything written about a Texas paycheck prints the federal support-withholding scheme rather than the Texas one: 50 percent of disposable earnings, rising to 60 percent where the obligor supports no other spouse or child, plus five points more once payments run twelve weeks behind. Those tiers live in 15 U.S.C. 1673 and they are not Texas law. Section 1673 fixes a federal maximum, not a federal floor, so a state may leave more of the paycheck alone than Congress requires, and Texas did. Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 158.009 directs an employer to withhold the amount the order specifies up to a maximum amount of 50 percent of the obligor’s disposable earnings, and Chapter 158 contains no second tier and no arrears step-up anywhere in it. A payroll department that applies those federal tiers to a Texas employee because a national table said so has taken more than the governing statute allows. The section dates from 1995, was last amended in 1997, and only the legislature can move it.
Spousal maintenance is where the second mistake happens. Maintenance does not open a second 50 percent alongside child support. Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 8.106 requires the employer to withhold the lesser of the amount in the order or the amount that, added to what is already being withheld for child support, equals 50 percent of disposable earnings. One ceiling, two claimants, and Sec. 8.101(d)(4) sets the order of payment out of it: current child support, current spousal maintenance, child-support arrearages, maintenance arrearages. Two further limits sit around that ceiling. Sec. 8.101(b) keeps the machinery away from privately negotiated contractual alimony unless the contract itself permits income withholding or the payments are not made on time, which matters because a settlement agreement is not automatically the court-ordered maintenance the constitution carves out. Sec. 8.055(a) caps the underlying order at the lesser of $5,000 a month or 20 percent of the obligor’s average monthly gross income, so in an ordinary case the order runs out well before the ceiling does. Sec. 8.101(e) puts unemployment benefits outside maintenance garnishment entirely.
The other two exceptions are federal all the way down and keep their federal numbers: 15 percent of disposable pay for a defaulted federally guaranteed student loan, and for an IRS levy a table-based exempt amount keyed to filing status and dependents, with the rest taken. Both reach a Texas paycheck only through the Supremacy Clause, which lets a valid federal statute displace a conflicting state provision even one as strong as a state constitution, and no private creditor can borrow that power. Credit cards, medical bills, repossession deficiencies, payday loans and old account balances are nowhere on the list.
If the Order Lands on Your Payroll Desk
Texas gives the employee protections here that federal law does not.
Two different pieces of paper arrive at Texas employers and they are not treated alike. A writ of garnishment aimed at wages is answered by Sec. 63.004, which discharges the garnishee, and that is the end of it. An order or writ of income withholding for support or maintenance is the opposite, and Chapter 158 spells out what the employer owes and what it must not do.
Firing the employee is not an option, and Texas says so more broadly than Congress does
The federal anti-discharge rule at 15 U.S.C. 1674 protects a worker from being fired for garnishment arising out of any one indebtedness, and gives the employee no civil remedy of their own. Texas is wider on every axis. Sec. 158.209 says an employer may not use an order or writ of withholding as grounds in whole or part for termination or for any other disciplinary action, and may not refuse to hire someone because of one; there is no “one indebtedness” allowance in the text. An employer that intentionally discharges an employee in violation of the section continues to be liable for that employee’s current wages and other benefits, and for reasonable and necessary attorney’s fees, court costs and expenses. H.B. 2524 last amended it effective 1 September 2025.
The mechanics: a $10 fee, a $200 fine, and a seven-day duty
Sec. 158.204 lets the employer deduct an administrative fee of not more than $10 each month from the obligor’s disposable earnings, on top of the amount withheld. Sec. 158.210 runs the other way: an employer who knowingly violates Chapter 158 may be fined up to $200 for each occurrence in which it fails to withhold, or fails to remit on time what it withheld. Per occurrence, not per order. When the employment ends, Sec. 158.211 puts a duty on both the obligor and the employer to notify the court or the Title IV-D agency and the obligee not later than the seventh day after the termination date, and to provide the obligor’s last known address and the name and address of the new employer if it is known. That duty is the legislature saying out loud what the whole mechanism turns on: an order only bites an employer that is actually holding the money, which is why a stale employer record is the commonest reason a valid support order stops collecting.
Wages vs. Bank Account in Texas
The same dollars, treated completely differently depending on where they sit.
| Debt or Target | Reach Wages in Texas? | Reach the Bank Account? | Legal Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credit card / medical / contract debt | No, never | Yes, once deposited | Tex. Const. Art. XVI, Sec. 28 protects wages; deposits are not “current wages” |
| Child support | Yes, capped at 50% | Yes | Constitutional exception; Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 158.009 sets the flat 50% ceiling |
| Spousal maintenance | Yes, inside the same 50% | Yes | Constitutional exception; Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 8.106 shares one ceiling with support |
| Unpaid sales commissions | Exempt only to 25% of the cap | Yes | Tex. Prop. Code Sec. 42.001(d); the excess is reachable |
| IRS back taxes | Yes, by levy | Yes | Federal tax law overrides state protection |
| Defaulted federal student loan | Yes, up to 15% | Yes | Federal administrative wage garnishment |
| Locate bank, employer, and assets OURS | Informs strategy | Enables the levy | Lawful public-records research under FCRA / GLBA / DPPA |
The contrast in the middle two columns is the whole game in Texas. A creditor reading down the “wages” column meets “no” repeatedly, then reaches the “bank account” column and finds the opening. Which turns the case into a different question entirely: where does this person bank, where do they work, and what have they earned but not yet been paid?
The Income That Is Not Fully Protected
Leave wages and the protection stops being all-or-nothing.
Unpaid commissions: protected up to a number, and the number is not large
This is the provision almost nobody quotes, and for a commissioned earner it is the difference between untouchable and reachable. Tex. Prop. Code Sec. 42.001 exempts personal property up to an aggregate fair-market value of $100,000 for a family or $50,000 for a single adult, exclusive of liens, and subsection (b)(1) lifts current wages out of that aggregate entirely, so wages carry no dollar limit at all. Unpaid commissions sit in a separate subsection and are treated far less generously. Under Sec. 42.001(d) they are exempt only up to 25 percent of the aggregate limitation, and they count inside that aggregate rather than on top of it: $25,000 for a family, $12,500 for a single adult, competing with the furniture, the tools of trade and the vehicles for the same cap.
So a Texas salesperson holding a $60,000 commission receivable that has been earned but not yet paid does not hold $60,000 of untouchable income; the excess above the exempt quarter is in play. The caps come from H.B. 2706, effective 1 September 2015, and they are legislative figures rather than indexed ones, so only a further amendment to Sec. 42.001(a) will move them.
The asymmetry between the constitution and the Property Code
Read Sec. 42.001(b)(1) against Article XVI, Section 28 and the two do not line up. The constitution carves out both court-ordered child support and court-ordered spousal maintenance; the Property Code subsection that lifts wages out of the aggregate cap names court-ordered child support payments and stops there. It is a textual point rather than a practical loophole, since Chapter 8 supplies its own withholding machinery, but it is a reminder that “wages are exempt in Texas” is three provisions saying three slightly different things.
Retirement money runs on a sixty-day clock
Qualified savings plans are broadly protected, and the protection has a timer on it. Sec. 42.0021(e) keeps an amount distributed from a qualified plan exempt for 60 days after the distribution date, after which it stays exempt only if rolled over into another qualifying plan or account. A distribution left in an ordinary checking account past the window is no longer distinguishable from any other balance. Which assets a Texas debtor keeps is its own subject, covered in our guide to the Texas exemptions creditors run into; the point here is that income can lose protection to the calendar as easily as to a deposit.
What Texas Creditors Do Instead
And the two statutes that decide whether any of it works.
With wages closed off, Texas enforcement runs on a familiar set of tools: a writ of garnishment on the bank, a writ of execution against non-exempt personal property, an abstract of judgment lienning non-exempt real estate, a turnover order for assets no ordinary writ fits, and a ten-year dormancy clock. Those mechanics are set out at length in our guide to the writs, turnover orders and dormancy rules that follow a Texas judgment. What belongs here is narrower: what happens to income, and the two provisions that decide whether a writ does anything at all.
A withholding order outranks every other writ
When several claims chase the same paycheck, Texas does not leave the order to chance or to whoever filed first. Sec. 158.008 states it in a single sentence: an order or writ of withholding has priority over any garnishment, attachment, execution, or other assignment or order affecting disposable earnings. Support and maintenance come off the top, and only what the 50 percent ceiling leaves is available to anything else. For a creditor sizing up a debtor already under a support order, that sentence is often the whole answer.
The writ has to be earned before it is served
A Texas judgment does not automatically produce a writ of garnishment. Under CPRC Sec. 63.001(3), the writ is available to a plaintiff holding a valid, subsisting judgment only on an affidavit stating that, within the plaintiff’s knowledge, the defendant does not possess property in Texas subject to execution sufficient to satisfy the judgment. That is a sworn negative about someone else’s assets: a creditor who has never looked cannot honestly swear it, and one who has looked, and can show what is and is not there, can. Asset research is therefore a statutory precondition of the remedy in Texas, not an optional refinement. Sec. 63.002 names who may issue the writ, and that list grew on 1 September 2025 when H.B. 40 added the business court alongside the district, county and justice courts.
And it has to reach the right place to be effective
Serving it correctly is the second gate. Where a financial institution has filed a registration statement with the secretary of state, Tex. Fin. Code Sec. 59.008(b) provides that a claim against a customer is not effective as to that institution if served at any address other than the registered agent address it designated. Not delayed, not defective: not effective. Between Sec. 63.001(3) and Sec. 59.008(b), Texas has written the requirement to know the facts into the enforcement statutes themselves, which is why a Texas judgment file is worth what its Texas skip tracing is accurate and no more.
Why a Texas Judgment Goes Uncollected
It is almost never the law. It is missing information.
Unknown Bank
No institution to name on the writ, and under Fin. Code Sec. 59.008(b) service anywhere but the registered agent address is not effective anyway.
Chasing Wages by Mistake
Out-of-state creditors assume Texas works like their home state and spend months on a withholding order that Sec. 63.004 discharges on arrival.
Debtor Moved
The person relocated within or out of Texas, and the last known address no longer ties to a current employer or account.
Hidden Property
Real estate or business assets sit under an entity name or a relative, so an abstract of judgment finds nothing to attach.
Exempt-Only Targets
Every asset the creditor can see turns out to be a Texas homestead or other exempt property, with the reachable assets still unidentified.
Stale Employer Data
The Sec. 158.211 seven-day notice of a new employer was never given, so a support order sits against a payroll that stopped paying.
From Judgment to Collectible
How a public-records research firm turns a Texas judgment into a paid one.
Send the File
Name, last known address, date of birth, the judgment details, and anything you already know about the debtor’s work or banking.
We Locate
Current address, employer, and likely financial institutions are rebuilt from public records and licensed databases, cross-checked against associates.
We Map Assets
Real property, business interests and non-exempt holdings are separated from Texas-exempt property so you target what is reachable.
Your Counsel Acts
Your attorney names the right bank on the writ, files the abstract of judgment, or seeks a turnover order, armed with verified information.
Who Brings Us a Texas Judgment
We do the locate; your counsel handles the collection process.
Texas Judgment Holders
Bank and assets located to enforce
Collections Attorneys
Verified targets for the writ
Support Obligees
Chapter 158 obligors and employers traced
Small Landlords
Former tenants with judgments found
Small-Business Owners
Unpaid customers and accounts located
Out-of-State Creditors
Domesticated judgments enforced in TX
Whatever your role, the Texas wall is the same: the law tells you what you can collect, not where the money is. We close that gap with lawful skip tracing and asset research, alongside our breakdown of wage garnishment laws across the country and our guide to finding a debtor’s employer for garnishment. We are a public-records research firm, not your lawyer, and for a legitimate legal matter a verified locate typically comes back within 24 hours. We are also not licensed private investigators. We are not a consumer reporting agency, and a Texas asset or employer locate is not a consumer report; it points a writ of garnishment at the right bank, and it is not a tool for hiring, tenant screening, or a credit or insurance decision. Every file is opened against a stated permissible purpose, and enforcing a judgment you actually hold is one. We never pretext: nobody here calls a payroll office or a branch posing as the debtor, as a bank, as a courier or as anyone else, and we do not touch the private contents of an account. Because knowing where someone banks and works is powerful information, we ask to see the judgment before we run it: a request that looks like an attempt to locate a person rather than enforce a debt raises domestic violence, stalking, and harassment concerns, and it gets more scrutiny at intake.
Our Commitment
Where wages are off-limits, collection lives or dies on locating the bank, the employer and the reachable income. We deliver verified, court-ready information so your judgment can move. Lawful public-records research since 2004.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a credit-card company garnish my wages in Texas?
No. Article XVI, Section 28 of the Texas Constitution bars garnishment of current wages for personal service for ordinary debt such as credit cards, medical bills, and personal loans. A creditor with a judgment cannot order your employer to withhold any part of your paycheck for that kind of debt.
What debts can still reach a Texas paycheck?
Only four: court-ordered child support and spousal maintenance, which the constitution names directly, plus IRS tax levies and defaulted federally guaranteed student loans, which override state protection because federal law is supreme. Each comes with its own cap, and the support cap is a Texas one rather than the federal one. Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 158.009 limits income withholding to 50 percent of disposable earnings, and Sec. 8.106 makes spousal maintenance share that same 50 percent with child support instead of adding to it. Defaulted student loans top out at 15 percent of disposable pay, and an IRS levy leaves only a table-based exempt amount. Ordinary private debt is not on that list at all.
If my wages are protected, how can a creditor still collect?
Once your paycheck is deposited it is no longer current wages, so it loses the constitutional shield and becomes an ordinary account balance a writ of garnishment can freeze. Beyond the bank, a creditor can execute against non-exempt personal property, lien non-exempt real estate, or seek a turnover order. Bank-account garnishment is allowed in Texas even though wage garnishment is not.
How much of my paycheck can Texas child support take?
Up to 50 percent of your disposable earnings, and no more. Tex. Fam. Code Sec. 158.009 caps an order or writ of withholding at 50 percent flat. Texas has not adopted the federal tiers, so there is no 60 percent rate for an obligor supporting no other spouse or child and no extra five points once payments run twelve weeks behind. If spousal maintenance is also being withheld, Sec. 8.106 makes both claims share that one 50 percent ceiling, with current child support paid first under Sec. 8.101(d)(4). Your employer may also deduct an administrative fee of up to $10 a month under Sec. 158.204.
Why does a creditor need to know where the debtor banks?
Because the statutes make the facts a precondition. CPRC Sec. 63.001(3) issues the writ only on a sworn statement that, to the plaintiff’s knowledge, the debtor holds no Texas property subject to execution sufficient to satisfy the judgment, and Fin. Code Sec. 59.008(b) makes a claim served anywhere but a registered bank’s designated agent address not effective. Naming the wrong institution wastes the filing entirely.
Are unpaid sales commissions protected like wages in Texas?
Not to the same extent. Current wages sit outside every dollar cap under Tex. Prop. Code Sec. 42.001(b)(1), but unpaid commissions for personal services get their own, much smaller rule at Sec. 42.001(d): they are exempt only up to 25 percent of the aggregate personal-property limitation, and they count inside that limitation rather than on top of it. In figures that is $25,000 for a family and $12,500 for a single adult, sharing the cap with vehicles, tools of trade and household goods. A large commission receivable can therefore be partly reachable.
Does Texas protect any deposited wages in the bank?
Some directly deposited benefits, such as Social Security, carry separate federal protections that the bank must honor even when an account is frozen. Ordinary deposited wages, however, generally lose the current wages protection once they hit the account. Ask a Texas attorney about your specific funds.
What do you do, and how fast?
We are a public-records research firm. We locate the debtor’s current address, employer, likely bank, and reachable assets, and separate them from Texas-exempt property so your counsel can act. We do not garnish or give legal advice. For a legitimate matter, a verified locate typically comes back within 24 hours.
A Texas Judgment Is Only Worth What You Can Find
When wages cannot be garnished, locating the debtor’s bank, employer, and assets is what makes a judgment collectible. We deliver verified, court-ready information, typically within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
Start Your Request →
