Illinois: Wage Garnishment Limits

The short answer

Illinois protects more of a paycheck than federal law requires. An
ordinary judgment creditor — a credit card company, a hospital, a
personal-loan lender — can collect only the lesser of 15% of your gross
weekly wages or the amount your disposable earnings exceed 45 times the
higher of the federal or Illinois minimum hourly wage. Both numbers are
more debtor-protective than the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act's
25%/30-times formula. Pension and retirement benefits are exempt from
wage deduction outright, and support withholding is handled by a separate
statute with its own cap tied to federal support percentages.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

The core wage-deduction rule lives in the Code of Civil Procedure,
Article XII, Part 8: 735 ILCS 5/12-801 et seq. Section 12-803 sets the
cap, § 12-804 exempts retirement benefits, § 12-808 covers employer
duties and multi-order priority, and § 12-818 bars retaliatory discharge.
Child and spousal support withholding is handled by a separate statute
entirely, the Income Withholding for Support Act, 750 ILCS 28.

Maximum that can be garnished

Section 12-803 sets a two-part formula and takes whichever number is
smaller: 15% of the debtor's gross wages for the work week, or the
amount by which disposable earnings for that week exceed 45 times the
higher of the federal minimum hourly wage or the Illinois minimum hourly
wage. "Disposable earnings" means what's left after the deductions the
law requires — taxes and similar withholding, not voluntary deductions.

State rule vs. federal floor

Illinois beats the federal floor on both halves of the formula. Federal
law alone would allow up to 25% of disposable earnings; Illinois caps
at 15% of gross wages instead. Federal law protects earnings up to 30
times the federal minimum wage; Illinois protects up to 45 times the
higher of the federal or state minimum wage — a meaningfully bigger
floor, especially since the Illinois minimum wage exceeds the federal
one.

Minimum-wage protected floor

The floor is 45 times the greater of the federal minimum hourly wage or
the Illinois minimum hourly wage set under Section 4 of the Minimum Wage
Law, for any wage deduction summons served on or after January 1, 2006.
Earnings at or below that multiple can't be touched at all; only the
amount above it (subject to the 15% cap) is available for deduction.

Support, tax & student loan debts

Support withholding doesn't run through Part 8's ordinary formula at
all — it's governed by the Income Withholding for Support Act, and its
income withholding notice must state that the amount actually withheld
"may not be in excess of the maximum amount permitted under the federal
Consumer Credit Protection Act" (750 ILCS 28/20(c)(6)). That means
Illinois adopts the federal support tiers (50-65% of disposable earnings
depending on the obligor's other dependents and arrears) rather than
setting its own, different support percentage. Pension and retirement
benefits, refunds, and required contributions are exempt from an
ordinary wage deduction order no matter what the 15%/45x formula would
otherwise allow (§ 12-804). Federal tax debts and federally-backed
student loans in default can still reach Illinois wages through federal
administrative garnishment, a separate mechanism from this chapter.

Head-of-household/family exemption

Illinois has none on top of the general cap. Some states add a
head-of-household or per-dependent exemption above their ordinary
percentage limit; Illinois's Part 8 doesn't. The retirement-benefit
exemption in § 12-804 is a real, separate protection, but it doesn't
turn on dependents or household status — it applies to anyone's pension
or retirement funds regardless of family situation.

Multiple garnishments at once

Section 12-808(b) resolves competing claims two ways. First, timing: a
wage-deduction lien has priority over any later one, and where more than
one summons is served on the same employer, they're effective — and
presumably satisfied — in the order served. Second, a carve-out: a lien
for the support of a spouse or dependent children outranks every other
lien regardless of when it was served.

Protection from being fired

Section 12-818 makes it a Class A misdemeanor for an employer to
discharge or suspend an employee because their earnings were subjected
to a deduction order "for any one indebtedness." That's the same
limitation written into the federal rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674) — Illinois
doesn't extend its own protection to a second or later garnishment for a
different debt, it just criminalizes the violation more directly than
federal law does.

What trips people up

The Illinois formula uses gross wages for the 15% prong but disposable
earnings for the minimum-wage-floor prong — mixing them up when doing
the math produces the wrong deduction amount. Support withholding
doesn't follow the 15%/45x formula at all; it's calculated under a
completely different statute with its own percentages, so applying the
Part 8 formula to a support order will get the wrong number. And the
anti-discharge protection in § 12-818 only covers a single deduction
order — an employee facing a second, unrelated wage deduction order
isn't protected against termination by this section.

Common questions

Can my employer fire me if my wages get garnished twice for two
different debts?
Illinois law doesn't protect you in that situation. Section 12-818 and
the federal anti-discharge rule both only bar firing over a single
garnished debt.

Is my 401(k) or pension safe from an ordinary wage deduction order?
Yes. Section 12-804 exempts pension and retirement benefits, refunds,
and required contributions from an ordinary wage deduction order
regardless of the 15%/45x cap.

Does Illinois have its own percentage for child support garnishment?
No. Support withholding runs through a separate statute, the Income
Withholding for Support Act, which caps withholding at the federal
Consumer Credit Protection Act's percentages rather than setting an
independent Illinois number.

Statutes and sources

• 735 ILCS 5/12-803 — "The wages, salary, commissions and bonuses
  subject to collection under a deduction order, for any work week shall
  be the lesser of (1) 15% of such gross amount paid for that week or
  (2) the amount by which disposable earnings for a week exceed 45 times
  the Federal Minimum Hourly Wage prescribed by Section 206(a)(1) of
  Title 29 of the United States Code, as amended, or, under a wage
  deduction summons served on or after January 1, 2006, the minimum
  hourly wage prescribed by Section 4 of the Minimum Wage Law, whichever
  is greater, in effect at the time the amounts are payable. This
  provision (and no other) applies irrespective of the place where the
  compensation was earned or payable and the State where the employee
  resides. No amounts required by law to be withheld may be taken from
  the amount collected by the creditor. The term \"disposable earnings\"
  means that part of the earnings of any individual remaining after the
  deduction from those earnings of any amounts required by law to be
  withheld." —
  https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/073500050K12-803.htm
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• 735 ILCS 5/12-804 — "Benefits and refunds payable by pension or
  retirement funds or systems and any assets of employees held by such
  funds or systems, and any monies an employee is required to contribute
  to such funds or systems are exempt and are not subject to a deduction
  order under Part 8 of Article XII of this Act. A plan governed by the
  Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 shall be considered a
  retirement fund for purposes of this Part 8." —
  https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ILCS/details?MajorTopic=&Chapter=&ActName=Code%20of%20Civil%20Procedure.&ActID=2017&ChapterID=56&ChapAct=735+ILCS+5%2F&SeqStart=96500000&SeqEnd=98600000
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• 735 ILCS 5/12-808(b) — "A lien obtained hereunder shall have priority
  over any subsequent lien obtained hereunder, except that liens for the
  support of a spouse or dependent children shall have priority over all
  other liens obtained hereunder. Subsequent summonses shall be
  effective in the order in which they are served." —
  https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=073500050K12-808
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• 735 ILCS 5/12-818 — "No employer may discharge or suspend any employee
  by reason of the fact that his or her earnings have been subjected to
  a deduction order for any one indebtedness. Any person violating this
  Section shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor." —
  https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=073500050K12-818
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• 750 ILCS 28/20(c)(6) — "The income withholding notice shall: ... (6)
  state that the amount actually withheld from the obligor's income for
  support and other purposes, including the payor withholding fee
  specified under this Section, may not be in excess of the maximum
  amount permitted under the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act;
  and" —
  https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/ilcs/documents/075000280K20.htm
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• 15 U.S.C. § 1673 — "Except as provided in subsection (b) and in
  section 1675 of this title, the maximum part of the aggregate
  disposable earnings of an individual for any workweek which is
  subjected to garnishment may not exceed (1) 25 per centum of his
  disposable earnings for that week, or (2) the amount by which his
  disposable earnings for that week exceed thirty times the Federal
  minimum hourly wage prescribed by section 206(a)(1) of title 29 in
  effect at the time the earnings are payable, whichever is less." —
  https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCODE-2011-title15/USCODE-2011-title15-chap41-subchapII-sec1673
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• 15 U.S.C. § 1674 — "No employer may discharge any employee by reason
  of the fact that his earnings have been subjected to garnishment for
  any one indebtedness." —
  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title15/html/USCODE-2024-title15-chap41-subchapII-sec1674.htm
  (accessed 2026-07-05)