Ohio: Wage Garnishment Limits

The short answer

Ohio doesn't set its own, different percentage for ordinary wage
garnishment — it restates the federal formula as its own state
exemption. A judgment creditor can reach the lesser of 25% of your
disposable earnings or the amount above 30 times the federal minimum
hourly wage, the same two-part test as the federal Consumer Credit
Protection Act. What Ohio does add is procedural: support orders and IRS
levies automatically jump ahead of an ordinary creditor's garnishment,
multiple ordinary garnishments are processed one at a time rather than
split simultaneously, and firing an employee over a single creditor's
successful garnishment within a rolling twelve months is against the
law.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

The actual dollar-and-percentage rule is tucked into the general
execution-exemptions statute, Ohio Rev. Code § 2329.66(A)(13), not a
dedicated garnishment-cap section. The garnishment PROCESS — the
continuous order, multi-order stacking, and anti-discharge rule — is in
chapter 2716, mainly §§ 2716.041 and 2716.05. Child and spousal support
withholding is handled by a separate statute, § 3121.03, with its own
anti-discharge protection in § 3121.39.

Maximum that can be garnished

Ohio phrases the rule as an exemption rather than a cap, but it works
out to the same result as the federal test: § 2329.66(A)(13) protects
the GREATER of a minimum-wage-based floor or 75% of disposable earnings,
which means a creditor can take only the LESSER of 25% of disposable
earnings or the amount above that floor — exactly the federal Consumer
Credit Protection Act formula.

State rule vs. federal floor

Unlike states that lower the percentage or raise the wage multiple,
Ohio's formula is essentially identical to the federal floor. It doesn't
add extra protection on the numbers themselves, and it uses the federal
minimum hourly wage specifically as its reference point — not Ohio's own
state minimum wage, which is higher. A state that instead used the
higher of the federal or state minimum wage (as several neighboring
states do) would protect more of a low-wage worker's paycheck than Ohio
does.

Minimum-wage protected floor

The floor is 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage for a weekly pay
period, scaled up proportionally for other pay periods: 60 times for
biweekly, 65 times for semimonthly, and 130 times for monthly pay. Only
the federal minimum wage is used — Ohio's own higher minimum wage
doesn't raise this floor the way it does in some other states.

Support, tax & student loan debts

A support order or an IRS levy automatically counts as a "higher
priority order" that can displace a pending ordinary garnishment (§
2716.041(C)(1)(e)). Support withholding itself is capped by direct
cross-reference to the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act's support
provision, 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b) — meaning Ohio doesn't set its own,
different support percentage, it simply adopts the federal 50-65%
tiers. Most pension and retirement benefits are separately exempt from
an ordinary garnishment under § 2329.66(A)(10), regardless of the
25%/30x-minwage cap.

Head-of-household/family exemption

Ohio has none. The § 2329.66(A)(13) formula applies the same way to
every debtor regardless of dependents or household status — there's no
additional dollar amount or percentage protected on top of it for
someone supporting a family.

Multiple garnishments at once

Two rules apply depending on what's competing. A support order or IRS
levy automatically outranks a pending ordinary garnishment and can
displace it mid-stream. Among ordinary judgment-creditor garnishments,
though, Ohio doesn't split the capped percentage across multiple
creditors simultaneously: courts must issue orders in the same sequence
the clerk received the affidavits, and a garnishee processes them one at
a time, with each order running for up to 182 days before the next one
in line begins.

Protection from being fired

Section 2716.05 bars firing an employee "solely because of the
successful garnishment of the employee's personal earnings by only one
judgment creditor in any twelve-month period" — the same one-creditor
limitation the federal rule has, but written with an explicit rolling
twelve-month window rather than left open-ended. Support withholding
gets its own, broader protection under § 3121.39, which bars not just
discharge but any disciplinary action or refusal to hire based on a
support withholding notice, with no one-creditor limit at all.

What trips people up

Ohio's exemption is written as "what you keep," not "what the creditor
can take," which can make the statute read backward compared to states
that state a straightforward percentage cap — but the math comes out the
same as the federal formula. People also sometimes assume multiple
garnishments split the 25% cap between creditors at once; in Ohio,
ordinary creditors instead wait in line, and a second creditor's
garnishment generally doesn't start collecting until the first one's
judgment is paid off or its 182-day processing window under § 2716.041
runs out.

Common questions

If I already have one garnishment, does a second creditor start
taking money from the same paycheck right away?
No. Ohio processes ordinary garnishments in the order the court received
them, one at a time. A later creditor doesn't share the capped
percentage with an earlier one — they wait until the earlier order is
satisfied or its priority period ends.

Does a child support order really jump ahead of my existing wage
garnishment?
Yes. Ohio Rev. Code § 2716.041(C)(1)(e) makes a support order (or an IRS
levy) a higher-priority order that can displace a pending ordinary
garnishment.

Can my employer fire me if two different creditors garnish my wages in
the same year?
Ohio's statute only protects you from discharge over a single creditor's
successful garnishment within a twelve-month period — a second,
different creditor's garnishment isn't covered by this specific
protection.

Statutes and sources

• Ohio Rev. Code § 2329.66(A)(13) — "Except as provided in sections
  3119.80, 3119.81, 3121.02, 3121.03, and 3123.06 of the Revised Code,
  personal earnings of the person owed to the person for services in an
  amount equal to the greater of the following amounts: (a) If paid
  weekly, thirty times the current federal minimum hourly wage; if paid
  biweekly, sixty times the current federal minimum hourly wage; if paid
  semimonthly, sixty-five times the current federal minimum hourly wage;
  or if paid monthly, one hundred thirty times the current federal
  minimum hourly wage that is in effect at the time the earnings are
  payable, as prescribed by the \"Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,\" 52
  Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1), as amended; (b) Seventy-five per cent
  of the disposable earnings owed to the person." —
  https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2329.66 (accessed
  2026-07-05)
• Ohio Rev. Code § 2716.041(C)(1)(e) — "A municipal or county court or a
  court of common pleas issues to the garnishee another order of
  garnishment of personal earnings that relates to the same judgment
  debtor and a different judgment creditor, and the law of this state or
  of the United States provides that the other order of garnishment of
  personal earnings has a higher priority than the pending continuous
  order of garnishment of personal earnings. A higher priority order of
  that nature may include, but is not limited to, a support order and an
  internal revenue service levy." —
  https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2716.041 (accessed
  2026-07-05)
• Ohio Rev. Code § 2716.05 — "No employer shall discharge an employee
  solely because of the successful garnishment of the employee's
  personal earnings by only one judgment creditor in any twelve-month
  period. If several affidavits seeking orders of garnishment of
  personal earnings are filed against the same judgment debtor in
  accordance with section 2716.03 of the Revised Code, the court
  involved shall issue the requested orders in the same order in which
  the clerk received the associated affidavits." —
  https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2716.05 (accessed
  2026-07-05)
• Ohio Rev. Code § 3121.03(A)(1) — "To the extent possible, the amount
  specified to be withheld shall satisfy the amount ordered for support
  in the support order plus any arrearages owed by the obligor under any
  prior support order that pertained to the same child or spouse,
  notwithstanding any applicable limitations of sections 2329.66,
  2329.70, 2716.02, 2716.041, and 2716.05 of the Revised Code. However,
  in no case shall the sum of the amount to be withheld and any fee
  withheld by the payor as a charge for its services exceed the maximum
  amount permitted under section 303(b) of the \"Consumer Credit
  Protection Act,\" 15 U.S.C. 1673(b)." —
  https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-3121.03 (accessed
  2026-07-05)
• Ohio Rev. Code § 3121.39 — "No payor that is an employer may use a
  requirement to withhold personal earnings contained in a withholding
  notice issued under section 3121.03 of the Revised Code as a basis for
  a discharge of, or for any disciplinary action against, an employee,
  or as a basis for a refusal to employ a person." —
  https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-3121.39 (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)