Utah: Wage Garnishment Limits

Requirements one by one

Governing law

Utah's ordinary wage-garnishment cap and its first-in-time priority rule are
set by a court rule, not a statute: Rule 64D of the Utah Rules of Civil
Procedure. A separate law, the Utah Consumer Credit Code's § 70C-7-103, sets
a nearly identical cap specifically for judgments on consumer credit
agreements, with one extra cut for education loans, and § 70C-7-104 bars
firing an employee over a single garnishment. Child support runs through its
own mechanism, automatic income withholding under Utah Code § 26B-9-306 and
following.

Maximum that can be garnished

Under Rule 64D(a), the most that can be withheld from your paycheck in any
pay period is the lesser of two numbers: 25% of your disposable earnings, or
the amount those earnings exceed 30 hours a week multiplied by the federal
minimum hourly wage. If the judgment is specifically on a consumer credit
agreement tied to an education loan, § 70C-7-103(2)(c) cuts the percentage
prong to 15% instead of 25% — a state-specific reduction that doesn't apply
to consumer-credit debt generally, only to education loans within that
category.

State rule vs. federal floor

Utah's ordinary formula is identical to the federal Consumer Credit
Protection Act floor (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)) — the same 25% and the same
30-times-federal-minimum-wage prongs, with no independent state formula
layered on top. The one place Utah goes further than federal law is the
education-loan carve-out, which drops the percentage to 15% for that specific
category of consumer-credit debt.

Minimum-wage protected floor

The floor is 30 hours per week multiplied by the federal minimum hourly wage
— the exact federal multiplier, with no separate or higher Utah-specific
minimum wage written into either Rule 64D or § 70C-7-103's formula.

Support, tax & student loan debts

Child support is collected primarily through automatic income withholding,
not an ordinary garnishment writ. Under § 26B-9-306(2), the amount withheld
for support can't exceed what federal law allows under 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b) —
up to 50-65% of disposable earnings, depending on other dependents and
arrears. If support is instead enforced through an ordinary garnishment writ
rather than income withholding, Rule 64D(a)(1) sets a separate 50% cap.
Federal tax levies and federal student loan collections don't go through
Utah's garnishment system at all — they use their own federal administrative
processes.

Head-of-household/family exemption

Utah doesn't have a dedicated head-of-household or family-size wage
exemption layered on top of the ordinary cap. The state's broader property
exemption list, the Utah Exemptions Act (§ 78B-5-505), protects specific
categories of property and benefits (health aids, disability and
unemployment benefits, child support received, certain retirement accounts,
and more) but doesn't include an added wage-percentage carve-out tied to
supporting a family.

Multiple garnishments at once

Ordinary creditors are paid strictly in the order their writs were served:
Rule 64D(f) states plainly that "priority among writs of garnishment is in
order of service," so only one writ is paid at a time and a second creditor
has to wait. Child support breaks that queue entirely — § 26B-9-311 makes a
child-support income-withholding notice or order "prior to all other legal
collection processes provided by state law, including garnishment,
attachment, execution, and wage assignment." A state agency collecting an
unemployment or public-assistance benefit overpayment is treated the same
way in practice, jumping ahead of ordinary writs regardless of which was
filed first.

Protection from being fired

Section 70C-7-104 bars an employer from firing an employee "because the
employee's earnings have been subject to garnishment in connection with any
one judgment" — the same protection federal law provides (15 U.S.C. § 1674),
neither more nor less generous. A separate, stronger protection applies
specifically to child support: § 26B-9-310 bars an employer from
discharging, refusing to hire, or disciplining an obligor because of a
child-support income-withholding notice, without the "one judgment" limit
that applies to ordinary garnishments.

What trips people up

Utah's cap for an ordinary judgment isn't in a statute passed by the
legislature — it's a court rule, Rule 64D, which functions exactly like a
statute but is amended by the Utah Supreme Court rather than the
legislature. A 2023 bill that would have replaced the flat 25% cap with an
income-tiered 10%/20%/25% scale based on the federal poverty level never
passed; some online summaries describe Utah's law as if that change took
effect, but it didn't — the flat 25%/30-hour formula is still current law.
And the "first writ served gets paid first" rule has a real exception:
child support and certain state agency debts don't wait in that line at all.

Common questions

Is Utah's garnishment cap based on my income level?
No — despite some online sources describing an income-tiered scale, that
proposal (a 2023 bill) never became law. Utah's actual cap is a flat lesser-of
25%-or-30x-minimum-wage formula, the same for every ordinary judgment debtor
regardless of income (except the reduced 15% rate for education loans).

If I already have a garnishment and a second creditor gets a judgment
against me, does it start taking money immediately?
No — Utah pays only one ordinary writ at a time, in the order served. The
second creditor's writ has to wait until the first is satisfied or ends,
unless the new writ is for child support or certain state agency debts.

Can my employer fire me over a wage garnishment?
Generally no for a single garnishment tied to one judgment — but Utah's
protection doesn't go beyond the federal floor, so it doesn't necessarily
protect against being fired if you're garnished for more than one debt at
once.

Statutes and sources

• Utah R. Civ. P. 64D(a) — "(a) Availability. A writ of garnishment is
  available to seize property of the defendant in the possession or under
  the control of a person other than the defendant. A writ of garnishment is
  available after final judgment or after the claim has been filed and prior
  to judgment. The maximum portion of disposable earnings of an individual
  subject to seizure is the lesser of: (a)(1) 50% of the defendant's
  disposable earnings for a writ to enforce payment of a judgment for
  failure to support dependent children or 25% of the defendant's disposable
  earnings for any other judgment; or (a)(2) the amount by which the
  defendant's disposable earnings for a pay period exceeds the number of
  weeks in that pay period multiplied by thirty times the federal minimum
  hourly wage prescribed by the Fair Labor Standards Act in effect at the
  time the earnings are payable." —
  https://legacy.utcourts.gov/rules/view.php?type=urcp&rule=64D
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Utah R. Civ. P. 64D(f) — "(f) Content of writ; priority. ... Priority among
  writs of garnishment is in order of service. A writ of garnishment of
  earnings applies to the earnings accruing during the pay period in which
  the writ is effective." —
  https://legacy.utcourts.gov/rules/view.php?type=urcp&rule=64D
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Utah Code § 70C-7-103(2) — "(2) The maximum part of the aggregate
  disposable earnings of an individual for any pay period that is subjected
  to garnishment to enforce payment of a judgment arising from a consumer
  credit agreement may not exceed the lesser of: (a) 25% of the individual's
  disposable earnings for that pay period; (b) the amount by which the
  individual's disposable earnings for that pay period exceed 30 hours per
  week multiplied by the federal minimum hourly wage prescribed by Section
  6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 206(a)(1),
  in effect at the time the earnings are payable; or (c) 15% of the
  individual's disposable earnings for that pay period if the judgment
  relates to an education loan." —
  https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title70C/Chapter7/C70C-7_1800010118000101.pdf
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Utah Code § 70C-7-104 — "No discharge from employment for garnishment. No
  employer may discharge any employee because the employee's earnings have
  been subject to garnishment in connection with any one judgment." —
  https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title70C/Chapter7/C70C-7_1800010118000101.pdf
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Utah Code § 26B-9-306(2) — "(2) that the child support must be withheld
  from the obligor's income each time the obligor is paid, but that the
  amount withheld may not exceed the maximum amount permitted under Section
  303 (b) of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1673(b);" —
  https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title26B/Chapter9/C26B-9-P3_2023050320230503.pdf
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Utah Code § 26B-9-310 — "Violations by payor. (1) A payor may not
  discharge, refuse to hire, or discipline any obligor because of a notice
  to withhold served by the office under this part, or because of a notice
  or order served by an obligee in a civil action for income withholding." —
  https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title26B/Chapter9/C26B-9-P3_2023050320230503.pdf
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Utah Code § 26B-9-311 — "Priority of notice or order to withhold income.
  The notice to withhold provided by Section 26B-9-306, and a notice or
  order to withhold issued by the court in a civil action for income
  withholding, are prior to all other legal collection processes provided by
  state law, including garnishment, attachment, execution, and wage
  assignment." —
  https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title26B/Chapter9/C26B-9-P3_2023050320230503.pdf
  (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)