A Judgment Creditor Is Garnishing You. Minnesota Protects More Than You Think — but Only If You Claim It.

The garnishment usually shows up as a surprise. A paycheck comes up short, or a bank account is frozen, and the notice explaining why arrives afterward — sometimes days afterward, sometimes at an address the person left years ago.

At that moment two things are true, and most people know neither one.

Minnesota exempts a great deal of property from collection. More than most states do, and the list goes well past “your house.”

Exemptions don’t apply themselves. The sheriff doesn’t apply them. The creditor doesn’t apply them. You claim them, in writing, on a deadline — and if you don’t, money the law protected leaves anyway.

What property is exempt in Minnesota?

Minn. Stat. § 550.37 exempts a specific list of property from attachment, garnishment, and sale on execution. The amounts move with inflation — the statute provides that “the designated dollar amounts shall change on July 1 of each even-numbered year,” and the commissioner announces the change.

So any figure you find online is a snapshot. Confirm the current amount before you rely on it. As of July 1, 2026 (Commerce-adjusted where the statute provides for adjustment):

Minnesota’s homestead exemption is a separate statute, and it’s among the most generous in the country. If your home is on the line, it deserves its own look.

How much of my wages can be garnished?

Minn. Stat. § 571.922 doesn’t use a flat percentage. It uses a sliding scale, and it protects a floor of income completely.

Garnishment is limited to:

• 25% of disposable earnings, where weekly disposable earnings exceed 80 times the applicable hourly wage;
• 15%, where they exceed 60 but not 80 times;
• 10%, where they exceed 40 but not 60 times.

Below 40 times the applicable hourly wage per week, earnings aren’t subject to garnishment at all.

The “applicable hourly wage” is the greater of Minnesota’s minimum wage under Minn. Stat. § 177.24 or the federal minimum wage under 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1) — multiplied by the number of work weeks in the pay period.

Child support garnishments run on a different and much higher set of limits (in the 50–65% range), under a separate subsection. If child support is involved, the numbers above aren’t your numbers.

The rule that costs people the most money

You have to claim the exemption.

When a garnishment is served, you get an exemption notice and a form. You fill it out, assert the exemption, and return it within the time the notice gives you. If you don’t, the funds go to the creditor — even funds that were fully exempt.

That’s where the real losses happen, and they tend to happen the same few ways.

Exempt money sitting in a bank account. Social Security, SSI, veterans’ benefits, and public assistance are protected. But once they’re deposited, the bank sees a balance, not where it came from. Federal rules require banks to protect certain directly deposited federal benefits automatically, but that protection isn’t complete, and mixing exempt funds with wages or other deposits makes tracing them your problem. Keep benefit deposits in their own account. It’s the single most useful precaution available to anyone receiving them.

The notice went to an old address. The deadline runs anyway. If you find out about a garnishment late, how fast you respond is the whole case.

Nobody realized the retirement funds were protected. They generally are, and substantially.

Is the judgment itself valid?

Before you fight about the exemption, ask whether the judgment should exist at all.

A large share of Minnesota judgments are default judgments — entered because nobody showed up. A 2023 statewide access-to-justice study of Minnesota consumer debt litigation found that “the overwhelming majority of debt cases in Minnesota — 82% of district court cases and 54% of conciliation court cases — end in default judgment in favor of the plaintiff.”

Some of those defaults rest on service that never reached anybody: a summons left at an address the defendant moved out of years ago, service by mail to a stale address, an affidavit describing a person who doesn’t live there. Where the court never got personal jurisdiction, the judgment is void, and a motion to vacate under Minn. R. Civ. P. 60.02(d) is a stronger remedy than any exemption claim.

That motion is time-sensitive in a way people underestimate — we wrote about the clock the Supreme Court put on void-judgment challenges here.

Check these too, before you concede anything:

• Is the amount right? Misapplied payments, unauthorized fees, and compounding errors are routine.
• Does the creditor own the debt? Debt buyers must be able to prove the chain of assignment.
• Has the statute of limitations run on the underlying obligation?
• Was the judgment already satisfied, in whole or in part?

What to do, in order

1. Don’t ignore it. Every remedy here has a deadline, and every deadline is short.
2. Read the exemption notice and put the response date on your calendar the day it arrives.
3. Claim every exemption that applies, in writing, on the form. An overclaim can be contested. An underclaim is just gone.
4. Separate exempt funds now. Benefits go into their own account with nothing else in it.
5. Get the court file. The judgment, the affidavit of service, and the assignment documents tell you whether the exemption fight is even the right fight.
6. Confirm the current exemption amounts. They changed on July 1 of the most recent even-numbered year.
7. Don’t pay a “settlement” on a judgment you haven’t checked. A partial payment can restart limitations periods and complicate a challenge.

For creditors

The same statutes tell you what’s actually collectible, and the lesson runs the other way: a judgment against a debtor whose income sits near the § 571.922 floor and whose assets fall inside § 550.37 won’t produce money, however valid it is.

Sound collection practice means sizing up exempt status before you spend on enforcement, serving exemption notices correctly the first time, and recognizing that a negotiated resolution frequently recovers more than a garnishment against protected income.

The principle

Exemption statutes exist because a collection system that took everything would produce destitution, not payment. Minnesota’s list — the car you need to get to work, the tools you need to do the work, the retirement account, the benefits, the household goods — is a considered judgment about the floor collection shouldn’t reach below.

That floor is real. It just doesn’t defend itself.

Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota debtors facing garnishment, levy, and judgment enforcement — exemption claims, motions to vacate defective default judgments, and negotiated resolutions — and advises creditors on what’s realistically collectible. If a garnishment has hit your wages or an account, the window to respond is short. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 550.37 (property exempt from execution, attachment, and garnishment; biennial July 1 inflation adjustment in even-numbered years); Minn. Stat. § 571.922 (limitation on wage garnishment; 25/15/10 percent tiers; 40-times floor; applicable hourly wage as the greater of Minn. Stat. § 177.24 or 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1); separate child-support limits); Minn. R. Civ. P. 60.02 (Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes); “Minnesota Consumer Debt Litigation: A Statewide Access to Justice Report” (2023). Dollar amounts stated are those published in the current statute and are adjusted biennially — confirm current figures before relying on them. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. No outcome is promised or implied.