On June 28, 2007, a judgment creditor served a writ of garnishment on a Texas credit union. The next day, a woman’s paycheck for $1,410.17 landed in her account by direct deposit, and the writ caught it. She argued the Texas Constitution protects wages. The court of appeals agreed that it does, right up until they’re paid. “We therefore conclude that Fitzpatrick’s wages lost their exempt status and became subject to garnishment upon their deposit in Fitzpatrick’s credit union account.” Fitzpatrick v. Leasecomm Corp., No. 12-07-00487-CV, slip op. at 1, 5 (Tex. App.—Tyler Sept. 17, 2008, pet. denied) (mem. op.).
That’s the flip side of the Texas rule I started this series with at /news/minnesota-vs-texas-wage-garnishment-571-922/. Texas won’t let an ordinary creditor touch your wages at the employer. It’ll let him take them out of your checking account the next morning.
Minnesota lets a creditor garnish part of your pay at work. The part it protects stays protected in your bank account for 20 days after it lands. On a paycheck already in the bank, Minnesota wins, and it isn’t close.
I expected to write a different piece. The usual line is that Texas freezes an account with almost no process. That was true once. Since May 1, 2022, it isn’t, and Texas deserves credit for the fix.
Why does Texas let a creditor take a deposited paycheck?
Because of one word in its constitution: current. “No current wages for personal service shall ever be subject to garnishment, except for the enforcement of court-ordered: (1) child support payments; or (2) spousal maintenance.” Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 28. The statutes repeat it. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 63.004; Tex. Prop. Code § 42.001(b)(1).
Texas courts read “current” to mean not yet paid. “In construing the above provisions, Texas courts have held that when wages are paid to and received by the wage-earner, they cease to be ‘current’ for purposes of the exemption laws.” Am. Express Travel Related Servs. v. Harris, 831 S.W.2d 531, 532 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1992, no writ). In that 1992 case, a man deposited his paychecks into his checking account, and the court held “such wages were no longer exempt and were properly subject to garnishment”. Id. at 533. Fitzpatrick applied the same rule to a direct deposit in 2008, and saw “no difference in the legal effect of a direct deposit made at Fitzpatrick’s direction and a deposit made by her at a teller’s window.” Slip op. at 5.
There’s a wrinkle, and it’s a big one if you’re a Texan. In 1989 the Texas Legislature added a sentence to the turnover statute: “A court may not enter or enforce an order under this section that requires the turnover of the proceeds of, or the disbursement of, property exempt under any statute”. Caulley v. Caulley, 806 S.W.2d 795, 797 (Tex. 1991) (quoting the 1989 amendment). The Texas Supreme Court read that to mean the turnover statute “necessarily prohibits the turnover of the proceeds of current wages.” Id. at 798. A later court of appeals said the 1989 change implicitly overruled the old cases holding that paid wages stop being current. Marrs v. Marrs, 401 S.W.3d 122, 125 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2011, no pet.). But both of those were turnover orders, which run against the debtor. Garnishment runs against the bank. Harris said the 1989 protection “has not been applied to garnishment”, 831 S.W.2d at 533, and Fitzpatrick said “the exemption of unpaid wages from turnover orders is inapplicable to garnishment.” Slip op. at 4.
So in Texas, the same paycheck in the same account is protected from one collection tool and fair game for the other. The creditor picks.
What happens when a Minnesota creditor freezes your account?
The creditor serves a garnishment summons on your bank. You find out after. The creditor has to mail you a copy of the summons and everything served on the bank “not later than five days after the service is made upon the garnishee.” Minn. Stat. § 571.72, subd. 4. The bank has to mail you the notice and exemption forms “[w]ithin two business days after receipt of the garnishment summons”. § 571.913.
The bank holds no more than 110 percent of what the creditor says is still owed. § 571.72, subd. 2(5). Then the clock runs:
- 14 days to claim. You fill out the exemption form, sign it under penalty of perjury, and get one copy to the bank and one to the creditor’s lawyer “within 14 days of the date postmarked on the correspondence mailed to the debtor containing the exemption notices”, with 60 days of bank statements going to the creditor’s lawyer. § 571.913. Missing the statements isn’t a waiver of the exemption. Id.
- 6 business days to object. Money you claim as exempt “shall be released to the debtor upon the expiration of six business days” after the postmark on the form you mailed to the bank, or the day you handed it in, “unless within that time the creditor interposes an objection to the exemption.” Id.
- 5 to 7 business days to a hearing. If the creditor objects, the court schedules a hearing “no sooner than five business days but no later than seven business days from the date of filing”, and the court has to rule “within three days of the date of the hearing.” § 571.914, subd. 1(b)–(c). The bank keeps the money until then. Id., subd. 4.
The forms are written in plain English, and the Legislature last revised them in 2025. 2025 Minn. Laws ch. 18, § 16 (signed May 8, 2025). The bank notice opens with a headline anybody can read: “Money in Your Account Has Been Frozen”. § 571.912, subd. 1. It tells you the money is “frozen for 14 days from the date of this notice”, and that if you don’t act, “your bank gives the money to your creditor” once the creditor gets a court order or writ of execution. Id.
And both sides can get burned for bad faith. A debtor who claims an exemption in bad faith, or a creditor who disregards a valid claim in bad faith, pays the other side’s actual damages, costs, and reasonable attorney fees, “and an amount not to exceed $100.” § 571.72, subd. 6.
Minnesota keeps protecting your money after it lands
This is where Minnesota pulls away.
Your paycheck, for 20 days. The part of your pay that § 571.922 keeps away from a wage garnishment at the employer “shall also be exempt for 20 days after deposit in any financial institution, whether in a single or joint account.” Minn. Stat. § 550.37, subd. 13. That 20 days also blocks the bank’s own setoff. Id. Texas gives a deposited paycheck zero days.
Public assistance, and the paychecks of people who get it, for 60 days. Need-based benefits (MFIP, SSI, medical assistance, SNAP, general assistance, energy assistance, and low-income tax credits like the earned income credit and the renter’s credit, among others) are exempt, and so are the wages of a recipient. For anyone who’s been on need-based assistance or in a correctional institution, earnings stay exempt for six months after going back to work and after the assistance ends. And “[t]he exemption provisions contained in this subdivision also apply for 60 days after deposit in any financial institution, whether in a single or joint account.” § 550.37, subd. 14.
Other exempt money, as long as you can trace it. Life insurance paid to a surviving spouse or child, retirement benefits, and several other categories stay exempt after deposit “if the funds are traceable to their exempt source.” § 550.37, subd. 20. I covered how much retirement and insurance money Minnesota protects in the first place at /news/minnesota-vs-texas-retirement-account-exemption-550-37-subd-24/.
All three come with the same two strings: tracing uses “the first-in first-out method of accounting”, and “[t]he burden of establishing that funds are exempt rests upon the debtor.” § 550.37, subds. 13, 14, 20. That’s why the form demands 60 days of bank statements. If your paycheck and your SSI and your side income all land in one account, the statements are your proof.
If the account is joint with a spouse, there’s another fight over whose money it is. I wrote that one up at /news/minnesota-spouse-debt-liability-519-05/.
Texas fixed the process in 2022. It didn’t fix the paycheck.
In 2021 the Texas Legislature ordered the Texas Supreme Court to write “a simple and expedited procedure for a judgment debtor to assert an exemption”, with a plain-language notice in English and Spanish that lists “all exemptions under state and federal law to the seizure of personal property” and tells people where to find free or low-cost legal help. Tex. Gov’t Code § 22.0042(a)(1), (b). The Court adopted new Rule 679b and the forms, “effective May 1, 2022.” Tex. Sup. Ct. Misc. Docket No. 22-9031, ¶ 2.
Here’s the Texas clock now, after judgment:
- The writ itself carries a warning. The copy served on the debtor must say, in English and Spanish, “Your money or property has been frozen or seized (‘garnished’)”, and that the creditor must send a Notice of Protected Property Rights “in the next few days”. Tex. R. Civ. P. 663a.
- 3 business days to send the notice. The creditor must serve the notice, instructions, and claim form “within three business days after the receiver or judgment creditor has notice that the judgment debtor’s property has been frozen or seized”. Tex. R. Civ. P. 679b(a)(2).
- 14 days before anything moves. No one may “distribute proceeds to the judgment creditor within 14 days after service” of those documents, or 17 days if they were mailed. Tex. R. Civ. P. 679b(b)(1).
- A hearing on every claim, decided in 10 days. If you file the claim form, “the court must hold a hearing on the exemption claim”, must decide it “within 10 days after the judgment debtor files the exemption claim” unless it extends that time for good cause, and must order exempt property released “within three business days.” Tex. R. Civ. P. 679b(c)(1), (4), (5). You carry the burden of proof, though an unchallenged sworn form can carry it. Id. 679b(c)(3).
That’s real process, and it’s close to Minnesota’s in speed. The structural difference is that in Minnesota an unopposed claim releases on the calendar, with no judge; in Texas every claim goes to a hearing.
Now read the Texas Supreme Court’s notice the way a debtor would. The first item on its list of money that “may be protected” is “Current wages for personal services”. Sounds like your paycheck. Under Harris and Fitzpatrick, the paycheck that already landed in your account isn’t “current” anymore, at least not against a garnishment. The notice says “may”. It means it.
Before judgment, Texas is stricter on the creditor than Minnesota in one respect. A Texas writ before final judgment takes a written court order after a hearing, which may be ex parte, plus a bond. Tex. R. Civ. P. 658, 658a. Minnesota allows prejudgment garnishment by court order, and also by a default track that needs no order: 45 or more days after the summons and complaint were served, when a default judgment could have been entered but hasn’t been, and only after the creditor serves a Notice of Intent to Garnish and gets no answer within 25 days of it. Minn. Stat. § 571.71(1)–(2). I compared prejudgment garnishment and attachment at /news/minnesota-attachment-prejudgment-remedy/.
Social Security and VA benefits get the same floor in both states
Federal law sets a floor that doesn’t care which state you’re in. When a bank gets a garnishment order and finds that the Social Security Administration, the VA, the Office of Personnel Management, or the Railroad Retirement Board direct-deposited a benefit in the prior two months, the bank must protect the lesser of those deposits or the balance. 31 C.F.R. §§ 212.3, 212.6(a). It “shall not freeze” that amount, and you have “no requirement to assert any right of garnishment exemption prior to accessing the protected amount in the account.” 31 C.F.R. § 212.6(a). No form, no hearing.
That floor only covers federal benefits paid by direct deposit, and it steps aside when the garnishment order carries a “Notice of Right to Garnish Federal Benefits”, which certain government creditors can attach. 31 C.F.R. § 212.4(b). Everything else (your wages, your state benefits, your traced retirement money) runs through the state process above.
A Minnesota twist for medical debt
In 2024 Minnesota added a rule just for medical-debt collectors. A “collecting party” (anyone collecting medical debt, but not the bank following a garnishment) must not “challenge a debtor’s claim of exemption to garnishment or levy in a manner that is baseless, frivolous, or otherwise in bad faith.” Minn. Stat. §§ 332C.01, subd. 2, 332C.02(21). Break that rule and the collector is strictly liable for actual damages, additional damages of up to $1,000 per violation (indexed), and attorney fees. § 332C.05(b), (d).
Compare that to the $100 an ordinary creditor risks under § 571.72, subdivision 6. The Legislature put a bigger price on a frivolous objection when the debt is a hospital bill. I covered the rest of that law at /news/minnesota-medical-debt-fairness-act/.
The 2024 law doesn’t stop a medical creditor from garnishing at all. I looked in chapter 332C, chapter 571, and § 550.37 for a medical-debt garnishment ban and didn’t find one.
So who wins the bank account?
Minnesota, on substance. The paycheck you already earned and deposited is protected for 20 days, the earnings and benefits of people on need-based assistance for 60, and an uncontested claim gets your money back without seeing a judge.
Texas, on the front end. Your employer can’t be made to hand over your current wages except where state or federal law says otherwise, and a creditor can’t garnish anything before judgment without a court order and a bond.
Since 2022 the Texas paperwork is as plain as Minnesota’s. The gap is in what the paperwork protects. A Texan’s wages are untouchable at work by an ordinary creditor and fair game in a garnishment the morning they land in checking.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC handles garnishment and exemption fights for Minnesotans. The exemptions Minnesota law gives you aren’t automatic in every situation, and several are waived if you don’t claim them. If your account has been frozen, the 14-day window is the one that matters. Read about our distressed asset protection practice, then send us a message.
Sources: Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 28 (current wages; child support and spousal maintenance exceptions); Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 63.004 (current wages not subject to garnishment) (Texas Legislative Council, Texas Constitution and Statutes); Tex. Prop. Code § 42.001(b)(1); Tex. Gov’t Code § 22.0042(a)(1), (b) (Acts 2021, 87th Leg., R.S., ch. 934, § 15.01) (same); Tex. R. Civ. P. 658, 658a (prejudgment writ by order after hearing; bond), 663a (service of writ and notice on defendant), 679b(a)(2), (b)(1), (c)(1), (3)–(5) (Notice of Protected Property Rights; three business days; 14/17-day suspension; hearing; burden; 10-day determination; release in three business days) (Supreme Court of Texas, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, txcourts.gov); Supreme Court of Texas, Misc. Docket No. 22-9031, ¶¶ 1–2 (final approval of Rules 663a, 664a, 679a, 679b and forms, effective May 1, 2022); Notice of Protected Property Rights (bilingual form approved in Misc. Docket No. 22-9031). Am. Express Travel Related Servs. v. Harris, 831 S.W.2d 531, 532–33 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1992, no writ); Fitzpatrick v. Leasecomm Corp., No. 12-07-00487-CV, slip op. at 1, 4–5 (Tex. App.—Tyler Sept. 17, 2008, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (Texas Judicial Branch case search); Caulley v. Caulley, 806 S.W.2d 795, 797–98 (Tex. 1991); Marrs v. Marrs, 401 S.W.3d 122, 125 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2011, no pet.). Minn. Stat. § 571.71(1)–(2) (garnishment before judgment by court order; default track; Notice of Intent to Garnish); § 571.72, subd. 2(5) (110 percent retention), subd. 4 (service on debtor within five days), subd. 6 (bad-faith claims and objections; up to $100); § 571.912, subd. 1 (bank notice form), as amended by 2025 Minn. Laws ch. 18, § 16; § 571.913 (two business days; 14 days to claim; 60 days of statements; release after six business days absent objection); § 571.914, subds. 1(b)–(c), 4 (hearing in five to seven business days; order in three days; bank retains funds); Minn. Stat. § 550.37, subd. 13 (exempt earnings exempt 20 days after deposit), subd. 14 (need-based assistance; six months; 60 days after deposit), subd. 20 (traceable funds); FIFO tracing and debtor’s burden (subds. 13, 14, 20); Minn. Stat. §§ 332C.01, subd. 2, 332C.02(21), 332C.05(b), (d). 31 C.F.R. §§ 212.3 (benefit agency; lookback period; protected amount), 212.4(b) (orders carrying a Notice of Right to Garnish Federal Benefits), 212.6(a) (protected amount not frozen; no requirement to assert exemption) (eCFR). This article is general information about Minnesota law, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.