Does my employer decide how much to withhold?

The employer computes withholding using the ORS 18.735 wage exemption calculation form, redoing it when pay or period changes and mailing a copy with the payment to the garnishor. ORS 18.700 provides a challenge.

How long does an Oregon wage garnishment last?

For wages, ORS 18.625 says a writ reaches wages owed when it is delivered plus wages earned for services to that garnishee through the earlier of 90 days after delivery or release or full satisfaction. Writs issued for a county or county agency run until the amount is paid or released, and state agency notices of garnishment have their own rule. ORS 18.735 also requires a final payment covering wages owed when the writ expires.

Does filing bankruptcy always stop a garnishment?

No. Section 362(a) generally operates on filing, but § 362(b) lists exceptions, including withholding of income for a domestic support obligation under (b)(2)(C), and under § 362(d) a court may terminate, annul, modify, or condition the stay after notice and a hearing on request of a party in interest. Repeat filings carry their own limits. What a filing changes in your situation depends on which of those apply.

What if I have had a bankruptcy case dismissed before?

Two separate rules apply to a later case, single or joint, by or against an individual. Under § 362(c)(3), if that later case is under chapter 7, 11, or 13 and a prior single or joint case was pending within the preceding year but dismissed, the stay terminates with respect to the debtor on the 30th day after the later filing, as to actions with respect to a debt, property securing it, or a lease. A party in interest may move to extend it, after notice and a hearing completed before that 30-day period ends, on showing the later filing is in good faith as to the creditors to be stayed. Under § 362(c)(4), if two or more such cases were pending within the previous year and dismissed, the stay does not take effect at all. A party in interest may request within 30 days of the filing that the court order the stay to take effect as to any or all creditors, after notice and a hearing and on a good-faith showing; an imposed stay is effective on entry. Each rule excepts a case refiled under a chapter other than chapter 7 after a dismissal under § 707(b).

Is the challenge form the same as a court filing form?

ORS 18.850 sets out the statutory text of the challenge form and its limits; it is evidence of what the form must substantially contain, not a certified downloadable filing packet. ORS 18.700 permits that form or a substantially similar one. Oregon court staff can tell you what they accept. Someone other than the debtor who has an interest in garnished property uses a similar application under ORS 18.725.

Can a creditor take money straight from my bank account?

Unlike wages, accounts follow ORS 18.785 steps keyed to a federal-benefits notice or attestation. ORS 18.798 limits a writ delivered after 4 p.m. to the next business day's opening balance.

Wages & debt

Wage Garnishment in Oregon: What the Law Says and What Bankruptcy Changes

Oregon law exempts 75 percent of disposable earnings from execution and sets minimum net amounts per pay period that a garnishment may not reduce you below (Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.385). Those limits do not apply to a bankruptcy court order or a federal tax debt. Filing a bankruptcy petition generally operates as an automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362(a), subject to listed exceptions, repeat-filing limits, and court-ordered relief.

Key points

Oregon's wage exemption has two parts that work together: a 75 percent disposable-earnings exemption and a minimum net amount per pay period, both from Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.385.
Disposable earnings means earnings left after amounts required to be withheld by law, not after every payroll deduction (Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.375).
The challenge deadline is 120 days only where the garnishee is your employer and you claim an exemption in wages earned from that employer; other grounds use 30 days (ORS 18.700).
An ordinary writ reaches wages for a limited period after delivery, with release, satisfaction, and county or agency exceptions (ORS 18.625).
Oregon lets a resident choose the federal 11 U.S.C. § 522(d) exemption list or the state list for a bankruptcy petition, but not both (Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.300).

Oregon caps what a creditor can take from your paycheck. The exceptions matter, and deadlines to object are short.

How much of your pay can be garnished in Oregon?

Two protections apply at once under Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.385. Seventy-five percent of disposable earnings is exempt from execution, and earnings are exempt further to the extent a garnishment payment would leave net disposable earnings below a floor printed for the pay period. For wages payable on or after July 1, 2026, and before July 1, 2027, the ordinary floors are $400 for a week or less, $832 for two weeks, $912 for a half month, and $1,792 for a month. Each is printed separately; do not multiply the weekly figure. The date wages are payable selects the window. For wages payable on or after July 1, 2027, the floor becomes a multiple of the ORS 653.025(1) minimum wage, published annually by the State Court Administrator.

A shorter-than-a-week pay period has its own ceiling on the exemption calculated for that period.
Amounts withheld for the same period under a support order issued under ORS 25.378, 419B.408, or ORS chapter 110 are deducted first, and the employer pays only what remains.
Writs that include a child or spousal support agency notice, or an attestation that the debt arises from support or a restitution money award, use a different and lower set of floors.
Subsections (1) through (6) do not apply to an order of a court of bankruptcy or a debt due for federal tax, and state tax debts are treated separately.

What do Oregon statutes require of creditors and courts?

Garnishment reaches your property held by another (ORS 18.602). Besides judgments, ORS 18.605 allows writs for provisional process, support arrearages on Department of Justice records, and recorded agency orders or warrants. An ordinary writ must carry specified information and a certification (ORS 18.607), be delivered within 60 days after issuance (ORS 18.609), and include a response form, instructions, a wage exemption calculation form, and any search fee (ORS 18.650); without those the garnishment is not effective. The deliverer must promptly send you the writ, debt calculation, exemption notice, and challenge form, subject to the address qualification in ORS 18.658.

A garnishee employer must note the pay period and your next payday on its response (ORS 18.688).
The garnishee generally must deliver a response within seven calendar days (ORS 18.680).
Except as otherwise provided by law, the first writ has priority (ORS 18.627); unused nonexempt wages may still reach a later writ concurrently.

Which income is protected from garnishment under Oregon law?

A writ reaches broad personal property (ORS 18.615); ORS 18.618 exempts property in the custody of the law, certain landlord-held deposits, and identification documents. It also protects a pay period's wages where the writ arrives within two business days before payday, the direct-deposit or payroll-administrator conditions are met, and payment instructions were already given. Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.345 exempts listed property, each with its own limit, subject to the § 18.305 purchase-price qualification and separate past-due support treatment. Plans within the § 18.358 definitions are presumed exempt spendthrift trusts, subject to voidable-transaction rules and a support exception.

Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.348 keeps listed state-exempt funds exempt after deposit as long as they are reasonably identifiable, subject to its accumulation limitation, and keeps federally exempt funds exempt separately.
Commingling does not defeat that protection; first-in, first-out accounting identifies the exempt funds.
An employer may not discharge an individual because that individual's earnings have been garnished (Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.385), and 15 U.S.C. § 1674 contains a similar federal prohibition for one indebtedness.

How does an Oregon bank account review differ from wage garnishment?

For money already in a bank, tracing under Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.348 keeps identifiable exempt deposits exempt. ORS 18.785 adds a review the institution performs, and not every account receives every step. If the writ includes a Notice of Right to Garnish Federal Benefits, specified review provisions do not apply. If it includes or is attached to a support or restitution attestation, only that section's limited review applies, and its base protections are excluded. Otherwise the institution totals the accounts and, depending on the balance and identified payments, gives customary access to a base protected amount and reviews a defined lookback period. It must notify the debtor within three business days after conducting the review. The base figure is indexed and published annually.

The review happens only once for a specific garnishment, even if the same writ is served again.
It applies only to payments the institution can identify from information the payer transmits.
It does not take away any exemption you could otherwise claim for amounts in the account.

Which statutory protections may matter when contesting an Oregon garnishment?

ORS 18.700 lets a debtor use a challenge to claim exemptions permitted by law, to assert that property is not garnishable, or to assert that the amount stated in the writ as subject to garnishment is greater than what is owed. The challenge form in ORS 18.850 states on its face that it may not be used to challenge the validity of the debt. You complete that form, or a substantially similar one, and deliver the original to the court administrator for the court named in the writ as having authority over it and a copy to the garnishor, in person or by first class mail. Timing turns on the basis: 120 days where the garnishee is your employer and the claimed exemption is for wages earned from that garnishee, and 30 days on any other basis. Both periods run from delivery of a copy of the writ to the debtor. The debtor has the burden to prove timely delivery (ORS 18.710).

ORS 18.700 says a court may not require a filing fee for a challenge; ORS 18.718 sets out a separate past-due-support procedure with its own filing fee.
On notice of a challenge, disputed payments are routed to the court subject to the exceptions in ORS 18.702, ORS 18.705, and ORS 18.708, so filing does not itself return funds or halt every payroll deduction.
A hearing is adjudicated summarily and held as soon as possible, with no guaranteed number of days (ORS 18.710), and disbursement timing under ORS 18.712 is subject to Judicial Department written policies.
Challenges to agency and tax-collector garnishments follow different routes (ORS 18.800, ORS 18.855, ORS 18.857).

How does filing bankruptcy affect an Oregon garnishment?

A petition under 11 U.S.C. § 301 commences a voluntary case. Under § 362(a) the petition operates as a stay of listed acts, including enforcing prepetition judgments and collecting prepetition claims; no order or notice creates it, though notices matter operationally. ORS 18.618 reflects this; a garnishee learning of the filing notes it on the response (ORS 18.685) or files a supplemental one (ORS 18.692). The stay is not universal: § 362(b)(2)(C) excepts withholding income for a domestic support obligation. Under § 362(d), a party in interest may request relief, and the court grants it after notice and a hearing when statutory grounds are met.

Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.385 states that its wage limits do not apply to an order of a court of bankruptcy, and 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b) similarly excepts support orders, orders of a United States court in a chapter 13 case, and state or federal tax debts.
Under § 362(c)(1) the stay of acts against estate property lasts while the property remains estate property; under (c)(2) the stay of other acts runs until the earliest of case closing, dismissal, or, for the chapters and individual cases described in (c)(2)(C), the grant or denial of discharge.
A creditor's request for stay relief is not itself relief.

Which exemption list applies if you file in Oregon?

Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.300 says that for purposes of a bankruptcy petition, a resident of Oregon may use the federal exemptions in 11 U.S.C. § 522(d) or the exemptions given to Oregon residents under state law, but may not use both; using any from one list forecloses the other. That section expressly does not apply to executions, so it does not change an ordinary non-bankruptcy garnishment. Whether the Oregon list is even the applicable one is a separate federal question. Under 11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(3)(A), the governing state or local law is the law of the place where your domicile was located for the 730 days immediately preceding the filing; if your domicile was not in a single state for that period, it is the place where your domicile was located for the 180 days immediately preceding those 730 days, or for a longer portion of that 180-day period than in any other place. If that requirement would leave you ineligible for any exemption, § 522(b) allows election of the subsection (d) list.

Two different questions a recent move raises
Question	Where the answer comes from
Which state's exemption law applies?	11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(3)(A) domicile rule, with the concluding safety valve
If Oregon law applies, may you take the federal § 522(d) list instead?	Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.300(1) — either list, not both
Does that choice affect a non-bankruptcy garnishment?	No — Or. Rev. Stat. § 18.300(3) says the section does not apply to executions

What should you ask a lawyer about an Oregon garnishment?

Bring the paperwork, the arrival date, and a recent pay stub. Support withholding, tax collection, and provisional process follow other rules, not covered here.

Which authority is this garnishment issued under, and does that change my deadline to challenge it?
Which pay-period floor applies to my wages, and is my employer's wage exemption calculation form consistent with it?
Did the person who delivered the writ send me everything ORS 18.658 requires, and does that matter here?
Are any of the deposits in my account the kind of payment a garnishment account review looks for under ORS 18.785?
If I file, would the Oregon exemptions or the federal § 522(d) list fit my situation better, and which state's law applies given where I have lived?
Are there exceptions under § 362(b), prior dismissed cases, or likely relief requests that would affect what a filing changes for me?

Frequently asked questions

Does my employer decide how much to withhold?: The employer computes withholding using the ORS 18.735 wage exemption calculation form, redoing it when pay or period changes and mailing a copy with the payment to the garnishor. ORS 18.700 provides a challenge.
How long does an Oregon wage garnishment last?: For wages, ORS 18.625 says a writ reaches wages owed when it is delivered plus wages earned for services to that garnishee through the earlier of 90 days after delivery or release or full satisfaction. Writs issued for a county or county agency run until the amount is paid or released, and state agency notices of garnishment have their own rule. ORS 18.735 also requires a final payment covering wages owed when the writ expires.
Does filing bankruptcy always stop a garnishment?: No. Section 362(a) generally operates on filing, but § 362(b) lists exceptions, including withholding of income for a domestic support obligation under (b)(2)(C), and under § 362(d) a court may terminate, annul, modify, or condition the stay after notice and a hearing on request of a party in interest. Repeat filings carry their own limits. What a filing changes in your situation depends on which of those apply.
What if I have had a bankruptcy case dismissed before?: Two separate rules apply to a later case, single or joint, by or against an individual. Under § 362(c)(3), if that later case is under chapter 7, 11, or 13 and a prior single or joint case was pending within the preceding year but dismissed, the stay terminates with respect to the debtor on the 30th day after the later filing, as to actions with respect to a debt, property securing it, or a lease. A party in interest may move to extend it, after notice and a hearing completed before that 30-day period ends, on showing the later filing is in good faith as to the creditors to be stayed. Under § 362(c)(4), if two or more such cases were pending within the previous year and dismissed, the stay does not take effect at all. A party in interest may request within 30 days of the filing that the court order the stay to take effect as to any or all creditors, after notice and a hearing and on a good-faith showing; an imposed stay is effective on entry. Each rule excepts a case refiled under a chapter other than chapter 7 after a dismissal under § 707(b).
Is the challenge form the same as a court filing form?: ORS 18.850 sets out the statutory text of the challenge form and its limits; it is evidence of what the form must substantially contain, not a certified downloadable filing packet. ORS 18.700 permits that form or a substantially similar one. Oregon court staff can tell you what they accept. Someone other than the debtor who has an interest in garnished property uses a similar application under ORS 18.725.
Can a creditor take money straight from my bank account?: Unlike wages, accounts follow ORS 18.785 steps keyed to a federal-benefits notice or attestation. ORS 18.798 limits a writ delivered after 4 p.m. to the next business day's opening balance.

By Antonio G. Jimenez, Esq. · Florida Bar No. 21022

Sources verified October 17, 2026 · How we verify

Every figure on this page is drawn from a primary legal source and checked against our canonical legal database before publication. Bankruptcy.law is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.

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