New Hampshire Debt Collection Laws: The State Without Continuing Wage Garnishment

New Hampshire is one of a handful of states where the standard debt-collection playbook simply does not work. There is no continuing wage garnishment for ordinary consumer debt here: a creditor cannot get an order that skims a percentage of every future paycheck, the way garnishment works in most of the country. That does not make New Hampshire debt uncollectible, and it does not mean a lawsuit can be ignored. A creditor must still sue, win a judgment, and then use the collection tools New Hampshire does allow, and most judgments are entered by default because the person sued never answered. Understanding which tools exist, and which do not, is what this page is for.

Why There Is No Ongoing Wage Garnishment in New Hampshire

In most states, a judgment creditor gets a garnishment order, serves it on your employer, and a slice of every paycheck flows to the creditor until the judgment is paid. New Hampshire's trustee process does not work that way. Under RSA 512:21, wages you earn after the writ is served on your employer are wholly exempt; the writ is a snapshot, not a pipeline. It can reach only wages that were already earned but not yet paid at the moment of service.

Even that snapshot is narrow. Pre-writ wages are exempt unless the action is founded on a debt reduced to a judgment issued by a New Hampshire court, and when that condition is met, 50 times the federal minimum hourly wage per week is still exempt, which is $362.50 per week at the current $7.25 rate. The statute also fully exempts the wages of the debtor's spouse and minor children.

There is one categorical exception worth knowing precisely, because the internet routinely states it backwards. In actions on small-loan contracts under RSA 399-A, only $50 per week of pre-writ wages is exempt. That means a licensed small lender suing on a small-loan contract can reach more of those earned-but-unpaid wages than an ordinary creditor can, because the protected amount drops from $362.50 to $50. The $50 figure is a floor of protection in one narrow category, not a cap on what creditors take, and it has nothing to do with ordinary credit card or medical debt.

How Creditors Actually Collect: Periodic Payment Orders

Because the paycheck route is closed, New Hampshire collection runs through the court itself. After judgment, a creditor can ask the court under RSA 524:6-a to order you to pay the judgment in installments. The court sets the amount based on your actual circumstances, and income that is exempt from trustee process or execution cannot be counted in setting the payment. The order is enforced by the court's contempt power: ignore an order you had the ability to pay and you can be summoned back and sanctioned, while a genuine inability to pay is a defense to contempt, not a crime.

This structure changes the practical advice. In a garnishment state, the fight is over percentages and exemption math. In New Hampshire, the fight happens at the payment hearing: showing up with a realistic budget, documenting exempt income such as Social Security, and getting a sustainable figure into the order is where the outcome is decided. Not showing up is how people end up with orders they cannot keep.

Bank Accounts: The Payroll Account Exemption

Trustee process can also be aimed at your bank. New Hampshire again has an unusual shield: RSA 512:21, XI exempts money deposited in any account designated as a payroll account. If your wages are direct-deposited into an account set up as a payroll account, those funds are categorically protected from trustee process, a protection very few states offer once wages leave the employer's hands.

Beyond that, New Hampshire has no automatic dollar amount protected in every ordinary bank account, the way New York's banking exemption works. Protection comes from claimed exemptions: RSA 511:2 provides a $1,000 wildcard for any property plus up to $7,000 of unused amounts from listed categories such as furniture, tools, and books, along with specific exemptions including a vehicle up to $10,000. Federal law separately requires banks to protect an amount equal to the last two months of directly deposited federal benefits such as Social Security, automatically and without any filing.

What Still Pierces New Hampshire's Protections

No state's anti-garnishment rules stop everything, and writing off a debt because «New Hampshire does not garnish» is the mistake in the other direction. Three regimes reach wages here regardless of RSA 512:21. Child support runs through its own income-withholding system with federal tiers that can reach 50% to 65% of disposable earnings. Federal agencies use administrative wage garnishment for federal debts, most prominently defaulted federal student loans at up to 15% of disposable pay, and federal law expressly overrides state garnishment limits for those orders. And the IRS levies wages under its own exemption-table system, which is not bound by state law at all.

On state taxes, New Hampshire has no broad wage income tax, and we did not verify any Department of Revenue Administration wage-levy percentage for the taxes it does administer, so no figure is stated here.

On job protection, New Hampshire's scheme makes the question nearly moot, since employers rarely receive continuing orders. The federal rule still applies: an employer may not fire you because your earnings were garnished for any one debt.

The 3-Year Statute of Limitations

New Hampshire gives creditors one of the shortest windows in the country. Under RSA 508:4, most personal actions, including suits on contracts, accounts, and credit cards, must be brought within 3 years. There is no separate written-versus-oral split to argue about. Promissory notes are the main exception: under RSA 382-A:3-118, a note payable at a definite time carries 6 years from the due date, and a demand note 6 years from demand. Court judgments themselves are enforceable far longer, with a 20-year period generally cited for judgments, so a debt that has already gone to judgment is not going to age out quickly.

New Hampshire has no statute saying what revives a time-barred debt. The gap is filled by long-standing common-law doctrine, described in the New Hampshire Judicial Branch law library's guidance: a partial payment or an acknowledgment of the debt can count as evidence of a new promise to pay, restarting the period. Because this is case law rather than a statute, treat any payment on an old New Hampshire debt as potentially restarting the 3-year clock, and date the debt before paying anything.

A debt past the limitation period is not erased. Collectors may still contact you and ask for payment, and the account can stay on your credit report for up to 7 years on a separate federal clock. What a collector cannot do is sue or threaten to sue on a time-barred debt; federal Regulation F prohibits it flatly.

Repossession in New Hampshire

Secured debt is the other place New Hampshire looks like everywhere else. Under RSA 382-A:9-609, a lender with a security interest in your car can repossess after default without any court order, as long as the repossession happens without a breach of the peace. We found no New Hampshire statute requiring a pre-repossession notice or right-to-cure period for ordinary auto loans, so a default can be followed by a tow truck with no warning. The motor vehicle retail installment law does bar contracts from waiving your right to sue over illegal acts committed during collection or repossession. After repossession, the sale must be commercially reasonable, and any deficiency claim becomes a new unsecured debt subject to the 3-year rule above. Servicemembers whose loans predate military service cannot be repossessed without a court order under federal law.

If You Are Being Sued or Facing Collection in New Hampshire

Answer the lawsuit before the deadline; every protection above, including the 3-year statute of limitations, is waived by a default judgment. If a payment-order hearing is scheduled, attend it with pay stubs and a budget, and identify exempt income so it is excluded from the order. If a trustee writ hits your bank, check whether the account is a designated payroll account and claim your RSA 511:2 exemptions. Do not pay anything on an old debt before dating the clock, because payment can restart it. And when a judgment, a payment order, and secured arrears have stacked past what a budget can carry, bankruptcy's automatic stay stops collection while the case is pending; the guide to stopping wage garnishment and collection walks through the options in order.

Information last verified on 2026-08-12. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Related Resources

• Debt Collection Laws by State
• Statute of Limitations on Debt
• How to Stop Wage Garnishment
• Can Social Security Be Garnished?
• New Hampshire Statute of Limitations
• New Hampshire Bankruptcy

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Last updated: 2026-08-12.