Washington Debt Collection Laws: Four Garnishment Tiers and a $600 Weekly Floor

Before anything can be garnished in Washington over an ordinary debt, the creditor has to sue you, win a judgment, and get a writ of garnishment from the court. A collector's phone calls and letters carry no taking power of their own, and most garnishments in consumer cases begin with a default judgment entered because the person sued never answered, which makes responding to the summons the highest-value move available. Once a judgment exists, though, Washington's rules are unusually layered: the state runs four different wage-garnishment formulas depending on what kind of debt is being collected, protects a chunk of every bank account automatically, and flatly refuses to revive any debt whose clock has run out.

Wage Garnishment in Washington: Four Different Formulas

RCW 6.27.150 is not one rule but four, and which one applies depends entirely on what kind of debt won the judgment.

For a judgment on consumer debt, the category covering credit cards, medical bills, personal loans, and most collection lawsuits, the exempt amount is the greater of 35 times the state minimum hourly wage per week or 80% of your disposable earnings. Because Washington's minimum wage is among the highest in the country ($17.13 per hour in 2026, per the state Department of Labor and Industries), the floor is high: $599.55 per week of disposable earnings is untouchable, and above that the creditor takes at most 20%. Someone earning modest wages in Washington often has nothing garnishable at all on a consumer judgment.

For general judgments outside the consumer-debt category, the older formula applies: the greater of 35 times the federal minimum wage ($7.25, so $253.75 per week) or 75% of disposable earnings, a maximum bite of 25%. For judgments on private student loans, the exempt amount is the greater of 50 times the minimum wage or 85% of disposable earnings. And for child support or spousal maintenance enforcement, only 50% of disposable earnings is exempt, reflecting the federal rule that support obligations reach far deeper than commercial debts. Federal regimes also operate on their own tracks: defaulted federal student loans can be garnished administratively at up to 15% of disposable pay with no judgment, and IRS levies follow the IRS's own exemption tables.

Washington's job protection is stronger than the federal one-debt rule. Under RCW 6.27.170, an employer may not fire you because a creditor garnished or tried to garnish your wages, and the protection holds until three or more separate debts are garnished within a 12-month period. The federal rule protects only the first debt.

Bank Accounts: Protection Without Paperwork

Most states make you file an exemption claim to protect money in a garnished bank account. Washington protects a base amount automatically. Under RCW 6.15.010, as amended by the 2025 legislature effective July 1, 2025, $500 in a bank account is automatically protected against general judgments, $2,000 against consumer-debt judgments, and up to $2,500 (of which $1,000 is automatic) against private student loan judgments, with no exemption claim required before you can access the money. These figures begin adjusting for inflation every three years starting July 1, 2027. The same section exempts $6,500 in household goods, $3,500 in apparel and jewelry, and a $15,000 motor vehicle exemption. Directly deposited Social Security and other federal benefits carry the separate automatic federal shield covering roughly the last two months of deposits. Amounts above the protected figures can still be frozen and taken, so a bank garnishment still deserves a fast response, but the floor holds without any action from you.

Medical Debt: What Did and Did Not Become Law

Washington's 2025-26 legislature considered SB 6105, which would have created a fifth, more generous garnishment tier for medical-debt judgments (protecting the greater of 60 times the state minimum wage or 80% of earnings). That bill did not pass; it died in committee, and no medical-debt-specific garnishment cap is Washington law today. Medical debt is garnished under the ordinary consumer-debt tier. What Washington did enact in 2025 is SB 5480, which bars medical debt from appearing on consumer credit reports. That is a credit-reporting protection, not a garnishment limit, and the two are widely conflated online.

How Long Can You Be Sued

Written contracts carry six years under RCW 4.16.040(1). The same six-year subsection covers an «account receivable», defined broadly as any obligation for payment incurred in the ordinary course of the claimant's business, which is why most account-based consumer debt in Washington is best assumed to carry six years rather than the three-year oral-contract period of RCW 4.16.080(3). No statute names credit cards specifically, and Washington courts have not been pinned down in this research on which bucket card debt falls into, so treat six years as the safe assumption rather than counting on three. Promissory notes payable at a definite time run six years from the due date under RCW 62A.3-118, and a demand note with no demand made is barred after ten years without payment.

As everywhere: a time-barred debt is not an erased debt. Collectors may still request payment, federal Regulation F bars them from suing or threatening suit, and credit reporting runs on its own roughly seven-year clock independent of the statute of limitations.

Revival: The Clock Restarts Only While It Is Running

Washington has one of the cleanest revival rules in the country, and it cuts in debtors' favor. Under RCW 4.16.270, a partial payment restarts the limitations period from the date of payment, but only if the payment is made before the period expires; the statute says outright that a payment made after expiration does not restart, revive, or extend it. RCW 4.16.280 applies the same structure to written acknowledgments: a signed writing can extend a running clock but cannot resurrect an expired one. The practical rule for Washington debtors is simple. Payments and signed statements on a debt that is still within its period will extend the creditor's window, so make them deliberately. Once the period has fully run, no payment, apology letter, or promise brings the lawsuit option back.

Repossession: Redemption, Not Reinstatement

Washington enacted the standard self-help rule: after default, a secured lender may repossess a vehicle without a court order so long as it proceeds without breach of the peace (RCW 62A.9A-609). There is no Washington statute requiring a pre-repossession notice or giving a right to cure a missed payment, and no reinstatement right that would let you resume the old payment schedule after repossession. What Washington law points to instead is redemption: RCW 46.55.120 preserves the debtor's redemption rights under RCW 62A.9A-623, meaning you can recover the vehicle before sale by paying the entire amount owed plus repossession and sale costs, a much heavier lift than catching up missed installments. After the sale, the disposition must be commercially reasonable in every aspect, surpluses come back to you, and a botched sale shrinks or eliminates any deficiency claim. Servicemembers whose contracts predate their military service cannot have the vehicle repossessed without a court order under the federal SCRA.

If You Are Being Garnished or Sued in Washington

Answer the lawsuit first; every protection above survives a judgment, but the strongest position is not having a default entered at all, and an expired statute of limitations is a defense only if someone raises it. If a wage garnishment arrives, check which tier the creditor is using, because applying the general 25% formula to a consumer debt takes money the consumer-debt tier protects. If a bank garnishment lands, remember the automatic exemptions and the federal benefits shield, and claim any additional exempt funds promptly. If multiple judgments are compounding, a bankruptcy filing stops garnishments through the automatic stay while the underlying debts are dealt with; whether that trade makes sense depends on your whole picture and deserves professional advice.

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

Related Resources

For the national picture, see debt collection laws by state, statute of limitations on debt, how to stop wage garnishment, and car repossession laws. Federal benefit protections are covered in can Social Security be garnished. For deadlines on other Washington claim types, see the Washington statute of limitations, and if the debts have become unmanageable, Washington bankruptcy explains the exemption choices.

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Last updated: 2026-08-12.