How Long Does it Take to Garnish a Bank Account?

Let’s say you’re at the grocery store, trying to buy food for your family. You use your debit card to pay for your purchases, only to have your card declined. A quick login to your mobile banking app shows bad news from your bank—your account has been frozen. 

Having your bank account frozen is stressful. This is known as a bank account levy, and it’s also sometimes called a bank account garnishment. If you default on a debt, your creditor can go to court and ask a judge to order your bank to freeze your account and hand over money. In some situations, bank accounts can be garnished without warning.

How long does it take to garnish a bank account? It doesn’t happen overnight. Your creditors have to go through several steps and follow the rules before they can take money out of your bank account. 

When facing bank account garnishment, just like other challenging financial situations, knowledge is power. You have rights and choices. 

Make sure you understand the process, the timeline, and all your legal rights when facing bank account garnishment. This could help you take control of the situation and get through it while protecting your money as much as possible. 

The information provided in this article is intended for general informational purposes only and should not be taken as legal advice. For personalized legal advice, consult with a qualified attorney licensed to practice law in your state.

Can Your Bank Account Be Garnished Without Notice? 

Your bank account can’t be garnished without notice in most cases. Bank accounts typically are garnished only for overdue debts that you’ve been notified about and have had chances to renegotiate or repay. A bank garnishment shouldn’t be a total surprise. 

Certain government agencies can garnish your bank account more easily than private creditors like credit card companies. If you owe money to the IRS, the Department of Education, or state child support agencies, they can take money from your bank account without a court order. But even if you owe money to the government and you fall behind, the government agency is still required to notify you that it’s about to garnish your bank account.  

Other creditors typically have to give you additional notice that they intend to garnish your bank account. You should receive a court summons and other official communication notifying you about your overdue debt. You’ll have chances to negotiate with creditors for debt relief and to appear in court to defend yourself. 

Once your creditors get a court order, your bank account could be garnished at any time, without further notice. 

Why doesn’t your creditor give you advance notice of the bank account garnishment? Because they want to get paid. They’re going to try to get access to your bank account as soon as possible, without giving you a chance to withdraw your cash or move it to another bank. 

If your bank receives a court order to freeze or garnish your account, your bank will usually obey that order before notifying you. This means your bank won’t give you any notice about your account being garnished until the account is already frozen. 

When your bank sends you a notice of bank account garnishment, it should include details, such as:

• Your right to object to the bank account freeze.

• Exemptions to the bank account freeze that might allow some money to be released to you. 

• Deadlines for you to contest or object to the bank account freeze. 

• Name of the creditor and the court case that caused the judgment to be issued against you. 

The time between a court judgment and your bank account being frozen can be short—sometimes a few weeks. You could discover their bank accounts are frozen when a payment is declined, a check bounces, or you’re overdrawn. Bank account garnishments can lead to non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees. 

If you suddenly have less money in your bank account than you thought due to bank account garnishment, it’s time to take action. You still have options to defend your money and your rights. 

You May Like These

How Can I Find Government Credit Card Debt Relief Programs?

Can Debt Collectors Take Money From Your Bank Account?

Saving Your Sanity: How to Deal with Debt Collectors

The Complete Bank Account Garnishment Timeline 

Bank account garnishment doesn’t happen immediately. This process takes time, and it typically happens only for people who have long-overdue debts. But in case you’re having financial trouble or getting contacted by debt collectors, it’s important to know how much time it might take for your bank account to get garnished. 

Three to six months

Let’s say you miss a payment on your credit card. After 90 days, your credit card account becomes delinquent. If 120 to 180 days pass with no payments, your unpaid credit card debt goes into default. This means that your creditor has given up on receiving the full original payment amount. 

Three to six months after you miss your last payment due date, your creditor typically sends your account to collections or sells your debt to a debt buyer. 

After default 

Debt collectors contact you to try to get you to pay the debt. If you don’t work out a debt repayment plan with them, or go through a debt settlement program, they can take you to court. 

Your creditor files a lawsuit against you for the overdue debts. There’s no hard-and-fast rule for when creditors and debt collectors will sue you for unpaid debts. Some creditors won’t sue you at all because lawsuits are costly, and they can try to collect on your debt in other ways. Other creditors are more quick to file lawsuits.

Debt lawsuit and money judgment

If you don’t contest the debt in court or show up for court, the judge can issue a default judgment against you. 

Your creditor can now ask the court to issue a money judgment against you and ask for a court order to garnish your bank account. If the court issues an order to garnish your account, the creditor can take that order to your bank.

The bank garnishes your account

Once your creditor has the court order, they can ask your bank to garnish your account. Your bank is now required to freeze your account and comply with the court order to garnish your money. 

The bank might carry out the garnishment order in one to two weeks. Your bank must freeze enough money in your account to cover the amount of the court judgment. For example, if you owe $1,500 to a creditor, and you have $4,000 in your account, $1,500 will be frozen and you can still access and use the remaining $2,500 in your account. 

The process can move faster or slower. Government creditors (like the IRS or child support agencies) can move faster to levy your bank account, because they don’t have to get a court order first. Some states might have more protections for consumers, which can slow down the lawsuit process and make creditors work harder to garnish your bank account. 

Government vs. Private Creditor Garnishment 

A few government agencies can garnish your bank account without court judgments: 

• IRS. If you owe back taxes to the IRS, they can garnish your bank account to collect on your tax debt.

• Department of Education. If you fall behind on student loan payments, the federal government can levy your bank account. 

• State child support agencies. If you owe back child support, your state government can recover this money by garnishing your bank account.  

• U.S. Treasury Department. If you owe money to any federal or state government agency, the U.S. Treasury Department can automatically withhold money from your tax refund, your Social Security benefits, and other federal payments. This is called the Treasury Offset Program (TOP). It’s not quite the same as a bank account garnishment, but it’s another way that the government can take your money to collect on unpaid debts. 

If you owe money to any government agency, you should expect an official notice of the government’s intention to garnish your account. 

Protected Funds and Exemptions 

If your bank account is garnished, that doesn’t mean creditors can take every dollar in your bank account. Some federal benefits and types of income are exempt, or protected, from garnishment, including: 

• Social Security

• Veterans’ benefits 

• Supplemental Security Income (SSI) 

• Federal railroad retirement, unemployment and sickness benefits 

• Civil Service Retirement System payments 

• Federal Employee Retirement System payments 

These benefits are automatically protected if you receive the payments via direct deposit. If you receive paper checks, you might have to take extra steps to show that the money is exempt. 

The bank has a responsibility under the law to identify and protect exempt federal benefits. Your bank isn't supposed to hand over your Social Security check or veteran’s benefits to your creditors. In fact, if your bank account only contains exempt benefits, that account can't be garnished at all. 

If your bank account has money from exempt and non-exempt sources (like paychecks), some of the protected money could be garnished. 

Also, only two months’ worth of exempt income (like Social Security) is protected. If you have more than that in your account, creditors could try to freeze the additional funds.

Some states offer extra protections and exempt more types of property (and amounts of money) from garnishment. 

For example, according to the Texas Legal Services Center, here are a few examples of types of property in the state of Texas that can't be frozen or taken to pay a creditor’s court judgment in the state of Texas: 

• Current wages

• Child support, alimony and spousal support

• FEMA disaster benefits

• Tax-deferred retirement accounts

• Education savings accounts

• Health savings accounts 

If you are sued by a creditor and have to pay a judgment, check your state's laws for exempt property. You might have some protections based on the types of accounts, real estate, and other property that you have—and the amount of property that can be seized by creditors.  

If your bank account gets frozen, be prepared to act fast. You might only have a few days to claim exemptions for money in the account. Your creditor is supposed to send you a claim form within five days of the bank account being frozen. You can take this form to court and ask for protected funds to be unfrozen and returned to you.  

Steps to Unfreeze a Bank Account 

If your bank account has been frozen when a creditor is trying to garnish your account, it’s important to act fast. You still have options to protect your rights and maybe keep some of the money in your bank account. Here’s where to begin: 

• Contact your bank. Ask for details about why your bank account was frozen. The bank should be able to tell you more about the court order and give you an exemption claim form that you can return to the bank (and to your creditor). 

• Fill out the exemption claim form. This form helps you protect any money in your account that's exempt from garnishment—funds like Social Security. For example, in California, $2,244 of money in a bank deposit account is exempt. You must send the exemption claim form to your bank and your creditor’s attorney within a certain timeframe. In New York, the deadline to send this form is within 20 days of the postmark on the original notice of bank account freeze.   

• Read your rights. As part of the process of freezing and garnishing your bank account, your creditor is supposed to give you two other documents, a Protected Property Claim Form and Notice of Protected Property Rights. Read them. 

• Go to court and ask for protected money to be returned. If any of the frozen money in your bank account is exempt from garnishment (such as Social Security benefits or other types of income and assets protected by state law), you can go to the court and use the Protected Property Claim Form to get some (or all) of your bank account money back. 

• Talk to a lawyer. If you disagree with the court decision, feel that the court made a mistake, don’t owe the debt, or didn’t get properly notified about your creditor’s lawsuit in the first place, you might have a chance to fight the case in court. Talk to a lawyer and find out about your legal options. There are several valid defenses for a debt collection lawsuit.

There's no definite timeline for how soon bank accounts can be unfrozen. You might have to work out a repayment plan with your creditor or pay the debt in full before your account is unfrozen. But if you believe that you don’t really owe the debt or that your account shouldn't have been levied, you can file papers with the judge to ask for the bank account to be unfrozen.   

Preventive Measures and Protection Strategies 

If you’ve fallen behind on debts, don’t ignore creditors or debt collectors. You have the right to ask debt collectors to stop contacting you. But don’t ignore a court summons. If your creditor sues you and you don’t show up in court, your creditor is likely to get an automatic win. It’s called a default judgment, and it opens the door to getting permission to freeze your bank account. 

If you think creditors might garnish your bank account in the future, you can try to take steps ahead of time to protect your money. It may be possible to have a bank account that no creditor can touch. Your options include:

• Open a bank account in Delaware—the state bans all bank account garnishments.

• Keep a separate account for exempt funds (like federal benefits).

• Have your federal benefits deposited directly onto a Direct Express prepaid card—this could help separate and protect your exempt funds.

• Open a joint account with your spouse in certain states. This type of account, called an exempt entireties account, holds money owned jointly by a married couple and could be protected from creditors if only one spouse owes the debt. In some states—Florida is one—these accounts are off-limits for garnishment. (But be prepared to argue with your creditors about it in court.) 

• Move money from a joint account into one solely in the name of someone who's not at risk.

Even if you try to take proactive steps to avoid bank garnishment, it still might not work. Creditors might go to a judge and claim you're trying to evade responsibility for your debt. Judges might not look kindly upon this behavior. 

Instead of trying to game the system or shuffle money around, the best way to avoid a frozen bank account is to talk to your creditors—early and often—before you reach this point. 

If a creditor has frozen your bank account, approach them and try to work something out. Unfortunately, once they have a judgment against you and a court order to garnish the account, they may have little incentive to negotiate. You might have better chances if you communicate with them before the debt goes to court. 

Here’s something to keep in mind: Creditors don’t love having to chase after your money and freeze your bank account. It’s often easier and more profitable for creditors to work out an agreement, even if it’s to settle your debts for a percentage of what you owe. Ask your creditors if they’ll agree to debt settlement. You might be surprised by how accommodating your creditors can be. 

Creditors want their money, and it’s easier and faster for them to get paid if you cooperate and talk with them, instead of disappearing, ignoring legal notices, and fighting them in court. 

No matter where you live or how much you owe, learn how to respond to a creditor lawsuit and protect your rights. If your bank account gets garnished, here are a few options that you should think about: 

• Negotiate your debts. It’s never too late to talk to your creditors and try renegotiating your debts. Even after a lawsuit, even after a court judgment, your creditors still might be willing to work out a different payment plan or negotiate a debt settlement.  

• Declare bankruptcy. If you owe too much money to reasonably repay, you might want to consider bankruptcy. Like money judgments and debt settlements, bankruptcy will have a negative impact on your credit score and credit history. Even so, bankruptcy could make the best financial sense when you need help getting out from under certain types of unsecured debt. 

How to Get Through Bank Account Garnishment

The idea of having your bank account garnished without notice can be stressful. But many bank account garnishments can be prevented, even for people who have experienced financial difficulty. And even if you get the bad news that your bank account is frozen, you still have options to move forward. 

Before you get to the point of bank account garnishment, Freedom Debt Relief can help you understand your options for getting rid of debt faster. Our debt settlement programs can help you prevent the bank garnishment process altogether—by getting your creditors to accept less money than you owe on your debt. Freedom Debt Relief has years of experience and we’ve found a time-tested process based on data that helps us successfully negotiate with creditors. 

Ready to get debt relief? Start with a free consultation with our debt relief specialists.