Question 1

How much can one creditor collect from an Iowa garnishment in a single calendar year?

Accepted Answer

Iowa Code Section 642.21(1) sets a dollar maximum for each judgment creditor for each calendar year, and the bracket turns on the debtor's reasonably expected earnings for that year: $250 where those earnings are not expected to exceed $12,000, $400 at $12,000 or more but under $16,000, $800 at $16,000 or more but under $24,000, $1,500 at $24,000 or more but under $35,000, $2,000 at $35,000 or more but under $50,000, and at $50,000 or more not more than 10 percent of expected earnings. Because the cap is per judgment creditor, two creditors do not share one allowance. Because it is annual, a creditor who collects the full bracket amount in March waits for the new year.

Question 2

How does an Iowa judgment creditor get a garnishment issued, and what does it cost?

Accepted Answer

You file a praecipe with the clerk of the district court that entered the judgment. Under Section 626.7 the clerk, not a judge, issues the execution on the demand of the party entitled to it, and Section 626.2 lets you direct it into any county you choose. The clerk's fee is $55 under Section 602.8105(2)(d) as amended by 2026 Iowa Acts House File 2770, which applies to fees paid on and after July 1, 2026, and the Iowa Judicial Branch publishes the same $55 on its civil court fee schedule. The statute makes that fee recoverable by the creditor from the debtor. The sheriff's fees are separate: $30 to serve an execution and return it, $30 to serve a notice on the first person served, plus statutory mileage under Section 331.655.

Question 3

Who gets paid first when an Iowa garnishment lands on a paycheck already carrying child support?

Accepted Answer

Support does, and by court order rather than by who served first. Section 642.24 requires every Iowa garnishment order to direct that any amount garnisheed for a support obligation, whether current or delinquent, be paid out of the garnisheed funds before any amount garnisheed for other purposes, after the fees tied to that specific garnishment are taken out. Section 642.23 then has the sheriff deposit support collections promptly and the clerk disburse them within two working days of an order condemning funds, notwithstanding the usual 120-day return period. Support withholding is also excepted from the Section 642.21 annual cap, and Section 627.12 says personal earnings are not exempt from a child support order at all.

Question 4

How long does an Iowa garnishee have to answer, and who asks the questions?

Accepted Answer

The sheriff asks, and the questions are not the creditor's to draft. Section 642.5(1) prints four interrogatories verbatim, covering debts owed the judgment debtor, property or credits in the garnishee's hands, debts and property held by others, and the compensation reasonably anticipated for the debtor during the calendar year. Section 642.5(2) requires the garnishee to submit answers within 21 days of service, and the sheriff files them within 7 business days under Section 642.5(4). A state or local government garnishee gets 30 days from receipt under Section 642.2(5). Where statutory answers are not being taken, Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.304 instead cites the garnishee to appear not less than 10 days after service.

Question 5

How long does one Iowa notice of garnishment stay alive?

Accepted Answer

Section 642.22(1) keeps a served notice effective without a second service until the earliest of four things happens: the annual maximum permitted under Section 642.21 has been withheld, the execution expires, the judgment is satisfied, or the sheriff releases the garnishment at the request of the creditor or the creditor's attorney. The execution behind it must be returned with the money collected on or before the 120th day from issuance under Section 626.16, and Section 626.3 allows only one execution to exist at a time, so collection runs in 120-day cycles you repeat. Section 626.27 is useful here: garnishment proceedings are not affected by the execution's expiration or return. The outer boundary is the judgment, and Section 614.1(6) gives an action founded on a judgment of a court of record twenty years.

Question 6

What happens if an Iowa employer or bank ignores the notice of garnishment?

Accepted Answer

Section 642.9 presumes a garnishee that was duly summoned, had its fees tendered on demand, and failed to appear and answer without sufficient excuse to be indebted to the judgment debtor for the full amount of the plaintiff's demand, though on a mere failure to appear no judgment enters until the garnishee has had an opportunity to show cause. Section 642.13 then allows judgment against a garnishee that held the debtor's money or property when served. One precondition is the creditor's own: Section 642.14 bars judgment against the garnishee until the debtor has been served the notice required by Section 642.14A or 642.14B, which tells the debtor that funds may be claimed exempt and a hearing requested, and for a nonemployer garnishee the creditor must serve it within 7 business days of the sheriff filing the answers, and not through a party or a party's attorney.

Question 7

Can an Iowa creditor dispute the earnings figure that set the garnishment bracket?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the statute names the judgment creditor as an applicant, not just the debtor. Section 630.3A says that at any time after judgment the court, on the application of the judgment creditor or the judgment debtor and on notice to the other side, shall hold a hearing to determine the debtor's reasonably expected annual earnings for the current calendar year and the applicable limitation on garnishment under Section 642.21. So where the garnishee's answer to the fourth interrogatory understates what the debtor will actually earn, the bracket is not fixed by that answer. The same section lets the court consider whether more than Section 642.21 provides should be exempt, weighing dependants, federal poverty guidelines and the debtor's other obligations, and it charges no additional filing fee either way.

Question 8

Besides wages, what can an Iowa garnishment reach?

Accepted Answer

Section 626.26 reaches property of the debtor in the possession of another and debts due the debtor, and Section 642.1 adds the sheriff holding the debtor's money, a judgment debtor of your debtor where the judgment is unassigned on the record, and an executor for money due from a decedent. A debt not yet due is still caught: Section 642.16 suspends execution until it matures. Bank accounts carry a bonus duty under Section 642.22(2), where a supervised financial organization that has paid over what was in the account must keep monitoring it at least monthly while the notice stays effective, so later deposits are captured without a fresh levy. Government garnishees are the narrow case: Section 642.2(3) exposes nothing but the public employee's wages.

Iowa Writ of Garnishment

Find out where you stand in Iowa

Introduction

Key Things to Know

Key decisions before you file

Customize your Writ of Garnishment Template with DocDraft

Iowa Requirements for Writ of Garnishment

Praecipe to the Clerk, $55 to Issue

County Direction and the Sheriff's Fees

No Statewide Form, but Four Fixed Questions

Ceiling: a Dollar Allowance per Calendar Year

Consumer Credit Judgments: the 40-Times Floor

Support Comes Out of the Fund First

21 Days to Answer, 120 Days to Return

Debtor Notice Before Judgment Against the Garnishee

Frequently Asked Questions