Delaware Wage Garnishment Calculator

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Delaware Wage Garnishment Calculator

How much a Delaware paycheck can lose to an attachment, support order, tax garnishment, student loan or Chapter 13 plan. 10 Del. C. 4913, 6 Del. C. Ch. 25J, 15 U.S.C. 1671-1677. Estimates only.

Rules encoded (VERIFY): 85% of the wages of a Delaware resident are exempt from attachment and execution, so an ordinary creditor reaches at most 15% (10 Del. C. 4913(a)); the federal CCPA floor still applies, so nothing is taken unless weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage ($217.50). The 85% exemption does not apply to process for fines, costs or taxes owed to the State, so a Division of Revenue garnishment is modeled at up to 25% of disposable earnings. Only one wage attachment may run at a time and the first creditor keeps priority until paid in full (4913(b)). Medical debt wage garnishment is prohibited by the Medical Debt Protection Act (6 Del. C. Ch. 25J, effective March 2024). Support withholding follows the CCPA tiers 50 / 55 / 60 / 65%. Nonresident debtors get the CCPA limits (25% / 30x) instead of the 85% exemption. Wages exclude self-employment pay (4913(c)). No discharge for one garnishment (15 U.S.C. 1674).

1. Mode, county and pay date

Stack uses the order boxes in section 3.
Context only; the floor uses federal $7.25.
Justice of the Peace, Common Pleas or Superior Court venue.
Weekly tests scale by 52 / periods.
Select a county to see the venue note, the 15% resident cap and the 30x federal floor.

2. Gross pay and legally required withholding

Wages, salary, commissions; self-employment pay excluded by 4913(c).
Voluntary 401(k) excluded.
Take-home only; not in the garnishment base.

3. Order type and amounts

0 applies the statutory maximum.
Informational; support is not an attachment.
Any amount above 0 blocks a new attachment under 4913(b).

4. Balance and payoff

Delaware judgment interest is the Federal Reserve discount rate plus 5% (10 Del. C. 3104 – VERIFY); 8% entered as a placeholder.

How it works

  • Disposable = gross minus legally required withholding; voluntary shown separately; self-employment pay is not wages (4913(c)).
  • Weekly conversion = 52 / periods (1, 2, 2.1667, 4.3333); the CCPA floor test runs weekly.
  • Resident cap = 15% of disposable (the 85% exemption); nonresident cap = 25% under the CCPA.
  • Floor = 30x $7.25 = $217.50 weekly; at or below it nothing is taken for ordinary debts.
  • A prior running attachment blocks any new attachment until it is paid in full (4913(b)).
  • Medical debt attachments return $0 under the Medical Debt Protection Act.
  • Support = lesser of ordered and the CCPA tier 50 / 55 / 60 / 65% of disposable.
  • Student loan = lesser of 15% disposable and above the federal floor.
  • IRS = disposable above Pub 1494 exempt; DOR = modeled at 25% of disposable because the 85% exemption does not apply to state taxes.
  • Stack applies precedence in order with a single wage attachment at the end.
  • Payoff amortizes at the entered rate and flags non-amortizing or zero-withholding cases.

Sources

  • 10 Del. C. 4913 (85% wage exemption, inapplicability to fines costs and taxes, one attachment with priority, wages definition) and 4902-4903 (personal property and head of family exemptions): delcode.delaware.gov
  • 6 Del. C. Chapter 25J Medical Debt Protection Act (wage garnishment and account attachment prohibited for medical debt, effective March 2024): delcode.delaware.gov
  • 15 U.S.C. 1671-1677 and DOL Fact Sheet 30: dol.gov
  • Delaware Justice of the Peace Court civil jurisdiction to $25,000 and garnishment Civil Form 17: courts.delaware.gov
  • Division of Revenue garnishments for unpaid taxes: revenue.delaware.gov
  • Delaware Division of Industrial Affairs minimum wage ($13.25 in 2024, $15.00 from 2025): industrialaffairs.delaware.gov
  • IRS Pub 1494 and Form 668-W: irs.gov
  • 20 U.S.C. 1095a, 34 CFR 34.19: studentaid.gov
  • 10 Del. C. 3104 (judgment interest): delcode.delaware.gov

Test cases

TC1 New Castle County, 2026, weekly, resident. Gross $1,000.00; required $200.00; disposable $800.00. Resident cap 15% = $120.00; CCPA floor room $800.00 minus $217.50 = $582.50. Withheld $120.00, take-home $680.00, 15.00%. $4,000 at 8% clears in 35 weeks, total $4,200.00, interest $200.00.
TC2 Kent County, 2026, weekly, resident. Gross $1,200.00; required $240.00; disposable $960.00, well above the floor, and 15% would allow $144.00 – but the debt is medical. The Medical Debt Protection Act bars the attachment. Withheld $0.00, take-home $960.00.
TC3 Sussex County, 2026, weekly, NONresident. Gross $1,000.00; required $200.00; disposable $800.00. The 85% exemption belongs to residents, so the CCPA cap applies: 25% = $200.00 against floor room $582.50. Withheld $200.00, take-home $600.00.
TC4 New Castle County, 2026, biweekly. Gross $2,400.00; required $560.00; disposable $1,840.00. Child support, no second family, arrears 12 weeks or older: 65% ceiling $1,196.00; ordered $1,200.00. Withheld $1,196.00, take-home $644.00.
TC5 Kent County, 2026, biweekly, stack, resident. Gross $2,400.00; required $560.00; disposable $1,840.00. Support $300.00; no IRS or DOR order; wage attachment requested $400.00 but the resident cap is 15% = $276.00 (floor room $1,405.00). Attachment $276.00, total $576.00, take-home $1,264.00; a second attachment would wait behind the first.
Estimates only; not legal advice. All figures VERIFY, including the 85% exemption and its 15% residue, the inapplicability of the exemption to fines costs and state taxes, the one-attachment priority rule, the Medical Debt Protection Act bar, the CCPA tiers for support, the DOR modeled 25%, the nonresident rule, the $25,000 Justice of the Peace ceiling and the 10 Del. C. 3104 judgment rate. Pub 1494 estimate uses 2026 standard deductions ($16,100 / $24,150 / $32,200) plus $5,300 per dependent plus $1,600 per age-65 or blind box. Not modeled: service-date priority disputes, contested claims, automatic stays, self-employment income, bonuses, severance, pensions, unemployment or workers compensation. Consult a Delaware attorney or the court self-help center. Deploy: replace the block, Update, purge cache, hard refresh; verify document.getElementById(“delaware-wage-garnishment-calculator”).getAttribute(“data-js-ready”) returns “true” with no SyntaxError.

What Is a Delaware Wage Garnishment Calculator?

A Delaware wage garnishment calculator estimates the amount that may be withheld from a pay period after legally required deductions are removed from gross pay. The result depends on residency, pay frequency, order type, disposable earnings, any applicable protected-income floor, and the additional order details entered into the calculator.

The primary output is “Withheld per pay period.” The calculator also displays withholding per week and year, estimated take-home pay, the share of disposable earnings withheld, and the binding factor behind the result. Stack mode adds a five-step priority waterfall, while payoff mode estimates how many pay periods an entered balance may take to satisfy.

The county selection is required but does not change the numerical withholding formula. It controls the venue wording shown with the result. The resident checkbox does affect ordinary judgment and private student loan attachment calculations because the code uses a 15% resident percentage and a 25% nonresident percentage.

How the Delaware Wage Garnishment Calculation Works

The calculator starts with disposable earnings. It adds federal income tax, Delaware income tax, Social Security and Medicare, mandatory retirement, and other required withholding. If those deductions exceed gross pay, the calculator limits required withholding to gross pay. Voluntary deductions are kept separate.

D=G−min⁡(R,G)D=G-\min(R,G)

Here, D is disposable earnings, G is gross pay for the period, and R is the total required withholding entered into the calculator.

The program then converts the pay period to a weekly basis. If N is the number of pay periods per year, the number of weeks represented by one pay period is:

w=52Nw=\frac{52}{N}

The available frequencies are weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, and monthly, using 52, 26, 24, and 12 periods per year. This produces 1, 2, about 2.1667, and about 4.3333 weeks per pay period.

Ordinary judgment and private student loan attachments

For a consumer or contract judgment and for a private student loan judgment, the code applies the same ordinary attachment calculation. It uses a weekly protected floor of 30 times the encoded $7.25 federal minimum wage, or $217.50 per week. It then compares the percentage cap with the disposable earnings above that protected level.

C=min⁡(pD,max⁡(0,D−30(7.25)w))C=\min\left(pD,\max\left(0,D-30(7.25)w\right)\right)

In this formula, C is the ordinary attachment ceiling and p is 0.15 when the Delaware resident box is checked or 0.25 when it is unchecked. If “Prior wage attachment still running” is greater than zero, the code changes the allowed ordinary attachment to $0.00. A positive amount demanded can reduce the withholding below the calculated ceiling.

The pay-year selection does not change this $217.50 weekly floor. Although the configuration contains Delaware minimum-wage values for 2024 through 2026, the ordinary attachment calculation uses the federal $7.25 value. The year does affect the calculator's estimated IRS exemption table.

Support withholding

For child or spousal support, the calculator uses a percentage of disposable earnings rather than the ordinary 15% or 25% attachment limit. The percentage is 50% when the second-family box is checked and 60% otherwise. Arrears of 12 weeks or more add five percentage points.

Cs=rDC_s=rD

Here, r is 0.50, 0.55, 0.60, or 0.65 according to the two support checkboxes. A positive amount demanded can reduce the result below this ceiling. The calculator does not apply the ordinary $217.50 floor to its support calculation.

Federal student loan, tax, medical debt, and Chapter 13 calculations

For a federal student loan administrative wage garnishment, the code takes the lesser of 15% of disposable earnings and the amount above the same 30-times-$7.25 protected floor.

CAWG=min⁡(0.15D,max⁡(0,D−30(7.25)w))C_{AWG}=\min\left(0.15D,\max\left(0,D-30(7.25)w\right)\right)

For an IRS levy, the calculator subtracts an estimated exempt amount from disposable earnings. Unless you enter an exemption override, that amount is calculated from an encoded filing-status amount for the selected year, plus $5,300 for each dependent and $1,600 for each age-65-or-blind box, divided by the number of pay periods per year.

EIRS=S+5300d+1600aNE_{IRS}=\frac{S+5300d+1600a}{N}

Here, S is the filing-status amount stored for the selected year, d is the dependent count, and a is the age-65-or-blind count. The levy is the positive amount of disposable earnings above that exemption, subject to a lower positive demanded amount.

The Delaware Division of Revenue option is modeled as 25% of disposable earnings. The medical-debt option returns $0.00 in this calculator. Chapter 13 converts the entered monthly plan payment into the selected pay frequency and limits the amount to disposable earnings.

C13=min⁡(D,12PmN)C_{13}=\min\left(D,\frac{12P_m}{N}\right)

Here, Pm is the entered Chapter 13 payment per month. As with several single-order types, a positive amount demanded can further reduce the calculated amount.

Worked example for a Delaware resident

Assume a hypothetical Delaware resident is paid biweekly. Gross pay is $2,000.00, legally required withholding totals $400.00, voluntary deductions are $100.00, no prior attachment is running, and the selected order is an ordinary consumer judgment with the demanded amount left at zero.

Disposable earnings are $2,000.00 − $400.00 = $1,600.00. A biweekly period represents two weeks, so the protected amount for the period is $217.50 × 2 = $435.00. The amount above the floor is $1,165.00. The resident percentage cap is 15% × $1,600.00 = $240.00.

The calculator uses the smaller amount, so withholding is $240.00 for the pay period. That equals $120.00 per week and $6,240.00 per year at 26 pay periods. With $100.00 of voluntary deductions, displayed take-home is $2,000.00 − $400.00 − $100.00 − $240.00 = $1,260.00.

How the payoff timeline is calculated

Payoff mode treats the calculated withholding as a recurring payment on the entered balance. The periodic interest rate is the annual percentage rate divided by 100 and by the number of pay periods per year. If the periodic payment does not exceed the first period's interest, the calculator reports that the balance does not amortize.

n=⌈−ln⁡(1−BiP)ln⁡(1+i)⌉n=\left\lceil\frac{-\ln\left(1-\frac{Bi}{P}\right)}{\ln(1+i)}\right\rceil

Here, B is the starting balance, P is the withholding per period, i is the periodic interest rate, and n is the number of pay periods rounded up to a whole period. With a positive APR, the code calculates total paid as the full periodic payment multiplied by the rounded-up number of periods. At 0% APR, total paid is set to the balance and the last payment may be smaller.

How to Use the Delaware Wage Garnishment Calculator

  1. Choose Single order, Stacking, or Payoff timeline mode.
  2. Select the wage year, county, and pay frequency. Leave the Delaware resident box checked only when that setting matches the calculation you want to model.
  3. Enter gross pay and the amounts withheld for federal tax, Delaware tax, Social Security and Medicare, mandatory retirement, and any other required withholding.
  4. Enter voluntary deductions separately. They affect displayed take-home pay but not the calculator's disposable-earnings base.
  5. Select the order type and enter a demanded amount when needed. A zero demanded amount tells the single-order calculation to use its calculated maximum.
  6. Complete any additional fields shown for support, IRS levies, Chapter 13, or stacking mode.
  7. For payoff mode, enter the balance owed and the annual interest rate.
  8. Check the required acknowledgment and select Calculate.

The main result is the amount withheld for the selected pay period. The result section also shows gross and disposable earnings, the weekly protected floor, percentage cap, order-specific cap, prior attachment amount, take-home pay, percentage withheld, and the factor that controlled the calculation.

Important Assumptions and Calculator Behavior

Input or ruleHow the calculator uses it
Delaware residentUses a 15% ordinary attachment percentage when checked and 25% when unchecked.
Prior wage attachmentAny amount above $0 blocks a new consumer or private student loan attachment in the single-order calculation.
Support already withheldDisplayed as information but not subtracted from the single-order formulas.
Voluntary deductionsReduce displayed take-home pay but do not reduce disposable earnings used for the modeled garnishment caps.
Pay yearSelects 2024, 2025, or 2026 assumptions for the IRS exemption estimate. It does not change the ordinary 30-times-$7.25 floor.
CountyControls the venue wording but does not change the numerical calculation.
Medical debtReturns $0.00 withholding under the rule encoded for this order type.
Amount demandedIn single-order mode, a positive amount can reduce the calculated withholding. Zero generally means use the calculated maximum.

Stack mode processes five order boxes in this order: support, IRS levy, Division of Revenue garnishment, federal student loan, and one wage attachment. Support is limited by its support ceiling and remaining disposable earnings. The IRS step then protects its calculated exemption from the amount remaining after support. The state-tax step is limited to 25% of the original disposable earnings and to the remaining amount.

The federal student-loan step uses the lesser of its requested amount, 15% of the original disposable earnings, and the amount above the federal floor. In the current code, this step is not separately capped at the amount remaining after earlier stack entries. As a result, unusually large combinations of prior stack orders can make the internal remaining amount negative. The final displayed take-home amount is still prevented from falling below $0.00.

The final stack step allows one ordinary wage attachment and uses the resident or nonresident percentage together with the federal floor. It is limited by the remaining amount at that stage. Stack mode does not use the separate “Prior wage attachment still running” field to block this final stack entry; instead, it models one wage attachment as the last item in the waterfall.

Most money inputs accept values from $0 through $10,000,000. The balance field allows up to $100,000,000. The annual interest input accepts 0% through 40%, IRS dependents accept 0 through 20, and the age-65-or-blind field accepts 0 through 2. Gross pay must be greater than zero. County selection and the acknowledgment box are required, and the balance field becomes required in payoff mode.

Currency outputs use U.S. number formatting with two decimal places. The withholding share is displayed to two decimal places. The result meter is scaled against a 65% reference level in the interface, with its visual class changing at 10% and 25% of disposable earnings; those meter thresholds do not create an additional mathematical garnishment limit.

This calculator provides an estimate from the formulas and assumptions built into its code. Actual withholding may depend on the governing order, exemptions, agency or court action, payroll treatment, current law, and facts that are not represented by the calculator. Do not treat the output as a legal ruling or personalized legal advice.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are disposable earnings in this calculator?

Disposable earnings are gross pay minus the legally required withholding amounts entered into the tool. These include federal income tax, Delaware income tax, Social Security and Medicare, mandatory retirement, and other required withholding. If their total exceeds gross pay, the code limits required withholding to gross pay, so disposable earnings do not become negative.

Do voluntary deductions lower the garnishment base?

No. The calculator does not subtract voluntary deductions when computing disposable earnings. Health deductions, voluntary 401(k) deductions, dues, and other amounts entered in that field are instead subtracted when the calculator displays take-home pay. This distinction can change the difference between the garnishment base and the amount left in the paycheck.

How does Delaware residency change the ordinary attachment estimate?

The code uses 15% of disposable earnings as the percentage ceiling when the Delaware resident checkbox is selected and 25% when it is not selected. In both cases, the calculator also limits an ordinary attachment to earnings above its $217.50 weekly protected floor and uses the smaller amount.

What happens if another wage attachment is already running?

For a single consumer or private student loan judgment, any value greater than zero in “Prior wage attachment still running” causes the calculator to return $0.00 for the new ordinary attachment. That input does not reduce or block the separate support, tax, federal student-loan, medical-debt, or Chapter 13 calculation branches.

What happens when I select medical debt?

The calculator returns $0.00 as the withholding amount for the medical-debt option. Its result text identifies medical-debt wage garnishment as prohibited under the rule encoded in the calculator. Because the tool itself marks legal rules for verification, users should not treat that programmed result as an independent legal determination.

How is an IRS levy estimated?

The calculator subtracts an estimated per-period exemption from disposable earnings. Without an override, it starts with the filing-status amount encoded for the selected year, adds $5,300 per dependent and $1,600 per age-65-or-blind box, then divides by annual pay periods. A positive override replaces that estimated exemption directly.

What does the payoff timeline show?

The payoff panel shows the entered balance, withholding per period, estimated number of pay periods, approximate calendar time, total paid, and interest paid. If withholding is zero, it reports that the balance cannot be collected through the modeled wage payment. It also identifies a positive-interest case where the payment does not cover one period of starting interest.

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