Wage Garnishment in Ontario: How It Works

Wage garnishment is a formal enforcement tool that lets a judgment creditor redirect a portion of a debtor’s employment income directly from their employer, rather than relying on the debtor to pay voluntarily. It’s one of several tools covered in our broader guide to enforcing a judgment in Ontario, and it’s generally most useful where the debtor has steady, identifiable employment — without that, there’s no wage to garnish in the first place.

Garnishment is a court-sanctioned process, not something a creditor can set up informally. It follows an existing judgment confirming the debt, and it’s carried out through a specific document — a Notice of Garnishment — served on the employer rather than the debtor. The employer then becomes legally responsible for withholding the correct amount and forwarding it, rather than paying the debtor’s full wages as usual.

It’s worth being clear from the outset that garnishment is distinct from simply asking a debtor to pay you directly, and distinct from garnishing a bank account, which targets funds already sitting in an account rather than ongoing pay. Each of these tools has its own process and its own practical considerations.

Once a judgment is in hand, the creditor generally prepares and serves a Notice of Garnishment directly on the debtor’s employer. This notice typically identifies the judgment, the total amount owed, and the applicable statutory limit on how much can be withheld from each pay period. The debtor is also generally notified that the garnishment has been put in place.

Serving the right employer matters a great deal here — the notice has no effect if it’s sent to the wrong address or the wrong corporate entity, particularly where a debtor works for a larger organization with multiple related companies. Confirming the debtor’s correct employer before serving the notice avoids a wasted step and unnecessary delay.

Ontario’s Wages Act sets specific limits on how much of a debtor’s wages can actually be garnished, which protects a portion of income regardless of how large the underlying debt is. For an ordinary judgment debt, the general cap is 20% of wages. For arrears of support or alimony, the cap is higher — generally up to 50% of wages.

These percentages apply to the wages actually payable to the debtor, and the employer is responsible for calculating and withholding the correct amount each pay period based on the limit set out in the notice. A creditor can’t simply ask for more than the statutory cap allows, no matter how large the outstanding debt is or how much they’d like to recover faster.

It’s worth keeping these two figures — 20% for an ordinary debt, and up to 50% for support or alimony arrears — clearly in mind, since the type of debt behind the garnishment directly determines which cap applies. Mixing these up can lead to a mistaken expectation about how quickly a debt will actually be paid down through garnishment alone.

Not all income is subject to wage garnishment in the first place. Many government benefits — including Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan payments, and social assistance such as Ontario Disability Support Program payments — are generally protected from this kind of garnishment under applicable provincial and federal law. This means a debtor relying mainly on these sources of income may not have meaningful wages for a garnishment order to actually reach.

This exemption reflects a broader policy goal: garnishment is meant to let a creditor share in a debtor’s earnings without leaving them unable to meet basic living costs, not to strip away the income supports specifically meant to provide that baseline. Where a debtor’s income consists mostly of exempt benefits, other enforcement tools may be more realistic than wage garnishment.

Once properly served with a valid Notice of Garnishment, an employer has a legal obligation to comply — calculating the correct withholding amount under the applicable cap, deducting it from the debtor’s pay, and forwarding it as directed, typically to the court or the creditor depending on how the order is structured.

An employer who ignores a valid notice, or who simply continues paying the debtor’s full wages without withholding anything, can face its own liability as a result, potentially including responsibility for the amounts that should have been withheld. This gives the process real weight, since an employer has a genuine incentive to comply correctly rather than risk that exposure.

Employers are also generally expected to notify the creditor or the court if the debtor’s employment ends, since the garnishment order only has effect while that employment relationship continues. This is a procedural detail that matters a great deal to a creditor relying on the order for ongoing payment.

From the employer’s perspective, administering a garnishment correctly usually just means building the withholding into regular payroll processing — calculating the applicable percentage each pay period, deducting it before the debtor’s pay is issued, and forwarding it as directed. Payroll software and bookkeeping practices can generally be adapted to handle this fairly routinely once a notice is received, even though it adds an extra administrative step the employer didn’t ask for.

Garnishment is an involuntary process — it happens whether or not the debtor agrees to it, once properly served on the employer. A voluntary payment plan, by contrast, is an arrangement the debtor agrees to directly with the creditor, without involving the employer at all.

For many debtors, a voluntary plan is preferable simply because it avoids their employer learning about the debt, and it can sometimes allow for a more flexible repayment schedule than the fixed statutory percentage a garnishment order applies. For creditors, a voluntary plan avoids the time and cost of the formal garnishment process, though it depends entirely on the debtor actually following through.

In practice, the threat of garnishment — once a judgment has been obtained — often motivates a debtor to propose or accept a voluntary plan rather than have their employer involved. Where that doesn’t happen, garnishment remains available as the more formal, enforceable fallback.

It’s also worth noting that nothing prevents a creditor from pursuing garnishment and, at the same time or afterward, remaining open to a voluntary arrangement that pays the debt off faster than the statutory percentage alone would allow. A debtor who wants garnishment lifted may propose exactly that, and a creditor focused on being paid as fully and quickly as possible can reasonably agree to it, provided the arrangement is put in writing clearly.

A Notice of Garnishment is tied to a specific employer, so it stops having any effect once the debtor leaves that job. The order doesn’t automatically transfer to a new employer — the creditor generally needs to identify where the debtor is now working and serve a fresh notice on the new employer to keep garnishment going.

This is one of the practical limits of wage garnishment as an enforcement tool: a debtor who changes jobs frequently, or who moves to self-employment or contract work without a traditional employer, can make this route considerably less reliable. In those situations, other tools covered in our guide to enforcing a judgment in Ontario — such as a writ of seizure and sale — may be worth considering alongside or instead of garnishment. For more on the full range of options, see our Money & Enforcement hub. This is general information about how wage garnishment typically works in Ontario, not legal advice for a specific situation.