Stopping an Ohio wage garnishment: five business days to ask for a hearing
Ohio procedure · Last verified August 17, 2026
Ohio builds two protections into wage garnishment that a debtor can actually use, and both are short.
Before anything is garnished, the creditor must make a fifteen-day demand. After the garnishment notice arrives, the debtor has five business days to request a hearing.
Neither happens automatically. Both have to be acted on.
A note on sources
Ohio's garnishment procedure is in Chapter 2716 of the Revised Code, and its exemptions are in R.C. 2329.66. Those are statutes enacted by the General Assembly, not court rules — so they sit outside this site's Ohio corpus, which publishes the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure. This page therefore describes the statutory procedure and cites it precisely rather than reproducing its text. The official text is published by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission at codes.ohio.gov.
The fifteen-day demand
Under R.C. 2716.02, a creditor holding a money judgment cannot go straight to a garnishment order. It must first make a written demand on the judgment debtor, and that demand must give the debtor fifteen days in which to avoid garnishment.
The demand has to offer the debtor real alternatives, which are worth knowing because they are the cheapest way out:
- pay the amount due;
- complete and return the payment form the creditor supplies, agreeing to pay; or
- apply to a local court for the appointment of a trustee under Chapter 2329, which consolidates debts and pays creditors through the court.
The trustee route is the one most debtors have never heard of, and it can stop garnishment entirely while payments run through the court.
A garnishment sought without that fifteen-day demand is procedurally defective, and the demand is the first thing to check on any garnishment paperwork.
The five business days
Once the creditor does apply, the court issues an Affidavit, Order and Notice of Garnishment, and the debtor is served with a statutory Notice to Judgment Debtor. The form of that notice is prescribed by R.C. 2716.06, and it tells the debtor how to contest the garnishment.
The deadline is the part to act on. The notice directs the debtor to request a hearing by delivering a written request for a hearing to the clerk of the court within five business days after receipt.
Then the court moves quickly. Under the same section, once the request is made the court must schedule a hearing no later than twelve days after the request — and sooner if the debtor indicates the need is an emergency.
| Step | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Creditor's written demand before applying | must allow the debtor 15 days |
| Debtor's written request for a hearing | 5 business days after receiving the notice |
| Hearing | no later than 12 days after the request; sooner in an emergency |
Five business days is short. The request goes to the clerk of court, in writing — not to the creditor's lawyer — and the practical advice is to deliver it the day the notice arrives.
What the hearing is about
The hearing is not a re-run of the underlying case. The judgment stands. What is in issue is whether the money being taken is exempt, and whether the correct amount is being withheld.
Ohio's exemptions are in R.C. 2329.66, and they cover categories that matter a great deal in practice — including funds traceable to certain benefits, a personal property allowance, and a homestead exemption. Federal benefits such as Social Security carry their own protections independently of state law.
The amount that may be taken from a paycheck is governed by the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act floor, which Ohio follows: the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage. "Disposable earnings" means what is left after legally required deductions — not after living expenses.
If the debt is not yours, or the judgment is bad
A garnishment hearing is the wrong forum for arguing that you never owed the money. If the underlying default judgment should not have been entered — because you were never properly served, for instance — the remedy is a motion under Ohio Civ.R. 60(B) in the case that produced the judgment, and that is a separate filing from the garnishment hearing request. This site's guide on setting aside an Ohio judgment covers that route.
Both can be pursued at once, and often should be: the hearing request protects the exempt money now, while the Civ.R. 60(B) motion attacks the judgment behind it.
Continuous orders
Ohio wage garnishment operates as a continuous order against the employer, so it does not expire after a single pay period — it runs until the judgment is satisfied or the order is terminated. That is why a hearing request in the first week matters more than it might appear: the alternative is not one deduction but a standing one.
How Ohio compares
| Ohio | Illinois | Wisconsin | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-garnishment demand required | yes, 15 days | notice mailed before the affidavit | no |
| Debtor's deadline to contest | 5 business days, to the clerk | on or before the return date | none — any time |
| Hearing must be held within | 12 days of the request | promptly | 5 business days to be scheduled |
| Maximum taken | 25% of disposable (federal floor) | 15% of gross, or the 45× excess | 20% of disposable |
| Debt-consolidation alternative | yes, trustee under Ch. 2329 | no | no |
A short checklist
- Read the notice the day it arrives and find the hearing-request instructions.
- Deliver a written request for a hearing to the clerk of court within five business days. Not to the creditor, and not by telephone.
- Say if it is an emergency — the court must then schedule the hearing as soon as practicable rather than within twelve days.
- Check whether you received the fifteen-day demand before the garnishment was applied for. If not, raise it.
- Consider the trustee route under Chapter 2329 if the problem is multiple debts rather than one.
- Identify exempt funds — benefits and the categories in R.C. 2329.66 — and take proof to the hearing.
- Check the arithmetic: the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the excess over 30 times the federal minimum wage.
- If the underlying judgment is defective, file a Civ.R. 60(B) motion separately. The garnishment hearing cannot undo the judgment.
- Do not wait for the next paycheck. The order is continuous, not one-off.
Where these rules live
- Ohio Civ.R. 64 — Seizure of Person or Property
- Ohio Civ.R. 69 — Execution
- Ohio Civ.R. 60 — Relief from Judgment or Order
- Official statutory text: R.C. Chapter 2716 (Garnishment) and R.C. 2329.66 (Exempted interests and rights), published by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission.
This page explains what the law requires. It isn't legal advice. Chapter 2716 and R.C. 2329.66 are statutes rather than rules of civil procedure, so their text is not reproduced on this site; the deadlines described above are drawn from R.C. 2716.02 and the statutory notice prescribed by R.C. 2716.06, and should be checked against the official text before you rely on them.