Can a Bank Account in Another State Be Garnished?

A Florida court has no jurisdiction to garnish a bank account located in another state. Florida garnishment under Chapter 77 requires the court to have authority over both the bank holding the account and the account itself, and an out-of-state account falls outside that reach. Courts in Florida have dissolved writs directed at accounts located in other states, even when the bank had Florida locations.

A creditor can domesticate the Florida judgment in the state where the account sits and pursue garnishment there. That process adds months and requires local counsel in the other state.

Why Florida Courts Cannot Reach Out-of-State Accounts

Florida garnishment is a quasi in-rem proceeding: the court acts against a specific asset rather than against the person who owes the money. That requires personal jurisdiction over the bank holding the account and jurisdiction over the account itself. When the account is maintained at an institution outside Florida, the court has no subject matter jurisdiction over the funds and cannot issue an effective writ of garnishment. A garnishment judgment entered without that jurisdiction is void, and the defect cannot be waived.

Creditors have argued that modern banking eliminates the concept of a physical account location. If funds can be accessed digitally from anywhere, the account is effectively present wherever the debtor resides. Florida courts have rejected this reasoning.

In APR Energy, LLC v. Pakistan Power Resources, LLC (M.D. Fla. 2009), the court held that garnishment requires jurisdiction over both the garnishee and the property held by the garnishee. The Southern District of Florida reached the same result in Skulas v. Loiselle (S.D. Fla. 2010). The writ there ran to a Florida branch of PNC Bank, and the court dissolved it because the account was located in Pennsylvania.

Florida’s own appellate courts have ruled the same way. The Fifth District held in Burns v. Department of Legal Affairs (2014) that a Florida court has no jurisdiction over accounts located in other states. The Fourth District said the same in Navy Federal Credit Union v. Veros Credit (2024).

The Middle District collected the authority in Stansell v. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (2015) and dissolved eighteen writs aimed at accounts in New York. The Southern District surveyed the federal decisions in Osio v. Maduro Moros (2025) and found that courts in Florida have repeatedly put out-of-state accounts beyond their own reach, even where the bank operated Florida branches.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reinforced this principle in 2022 when it entered a consent order against Bank of America for improperly processing out-of-state garnishment notices. The bank paid a $10 million civil penalty and refunded at least $592,000 to consumers.

The order listed Florida, effective August 2014, as a “Restriction State,” meaning a state whose law prohibits or restricts garnishment of accounts located outside the issuing court’s jurisdiction. Under the order, Bank of America must tell the issuing court that the account is not located in that state, and must stop freezing out-of-state accounts when the notice comes from a Restriction State unless state law requires the freeze. No other bank is bound by the order, but it is the clearest federal statement of what a bank should do.

Can a National Bank with Florida Branches Be Garnished?

A national bank with Florida branches can be garnished in Florida, but only as to the accounts it holds in Florida. Until the CFPB’s 2022 order, one national bank answered out-of-state garnishment notices by freezing the customer’s accounts nationwide. Banks comply because they face potential liability if they ignore a facially valid writ.

Federal courts in Florida have pushed back on this practice. In Skulas, the court dissolved a garnishment writ served on PNC’s Florida branch because the account was a Pennsylvania account.

Courts have looked to where the debtor opened and maintained the account rather than to where the bank has branches, but Florida’s appellate courts have not fixed a test. In 2026 the Fifth District said directly that it was not deciding when an account is located in Florida. When a creditor disputes the bank’s answer that an account sits outside Florida, section 77.083 requires a trial court to hear evidence and decide the question before entering any judgment in garnishment.

A creditor in FDIC v. Amos (N.D. Fla. 2017) served a Florida writ on Columbus Bank & Trust, a division of Synovus Bank that has branches across Florida. The magistrate judge recommended dissolving the writ as to three Georgia accounts and a safe-deposit box in Georgia, because a Florida court has no jurisdiction over property located in another state. The district judge resolved the motion on other grounds without ruling on that recommendation, so it is persuasive reasoning rather than a holding.

The writ itself had already dissolved under section 77.07(5) before the district judge ruled, and the case later settled, with the judgments released in 2018.

New York applies a related principle called the “separate entity rule,” which treats a bank’s branches as separate entities for garnishment purposes. New York’s highest court confirmed in 2014 that a restraining notice served on a New York branch does not reach accounts at the bank’s branches in other countries. It left open whether the rule applies between branches inside the United States. Florida has not formally adopted the rule, but the Skulas and APR Energy reasoning runs the same direction.

How Creditors Domesticate Judgments to Reach Out-of-State Accounts

Judgment domestication under the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act is the primary tool creditors use to reach bank accounts in other states. Nearly every state has adopted some version of this act.

The process is mostly administrative. The creditor obtains a certified copy of the Florida judgment and files it with the court clerk where the bank account is located, then serves the debtor with notice that the judgment has been registered. After a waiting period that varies by state, the domesticated judgment becomes enforceable and the creditor can pursue all local collection remedies, including garnishment.

The creditor must retain local counsel, pay the target state’s filing fees, and comply with its procedural requirements. The notice period gives the debtor time to respond and, in some cases, to move assets before the creditor acts. For creditors with smaller judgments, the cost of domestication and out-of-state counsel often exceeds the expected recovery.

Federal courts offer a faster alternative. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1963, a federal judgment can be registered in any other federal district once the time to appeal has run, or earlier if the issuing court allows it for good cause. Registration requires no notice to the debtor. This registration can allow a creditor to garnish bank accounts before the debtor learns the judgment has been transferred. Debtors facing federal court judgments face a higher risk of cross-state garnishment because the registration process is cheaper, faster, and does not require advance notice.

Which State’s Exemptions Apply After Domestication?

The state where the garnishment is executed controls which exemptions apply. The state that issued the original judgment has no say. Exemption laws vary dramatically from state to state.

A Florida debtor who holds an account in Texas faces Texas exemption law if a creditor domesticates the Florida judgment there. Texas prohibits wage garnishment for most consumer debts and provides broad protections for certain account types. Conversely, a creditor who domesticates a judgment in a state with weaker exemptions may reach funds that Florida law would have protected.

Florida’s head of household exemption and tenants by entireties protections do not travel with the debtor. A creditor aware of this limitation may deliberately domesticate in a state that does not recognize the exemption the debtor relies on.

A creditor who domesticates in Georgia, which does not recognize tenancy by the entirety, can ask a Georgia court to garnish an entireties account the couple holds at a Georgia branch. Whether a Georgia court would apply Georgia or Florida property law to a Florida couple’s account is itself contested, but the couple has lost the forum that would have protected the account automatically.

The same risk applies to retirement accounts. Florida’s unlimited IRA exemption under § 222.21 is among the strongest in the country. A creditor who domesticates a Florida judgment somewhere with a lower IRA exemption cap may reach retirement funds that Florida would have fully protected. The risk increases when the IRA is held at an institution that also has branches where the creditor domesticates.

Where an Online Bank Account Is Located for Garnishment

A Florida debtor who opens an account with an internet-only bank chartered in Utah has an account with no obvious location for garnishment purposes. Florida courts have not resolved where an account at a branchless bank sits: the candidates are the bank’s charter state, the debtor’s home state, and whatever the deposit agreement says.

A creditor also has to establish that the Florida court has jurisdiction over the bank itself, which is a separate question from where the account sits. An online bank chartered in another state that has no Florida branches and does not market to Florida customers may fall outside a Florida writ for that reason alone.

A creditor who cannot establish either point has to domesticate the judgment in the state where the bank is chartered and garnish the account there. Internet banks chartered outside Florida are the hardest case for a creditor, because there is no local branch to serve.

Post-Judgment Discovery and Turnover Orders

The jurisdictional barrier prevents a Florida court from directly garnishing an out-of-state account, but it does not prevent the court from ordering the debtor to turn over funds held anywhere.

Florida courts have broad post-judgment discovery authority. A judgment creditor can compel the debtor to disclose every bank account, regardless of location, through interrogatories and depositions. A debtor who conceals an out-of-state account on a sworn fact information sheet commits perjury and faces discovery sanctions. Refusing to answer at all is contempt. Once the creditor knows where the account is, the court can issue a turnover order directing the debtor—not the bank—to transfer funds to satisfy the judgment.

A turnover order operates against the person, not the property. The court has jurisdiction over the debtor personally and can enforce the order through contempt proceedings. A debtor who refuses to comply with a turnover order can face fines, attorney fee awards, or incarceration. The practical protection offered by banking out of state shrinks considerably once a creditor begins post-judgment discovery.

Federal Creditors Bypass State Jurisdiction Limits

The jurisdictional limitations that protect out-of-state accounts from Florida creditors do not apply to the federal government. The IRS can levy bank accounts anywhere in the United States regardless of which state issued the underlying obligation or where the account is maintained. Other federal agencies collect under the Federal Debt Collection Procedures Act, where 28 U.S.C. § 3004 lets the government serve a garnishment writ on a financial institution in any state. A debtor can move the proceeding to the district where he lives, but only within 20 days of getting notice.

State exemption laws do not block federal levies. The bank-account protections in 31 CFR Part 212 that shield Social Security and other federal benefit deposits apply to garnishments issued by state courts and state agencies. They switch off when the garnishment comes from the federal government.

The IRS can levy Social Security benefits directly, up to 15 percent of each payment under a continuous levy. Florida exemptions like head of household wages and tenants by entireties are no defense against the IRS or another federal agency. For debtors facing federal tax obligations, banking out of state provides no additional protection.

When Out-of-State Creditors Target Florida Accounts

The jurisdictional analysis runs both directions. An out-of-state creditor who wants to garnish a Florida bank account must first domesticate the judgment here under §§ 55.501–55.509.

Once domesticated, the out-of-state judgment carries the same force as a Florida judgment. The creditor can pursue garnishment under Chapter 77, and Florida’s full set of exemptions applies. Debtors can claim protections for head of household wages, retirement account distributions, tenants by entireties accounts, and other exempt categories.

Florida’s strong exemptions give debtors who have relocated from other states a real advantage. A judgment from a state with weak exemptions becomes subject to Florida’s protections once domesticated here. Someone who has recently moved to Florida gets the most protection from two steps: titling accounts as tenants by entireties if the couple is married, and keeping exempt wages in an account that holds nothing else.

Practical Limits of Out-of-State Banking as a Strategy

Banking in another state creates a procedural barrier to garnishment, not an exemption. A debtor who moves assets to an out-of-state bank after a lawsuit is filed or a judgment is entered may face a fraudulent transfer challenge. An account established as part of long-term financial planning before any liability exists is far more defensible than one opened in response to a pending judgment.

The protection is strongest when the debtor keeps the money at an institution that has no Florida branches and no connection to the creditor’s state.

Out-of-state banking adds cost and delay to collection but does not prevent it.