Garnishment and the Self-Employed in Florida

Traditional wage garnishment depends on a three-party relationship: a creditor obtains a court order, serves it on the debtor’s employer, and the employer withholds a portion of each paycheck until the debt is paid. Self-employed individuals do not have an employer who can be served with a continuing writ of garnishment. This structural difference creates the misconception that self-employment income is beyond a creditor’s reach. It is not.

Creditors who cannot use continuing wage garnishment against a self-employed debtor have other collection tools available under Florida law. These tools are often more aggressive than wage garnishment because they lack the percentage caps that limit how much can be taken from a traditional paycheck.

Why Continuing Wage Garnishment Does Not Apply

Florida’s continuing writ of garnishment under § 77.0305 applies to “salary or wages” paid by an “employer.” The statute contemplates an ongoing employment relationship where the employer regularly pays compensation that can be intercepted over time. A self-employed individual who earns income from clients, customers, or business operations does not receive “salary or wages” from an “employer” in the statutory sense.

This means the creditor cannot serve a single writ on one entity and collect a percentage of the debtor’s income each pay period. There is no employer to serve, no payroll system to intercept, and no continuing obligation that automatically diverts future earnings. The CCPA’s 25% cap on disposable earnings—which limits traditional wage garnishment—applies only to employer-employee wage relationships.

But the absence of continuing wage garnishment does not mean self-employment income is protected. It means the creditor must use different collection mechanisms.

How Creditors Reach Self-Employment Income

The primary tool for collecting from a self-employed debtor is the one-time, or non-continuing, writ of garnishment. A creditor can serve a writ on any person or entity that owes money to the debtor at the time of service. If the debtor is a freelance consultant and a client owes $10,000 for completed work, the creditor can serve a writ on that client. The client must then pay the money to the court rather than to the debtor.

Unlike continuing wage garnishment, a non-continuing writ captures only the amount owed at the moment of service. There is no ongoing withholding from future payments. But the creditor can serve multiple writs on multiple clients, and can serve new writs whenever new receivables arise.

The critical difference is that there is no 25% cap on a non-continuing garnishment. A creditor serving a writ on a client who owes the debtor $10,000 can potentially capture the full $10,000, not just 25% of it. The CCPA’s percentage limitations apply to “earnings” in the employer-employee context. When a creditor garnishes an account receivable owed to a self-employed person, the full amount may be at risk.

Bank account garnishment is the second major collection tool. Once self-employment income is deposited into a bank account, the creditor can serve a writ on the bank and freeze the entire balance up to the judgment amount. Again, there is no percentage cap on bank account garnishment in Florida—the full balance can be frozen.

Creditors also use proceedings supplementary under Rule 1.560 of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure to compel the debtor to disclose income sources, client relationships, bank accounts, and other assets. This discovery mechanism allows the creditor to identify exactly where the debtor’s money is flowing and target those sources with writs.

The Head of Household Question for Self-Employment Income

Whether a self-employed individual can claim Florida’s head of household exemption under § 222.11 to protect income from garnishment depends on the nature of the payments. The 1993 amendment to § 222.11 broadened the statute’s language from “money or other thing due for personal labor or service” to “compensation paid or payable, in money of a sum certain, for personal services or labor.” The amendment replaced the word “wage” with “earnings” and expanded the definition to include wages, salary, commission, and bonus.

The change was intended to extend the exemption beyond traditional employment. Florida courts have since recognized that independent contractors can claim the head of household exemption when the payments they receive resemble compensation for personal services. The independent contractor head of household analysis turns on several factors: whether the debtor performs personal services (rather than managing a business), whether payment is based on work performed (hourly, per-project, or commission), and whether the debtor has an ownership interest in the paying entity.

The exemption is more likely to apply when the self-employed debtor functions essentially like an employee—performing defined work for a client, receiving fixed or calculable compensation, and having no ownership stake in the client’s business. It is less likely to apply when the debtor’s income comes from business profits, discretionary draws from an entity the debtor owns, or returns on invested capital rather than personal labor.

This remains an unsettled area of Florida law. The protection is strongest for freelancers and independent professionals whose income is clearly tied to their own work. It is weakest for business owners taking draws from entities they control.

Business Entity Structures and Collection

How a self-employed person structures their business operations significantly affects creditor collection. A sole proprietor has no legal separation between personal and business assets. The creditor can garnish business bank accounts, accounts receivable, and other business assets as easily as personal ones because the debtor owns them directly.

Operating through an LLC or corporation creates a layer of separation. A creditor with a judgment against the individual debtor—not against the entity—generally cannot garnish the entity’s bank accounts or intercept payments owed to the entity. In Florida, a creditor’s remedy against a debtor’s interest in a multi-member LLC is limited to a charging order, which entitles the creditor to receive distributions if and when the LLC chooses to make them. A charging order does not give the creditor the right to compel distributions or interfere with LLC operations.

Single-member LLCs receive weaker protection in Florida. The Florida Revised LLC Act allows a court to order foreclosure of a debtor’s interest in a single-member LLC, which can give the creditor access to the underlying assets. Multi-member LLCs provide the strongest protection because the charging order is the creditor’s exclusive remedy.

A self-employed debtor who operates as a sole proprietor and deposits all business income into a personal bank account has essentially no structural protection from garnishment. The same debtor operating through a properly structured multi-member LLC, receiving distributions only as needed, and maintaining clear entity separation has meaningful protection against creditor collection.

IRS Collection Against Self-Employed Taxpayers

The IRS uses different and often more aggressive tools against self-employed taxpayers than against W-2 employees. Because there is no employer payroll to intercept, the IRS serves Notices of Levy directly on the debtor’s clients, banks, and payment processors. When a client receives an IRS levy notice, the client is legally required to send the debtor’s payment to the IRS instead.

Unlike private creditors, the IRS is not limited by the CCPA. The amount exempt from an IRS levy is calculated using Publication 1494 tables based on filing status and dependents, and everything above that amount can be seized. For self-employed debtors with multiple income sources, the IRS can serve levies on each client simultaneously.

The IRS can also levy business bank accounts, seize accounts receivable, and file federal tax liens that attach to all of the debtor’s property. Self-employed taxpayers facing IRS collection should address the situation before levies are served, because once funds are in the IRS’s hands, recovering them requires navigating the IRS’s internal procedures.