Wage Garnishment in Canada: How Much Can They Take?

A collection agency can call you, and it can report the debt to Equifax and TransUnion. What it can’t do is garnish your wages or reach into your bank account. Not until a court has given it a judgment against you. That step is the whole difference between a collection call and a wage garnishment.

Three creditors skip it: the Canada Revenue Agency, a provincial support enforcement office, and the federal government collecting money it’s owed. Everyone else has to sue you first, and win.

Can a collection agency take money from your bank account?

No, not on its own. An ordinary creditor has to sue you, get a judgment, and then have a garnishing order served on your employer or your bank. British Columbia writes the rule straight into the statute: no order may attach an employee’s wages “before a judgment or order for the payment of money has been obtained” (Court Order Enforcement Act, s. 3(4) (opens in a new tab)).

How a missed payment becomes a garnishment

Nothing here is instant. A debt usually sits with the original creditor’s own collections team for a few months, then gets assigned or sold to an agency. The agency calls and writes. If that doesn’t work, the creditor sues, normally in small claims court, where the amount at stake is often too small for anyone to hire a lawyer.

If you don’t respond to the claim, the court can give a default judgment. That’s the most common route to a garnishment: not a trial, just a claim nobody answered. Once the judgment exists, the garnishing order is paperwork.

What the order reaches

A garnishment served on your bank reaches the money already sitting in the account. A garnishment served on your employer keeps running, pay period after pay period. In Ontario a notice of garnishment stays in force for six years from the day it’s issued, and for six more from each renewal (Rules of Civil Procedure, r. 60.08 (opens in a new tab)). The garnishee also takes $10 off each payment for the trouble of processing it.

The same rule sets limits. A garnishment doesn’t catch money in an account you opened after it was served, or pay from a job you started after it was served, and it doesn’t take a joint account in full. Half is the default share there, unless the court sets a different one.

How much of your pay can be garnished in Canada?

It depends on the province, and the gap is wide. Ontario protects 80% of your wages, so a creditor gets 20%. British Columbia protects 70%, so a creditor gets 30%. Alberta and Quebec use sliding formulas instead, which means the share taken rises with what you earn.

What that looks like in dollars

Take someone earning $3,000 a month with no dependants. In Ontario a creditor takes $600. In British Columbia, $900. In Quebec, 30% of the $1,352.50 sitting above the exemption, so $405.75. In Alberta the exemption works out to $800 plus half of the remaining $2,200, which is $1,900, so a creditor takes $1,100.

Higher earners lose the most to Alberta’s cap. The exemption stops growing at $2,400 a month, so someone earning $6,000 keeps $2,400 and loses $3,600. That’s 60% of a paycheque, on a debt an Ontario creditor could only have taken 20% for.

You can ask for the exemption to be raised

The exemption is not fixed. In Ontario a judge can increase the exempt portion on a motion by you, weighing your financial circumstances (Wages Act, s. 7(5) (opens in a new tab)). British Columbia is faster: apply in writing to the registrar, and the registrar has to hear the matter within seven days of receiving it. Alberta’s court can modify either end of the formula, and is told to consider your family responsibilities and personal circumstances.

Creditors can apply in the other direction, so an Ontario judge can lower your exemption too. But a garnishment that leaves you unable to pay rent is the exact situation these provisions were written for.

What a collection agency can legally do before any of that

Quite a lot is off limits. Collection agencies are licensed province by province, and the conduct rules are specific about when they can call, how often, and what they have to tell you first. Ontario’s are the most detailed, and they’re a fair guide to what the rest look like.

An agency can’t contact you at all until the sixth day after it has sent you a private written notice (O. Reg. 74, s. 21 (opens in a new tab)). That notice has to name the original creditor as well as the current one, say what the debt was when it first came due and what it is now, and offer a breakdown on request. If the letter never arrived, the calls shouldn’t have started.

After that the agency gets three contacts in any seven-day period on behalf of one creditor. Calls are barred between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., all day Sunday except between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., and on statutory holidays. Automatic dialers, predictive dialers and bulk texting are prohibited outright.

The catch in the three-call rule

The cap doesn’t start when the calls start. Under s. 22(9) it doesn’t apply “until such time that the collection agency or collector speaks with the person being contacted.” So the phone can ring far more than three times in a week without any rule being broken, because the limit only begins once you pick up. Mailed letters never count toward the three either.

How to make the calls stop

Ontario gives you a direct route. Send the agency a notice by verifiable means, such as email, registered mail or courier, saying that you dispute the debt and that the matter should go to court. After that the agency can’t keep contacting you (opens in a new tab) without your consent.

The other half of that is worth knowing too. The agency may respond by recommending the creditor sue, and Consumer Protection BC (opens in a new tab) warns that a debt doesn’t go away just because the calls stop. The calls stop. The debt doesn’t.

If an agency breaks the rules, the complaint goes to the provincial regulator rather than to your bank or the police. In Ontario that’s the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, in British Columbia it’s Consumer Protection BC, and in Quebec the Office de la protection du consommateur. Check that the agency is licensed while you’re there. A caller who won’t give a licence number or send a written notice may not be a collector at all, and getting money back after a scam is far harder than not sending it.

Why the CRA is different

The Canada Revenue Agency doesn’t need to sue you. It sends a requirement to pay, and whoever is holding your money has to comply. That can go to your employer, your bank, your spouse, a business partner or another government department (CRA, Garnishing your income and accounts (opens in a new tab)).

The agency can also redirect money the federal government owes you, including a tax refund, a GST/HST credit, and your CPP or OAS payments. Under its published collections policy those set-offs can go ahead even while you’re objecting to or appealing the assessment.

The CRA generally can’t start court proceedings or issue a requirement to pay until 90 days after a notice of assessment or reassessment. And while its policy is that it won’t lift a requirement to pay until the account is paid in full, it makes an exception where the action is causing financial hardship, which is the wording to use when you call.

What can’t be touched

Some income is protected by statute, whoever the creditor is. The Canada Pension Plan (opens in a new tab) and Old Age Security (opens in a new tab) Acts use identical wording: a benefit can’t be assigned, charged, attached or given as security, any transaction that tries is void, and the benefit is exempt from seizure and execution. Provincial social assistance is protected the same way, and Ontario Works income support can’t be garnished by a creditor at all.

Support enforcement is the exception to all of it. Ontario’s Family Responsibility Office can have the federal government deduct up to 50% of Employment Insurance and CPP benefits for arrears, and 100% of a tax refund. It can take 100% of a sole bank account and up to half of a joint one, holding the joint portion for 30 days so a co-holder can dispute it in court. It can suspend a driver’s licence, and a default hearing can end in up to 180 days in jail. Even Ontario Works is reachable for a support deduction, capped at 10%.

Does an old debt ever expire?

There’s a limitation period, and it runs from the claim rather than from the last call. In most provinces a creditor has two years from the day the claim was discovered to sue you. Quebec gives three.

In Ontario, part payment of a liquidated sum “has the same effect” as a signed acknowledgment, so a single $20 payment on a four-year-old debt hands the creditor a fresh two years. Alberta and British Columbia say the same thing in their own words. A collector calling about something very old is often fishing for exactly that.

An expired limitation period also doesn’t erase the debt. It’s a defence you have to raise yourself. As Éducaloi notes for Quebec, a lawsuit isn’t automatically rejected when it’s filed, because the judge can’t make the argument for you. If a creditor sues on a time-barred debt and you don’t show up, the default judgment is real, and so is the garnishment that can follow it.

Judgments outlive the deadline as well. Once granted, one is enforceable for ten years in Alberta and six in Ontario before it needs leave or renewal. The debt also sits on your credit report on its own schedule. Equifax (opens in a new tab) removes a collection account six years from the date of first delinquency, and keeps a judgment for six years, whatever any court could still do.

What to do if you’re being garnished right now

Start by finding the judgment. Every garnishment traces back to a court file, and the file tells you who sued, for how much, and when. If you were never served with the claim, a motion to set aside a default judgment is the first thing to ask about, and most provinces run a free court help centre or legal clinic that can walk you through it.

Then apply to vary the exemption. It changes this month’s number rather than next year’s.

Negotiating comes next. A creditor collecting 20% of your pay is being paid slowly and knows it, which is often enough to get a lump-sum settlement accepted at less than the balance. Non-profit credit counselling through Credit Counselling Canada (opens in a new tab) is offered at no cost or low cost, and a counsellor can negotiate on your behalf. A licensed insolvency trustee is the next step up: a consumer proposal or a bankruptcy filing stays most garnishments the day it’s filed, though a support garnishment keeps going regardless.

While all of that is happening, watch what the shortfall does to your account. A garnishment landing on top of a preauthorized payment is how you end up paying NSF and overdraft fees on top of it, so move the automatic payments before the first garnished cheque arrives. If the account itself gets closed, that’s a separate process with its own rules.

Building the buffer back

Most garnishments start with a bill somebody couldn’t cover, which became a missed payment, which became a file at an agency. Canadians carry $712.2 billion in non-mortgage debt, and Equifax Canada (opens in a new tab) put the 90-day delinquency rate on those balances at 1.76% in the second quarter of 2026, up from 1.70% a year earlier. A few hundred dollars set aside is what keeps a bad month from turning into a court file.

Lodavo is a free app that makes rebuilding that cushion more fun than it usually is. You connect the account you already use, and each $25 of your balance earns a ticket in the weekly draw. Someone wins a guaranteed prize of at least $100 every week, and the top prize is $10,000. Lodavo never holds your money, so using it doesn’t change where your savings sit. Whether to clear the debt or build the cushion first is a question worth working through properly, and the answer is usually both, in a particular order.

Know the number before you agree to anything

The most useful thing on this page is the first one. An ordinary creditor can’t touch your pay without a judgment, and once there is one, the province decides the maximum. Knowing your province’s number turns a threatening phone call into a fact you can check, and knowing you can ask the court to raise the exemption turns that number into something you can argue about.

If you’re on the other side of this and would rather stay there, the cushion is what keeps you there. Download Lodavo free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab) and start earning tickets in the weekly draw on the savings already sitting in your own account.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Garnishment rules and exemption amounts change, and the ones that apply to you depend on your province and on the specific order. Check the linked legislation or talk to a legal clinic before acting on a court document.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.