From filing the application to the first deduction, roughly two to three months. About two months of that is waiting for the hearing date after the summons is issued. Add another seven days after service before the order comes into force, plus one pay cycle before the first deduction lands in your account. Delays happen when affidavits need amending or the debtor requests an adjournment.
What Should You Know About Attachment of Earnings?
Written by James Woods, Managing Director
Written by James Woods, Managing Director
Table of Contents
Debt collectors, such as eCollect in conjunction with our associated legal firm E C Legal, our legal escalation team, are having some success with Attachment of Earnings applications in situations where our client has obtained judgment against the debtor but the debtor is still ignoring a debt collector, unwilling or unable to pay.
The attachment of earnings procedure can be a very important part of our broader debt recovery services. It involves asking the court to order that the debtor's employer pay eCollect the amount ordered to be paid (including interest and costs) by making deductions from the wages or salary payments to the debtor.
An Attachment of Earnings Order cannot be made if the debtor receives Centrelink benefits, or if the debtor is self-employed, which is one of several limits specific to personal debt collection matters of this kind.
If the application is granted, the obligation to make the deductions from the debtor’s wages or salary is on the employer. The debt collection agency experience is that employers usually comply with court orders of this type as the employer is liable to pay from its own pocket if it fails to comply with the court orders.
The attachment of earnings process usually follows this course:
issue the application with the court by filing a summons with a supporting affidavit;
issue a subpoena to the employer to attend and produce the wage and salary records of the debtor at the hearing of the attachment of earnings application;
the summons, supporting affidavit and forms for completion by the debtor are served on the debtor and the subpoena is served on the employer;
a solicitor must attend at the court hearing date which is about two months after the issue of the summons;
at the hearing, the court calculates how much of the debtors wage and salary payment should be protected from deduction. The protected earnings amount is determined by legislation. The documents received from the employer or the evidence given by a staff member of the employer will make it clear against whom the order is made. A maximum of 20 per cent of the debtors pay after tax can be taken out under an Attachment of Earnings Order. If the debtor appears in court (most do not) they will be given the opportunity of putting whatever material is relevant before the court. At the conclusion of the hearing, which takes between 15 – 45 minutes, the court will make an order that the employer make deduct payments of a fixed amount from the debtors salary and pay those amounts to the eCollect Trust Account;
serve a copy of the order on the debtor and the employer;
payments should commence to eCollect shortly afterwards;
The court will usually make an order in our client's favour for legal costs incurred. These costs are added to the amounts already ordered to be paid and are paid by the deductions from the debtor's wages and salaries. Court procedures and timeframes can vary slightly by state, and our debt collectors across Australia handle the local filing requirements either way.
Where we know where a debtor is working, the attachment of earnings process is a good method to get paid. If the debtor is a business rather than an individual employee, this process doesn't apply, see commercial debt collection instead.
For debt collection services, contact eCollect via email at info@eCollect.com.au or 1300 666 585.
Better still, to get eCollect on the job quickly, use our Debt Terminator software, or request a free debt appraisal directly. Enter the information for your debt for fast debt collection.
FAQs
No. It's a court order, not a request. An employer who refuses to comply becomes personally liable for the amounts that should have been deducted. If there's a genuine error (wrong employee, employee no longer on payroll, amount clearly incorrect), the employer raises it with the court in writing. Ignoring the order is the fastest way to end up paying the debt yourself.
The court sets the exact amount, but there's a hard ceiling. In broad terms, no more than about 20 per cent of after-tax pay is redirected under an attachment of earnings order. On top of that, the deduction can't reduce the debtor's take-home below the protected earnings rate for that state. In NSW that floor is $626.10 per week net (as at 1 April 2026). Victoria and Queensland set the protected amount on the order itself.
The order doesn't automatically follow the debtor. The current employer must notify the court, usually within seven days of the employee leaving. The creditor then needs to identify the new employer and either apply for a fresh order or vary the existing one to name the new employer. It's a gap in the process the debtor sometimes exploits, which is why keeping tabs on the debtor's employment matters.
They're the same concept with different labels. Attachment of earnings is the Victorian term for a wage-focused order. Garnishee is the NSW term and covers wages, bank accounts and debts owed to the judgment debtor. Queensland uses warrant of redirection of earnings. All three redirect money that would otherwise go to the debtor, straight to the creditor.
An attachment of earnings order can't be made. Centrelink payments are protected from this kind of deduction. You'd look at other enforcement options: examination summons to find other assets, warrant for seizure of property, or in some cases bankruptcy proceedings if the debt is large enough.
Yes, and it varies by state. Queensland gives you six years from the judgment date to apply for a warrant of redirection of earnings. NSW and Victoria have their own limitation rules. For the full picture on enforcement windows, see the[ time limit for debt collection](https://www.ecollect.com.au/blog/is-there-a-time-limit-for-debt-collection-in-australia) and how long you have to enforce a judgment.
James Woods
Managing Director
James has operated businesses since his late teens including windsurfer hire (1977 – 1981), yacht charter (1990 – 2001), motor accident repairs (1984 – 1989) and debt recovery (2002 to the present). He holds a B.A. and LL.B. from Monash University and was admitted as a lawyer in 1983. He is also a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
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