These tables do not. They change only when Scottish Ministers make regulations replacing Schedule 2, and they are typically reviewed every two to three years rather than every year.

Here is when the figures last moved, what moves them, and how to tell whether the set in front of you is the live one. The protected earnings limits carry each band with its date.

On 6 April 2025, when the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 substituted Schedule 2 to the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987. That instrument is SSI 2024/293.

What the regulations actually do

They replace the whole of Schedule 2 to the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 rather than editing a single threshold. You can read the 2024 Regulations in full.

Schedule 2 holds three tables, one for weekly pay, one for monthly pay and one for daily pay. When it is replaced, all three move together.

There is still no fortnightly table

Schedule 2 sets a weekly table, a monthly table and a daily table. Fortnightly pay is normally handled using the daily table, or by applying the weekly table to each week in the period.

That gap in Schedule 2 did not change in 2025 either. If your pay is fortnightly, ask which basis has been applied and why, and the weekly calculation sets out the weekly bands.

There is no index-linking behind it

Nothing adjusts these figures quietly in the background. A change requires a new Scottish Statutory Instrument, and between instruments the numbers stand exactly where they are.

That is why a date matters more than a figure here. How much can be taken from your wages sets out the current bands with the date they came into force.

No. No uprating of the earnings arrestment tables was made in April 2026, and the tables that came into force on 6 April 2025 were confirmed as still in force in August 2026.

Why a missing uprating is easy to miss

Nothing is published to announce that figures have stayed the same. The absence of a change leaves no trace, so there is nothing dated to point at for the year it did not happen.

A set of figures with no date attached to it may belong to a superseded table. Check the date before you rely on one.

How to date a set of tables you have found

• Look for the instrument behind them rather than the figures alone.
• The current tables were substituted by SSI 2024/293 and came into force on 6 April 2025.
• Check the monthly nil band, which is £750.00 under the current set.
• Ask payroll which set they are operating, in writing.

There is no fixed annual timetable. The tables are typically reviewed every two to three years, through regulations substituting Schedule 2 to the 1987 Act.

A slower cycle than most annual figures

That is a different rhythm from tax thresholds or benefit rates. It also has a consequence worth understanding before you compare one year with another.

The bands are fixed cash amounts rather than percentages of income. So a rise in your pay between updates moves you further up the table even though the law has not moved at all.

Nothing here can be predicted

We are not going to say when the next set will arrive, because that is a decision for Scottish Ministers. General guidance on debt and diligence in Scotland sits on mygov.scot.

Waiting for an uprating is not a plan in any event. What happens if you earn below the threshold covers the one situation where the tables take nothing.

Net earnings of £750.00 a month, £172.61 a week or £24.66 a day are protected in full. Above that the deduction runs in bands, up to 50% of everything above £3,750.00 a month or £863.06 a week.

One sentence rather than a table

We are not reproducing the bands here, because they belong on the pages built for them. How a wage arrestment is calculated on monthly pay and the weekly calculation carry each band in full.

There is no overall percentage cap on a Scottish earnings arrestment. The protection is the cash nil band and nothing above it.

Every figure in this area, with its date

The third row is the one moving next. A new Act of Sederunt takes effect on 25 September 2026, and whether sheriff officer fees are added to your balance carries both the current charge and its replacement.

Rounding, for anyone checking to the penny

Calculations are worked to two decimal places of a penny and rounded to the nearest whole penny. An exact half penny rounds down.

Because your net earnings for that pay period went up. The sum is worked out again from scratch every period, so the figure follows your pay rather than sitting still.

What section 47(1) requires on every pay day

Your employer is not instructed to take a set sum. Section 47(1) requires them to deduct a sum calculated under the Act from your net earnings on every pay day, so the figure comes from the table rather than from a fixed instruction.

So a pay rise or a busy month changes the answer without anything changing in the law. Whether overtime increases the deduction works through that in detail.

What sits behind a bigger figure

Overtime, a bonus, a backdated payment, a pay rise or a change in what comes off before the tables are read will each move the net earnings figure for a period, and a drop works the same way in reverse. Why an arrestment can take more than you expected runs through each cause as a diagnostic.

Where a genuine error is possible

Mistakes are possible in either direction. The wrong table for a pay frequency, a gross figure used in place of a net one, or a figure carried over from a previous period would each produce the wrong answer.

None of those is settled by waiting for an uprating. Ask for the working first.

Watch for a different deduction entirely

A Direct Earnings Attachment and a Child Maintenance Service deduction from earnings order use their own rates, and the employer guide to Direct Earnings Attachments sets those out. Both leave the employee with at least 60% of net pay, which the Schedule 2 tables do not do.

If a figure on your payslip does not match Schedule 2, check which deduction you are looking at. What a Direct Earnings Attachment is sets out the differences.

No. The protected minimum balance of £1,000 sits on the face of the statute and moves independently of the earnings arrestment tables.

Where the £1,000 comes from

Section 73F(3)(a) of the 1987 Act allows an arrestment to attach only the balance above £1,000. Section 22(2)(a) of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 set that figure with effect from 1 November 2022.

The same provision repealed the old uprating power. So this one is not adjusted alongside anything else.

Two protections doing different jobs

The nil band protects income as it is paid to you. The protected minimum balance protects money already sitting in an account.

Ask payroll in writing for the net earnings figure they used and the band they applied, then check that against the current bands. Those two answers are what the deduction was worked out from.

The questions worth asking

As a check on your own arithmetic, net pay of £1,800.00 a month gives £172.50, £2,200.00 a month gives £252.50, and £400.00 a week gives £36.85.

If the answer does not add up

Applying the wrong table, or working from a gross figure, is a dispute about how the arrestment is operating. Section 50 of the 1987 Act allows an application to the sheriff, and the Scottish courts publish the rules.

Section 50 also covers a declarator that an arrestment is invalid or has ceased to have effect. There is no time limit on either, and no affordability ground in the section.

Deal with the debt instead. There is no guaranteed annual change to wait for, and a sheriff cannot reduce a Schedule 2 deduction because you cannot afford it.

Other routes to raise with an adviser

• An approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme, which stops an existing earnings arrestment and freezes interest, fees and charges.
• A statutory moratorium, giving six months of protection from diligence, one per rolling 12 months.
• A time to pay order, where the debt outstanding is £25,000 or less excluding interest. If the sheriff grants one, the sheriff must recall any existing earnings arrestment, though it is not settled whether an earnings arrestment on its own opens the door to an application, so ask a money adviser or the sheriff clerk whether one is competent on your facts.
• Sequestration, the Minimal Asset Process or a protected trust deed, each of which ends an existing arrestment by statute.

Our guide to the Debt Arrangement Scheme sets out what an approved programme does to an arrestment already running.

Where to get it looked at

Free advice is available from Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, Money Advice Scotland and National Debtline. The Accountant in Bankruptcy publishes guidance on each statutory solution.

Where the debt is council tax, our council tax debt advice page covers what to put in an offer to a council.