That silence is what makes it frightening. Once you have two numbers, the balance and the deduction, it becomes arithmetic.

The deduction is fixed by statutory tables in Schedule 2 to the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, not by whoever is chasing you.

Below is a ready reckoner that turns four common balances into a number of months. If the deduction on your payslip is still a mystery, start with what a wage arrestment actually is.

Divide the balance by the deduction your pay produces and you have the number of pay days left. On monthly net pay of £1,800.00, the deduction is £172.50, so a £2,000.00 balance clears in about 12 payments.

Two numbers decide everything. The balance the creditor is still claiming, and the deduction set by the table for your pay frequency, which is why how much they can take from your wages and how long it lasts are the same question.

The monthly deduction table, from 6 April 2025

These bands were substituted into Schedule 2 by the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024, in force from 6 April 2025. They were still the live figures in August 2026.

Check any deduction quoted elsewhere against this table, because figures published before 6 April 2025 belong to the bands these replaced.

The duration ready reckoner

Every cell below is the number of monthly deductions needed to reach that balance. Read down to your net pay, then across to the debt you owe.

The spread is the point. At £1,400.00 net a month the deduction is £97.50, so £10,000.00 takes 103 payments, which is 8 years and 7 months.

At £2,600.00 net that same balance clears in 30 payments. Round up rather than down, because the last payment is usually a part payment that still needs a pay day.

What the ready reckoner leaves out

It is an estimate, not a quotation. It ignores the £1.00 your employer may take for each deduction, which comes out of your pay rather than off the debt.

It also ignores the 10% surcharge added when a summary warrant is granted on council tax, the sheriff officer expenses added to the balance, and interest still running on an ordinary decree debt.

Every one of those lengthens the run. Ask for a written statement of the balance before you trust any total.

If the debt behind it is council tax, our council tax billing and collection guide sets out the notices that should have arrived before the warrant was granted.

It ends when the balance is cleared, when the employment it was served on ends, when a formal debt solution takes effect, or when the creditor recalls it. Nothing else switches it off.

The schedule is served on your employer, not on you. Payroll then has a legal duty to operate it every pay day, whatever you think about why the arrestment was granted in the first place.

The four endings

• The balance is paid. Your employer stops once the arrested sum, the expenses and any surcharge have been collected.
• You leave that employer. The arrestment falls with the job it was served on.
• A statutory solution takes over, such as an approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme.
• The creditor instructs the sheriff officers to stop, for example where a payment arrangement has been agreed.

That last one is worth chasing. Where the debt is council tax, ask the council about a special payment arrangement covering the whole remaining balance.

Reinstating instalments is at the council’s discretion rather than a right.

Why there is no date on day one

Your deduction is recalculated at every pay date from that period’s net earnings, so overtime, a bonus or a quiet month moves the figure.

Sheriff officers can tell you the balance outstanding today, which you can then update as payslips arrive.

A month below the protected threshold takes nothing at all and pushes the finish line back. A pay rise into a higher band pulls it forward, and leaving the job stops the deductions without touching the debt.

This is the part to plan around. An earnings arrestment is not a fixed instalment plan, and its length moves with every payslip.

Months when nothing is taken at all

Monthly net earnings of £750.00 or less produce a nil deduction, and weekly net earnings of £172.61 or less do the same. A month where your net pay falls to £749 produces a deduction of £0.00.

That is protection rather than a saving, because the balance is untouched and the run simply gets a month longer.

The floor is a cash figure rather than a share of your pay. There is no percentage cap on an earnings arrestment, so the deduction climbs through the bands as your net pay rises.

When a pay rise makes it end sooner

The bands are steep once you pass £1,500.00. Moving from £2,200.00 to £2,600.00 net a month lifts the deduction from £252.50 to £337.50.

On a £5,000.00 balance that is the difference between 20 monthly payments and 15. Payroll has no discretion either way, because the table decides it.

What leaving the job does to the clock

An earnings arrestment falls with the employment it was served on. It does not follow you to a new employer automatically.

The creditor has to trace where you work now and serve a fresh schedule, which buys a gap rather than an ending. Sheriff officers are good at finding new employers, whichever of the debts that lead to a wage arrestment is behind yours.

Meanwhile the balance can keep growing where interest or further expenses apply.

The arrestment carries no expiry date and will keep running while you stay in that job and the balance is outstanding. Time limits attach to the debt behind it, not to the deduction itself.

Three separate clocks get muddled here. The charge for payment, the prescription of the debt and the life of the warrant are different things, and they vary by which creditor is enforcing.

How long a charge for payment stays good

Where a creditor holds an ordinary court decree, sheriff officers serve a charge for payment first, giving you 14 days to pay in the UK, or 28 days if you are abroad or your whereabouts are unknown.

That charge stays valid for diligence for two years from the date it was served. It is the creditor’s permission slip to start, and it does nothing to shorten an arrestment already running.

Council tax works differently, because a council enforcing a summary warrant does not have to serve a charge at all. The difference between the two names for the same diligence matters far less than which document the creditor is holding.

When the debt itself times out

Most consumer debts sit under the five-year short negative prescription, including credit cards, loans, overdrafts and catalogue balances. They are extinguished where there has been no relevant claim, payment or written acknowledgement in that period.

Council tax is expressly excluded from the five-year rule, along with non-domestic rates and the surcharges, fees and enforcement expenses attached to them. It falls under the twenty-year long negative prescription instead.

Enforcement does not send that twenty years back to the start. Since 28 February 2025 a relevant claim, which includes executing diligence, extends the period until the claim is finally disposed of.

A payment or a written acknowledgement has no effect on the twenty-year period at all, because section 10(1) of the 1973 Act now reaches sections 6 and 8A only. Our council tax debt advice page covers what a council will and will not agree to.

Waiting it out is still not a plan, because a live diligence holds the period open for as long as it runs.

Yes. An approved Debt Payment Programme, a protected trust deed on the date of protection, sequestration on the date of sequestration and a Time to Pay Order all stop an existing earnings arrestment.

These are the reliable routes other than paying the balance. No hardship application reduces a Schedule 2 deduction because you cannot afford it.

The Debt Arrangement Scheme

Once a Debt Payment Programme is approved under the Debt Arrangement Scheme, an existing earnings arrestment stops and creditors cannot start new diligence. It is run by the Accountant in Bankruptcy through the DAS Administrator.

You repay in full over an agreed period, with interest, fees and charges frozen and written off on completion. The average programme runs about six years, so weigh that against your reckoner figure.

Council tax arrears can go into a programme. Your current-year council tax cannot, so that still has to be paid alongside.

Trust deeds, sequestration and MAP

A protected trust deed ends an earnings arrestment on the date of protection, under s.173 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016. Between signing and protection you are still exposed, which is why a moratorium normally runs alongside it.

Sequestration does the same on the date of sequestration, under s.72(2) of the 1987 Act, and Minimal Asset Process counts as sequestration for this purpose. The arrestment is replaced by a Debtor Contribution Order.

Money already deducted before any of those dates is credited against the debt rather than refunded.

A statutory moratorium gives six months of protection and you get one per rolling 12 months. It stops service of a charge for payment, stops new diligence and stops creditor petitions for sequestration.

It does not stop a creditor obtaining a decree, and interest and charges keep accruing throughout.

Time to Pay Orders

A Time to Pay Order is applied for after decree, and it is competent against a summary warrant. Where the sheriff grants one, the sheriff must recall any existing earnings arrestment.

The debt has to be £25,000 or less excluding interest, and the test is what is reasonable in all the circumstances. A Time to Pay Direction is the pre-decree version, and that one is not available against a summary warrant.

Whether an application is competent depends on your own facts. The sheriff clerk at your local sheriff court or a money adviser can confirm it before you apply.

Ask the creditor for a written statement of the balance, then check your last payslip against the monthly table. Those two numbers turn an open-ended worry into a date you can plan around.

The four things to ask for this week

• A copy of the earnings arrestment schedule from payroll, so you know which creditor is behind it.
• A written breakdown from the sheriff officers or the council showing the debt, the surcharge and the expenses separately.
• Your last three payslips, showing the deduction and the £1.00 charge as separate lines.
• A second opinion from our wage arrestment calculator, to check payroll has used the right band for your pay frequency.

When to stop calculating and get advice

If your figure runs into years, that is the signal to speak to a money adviser. Free help comes from Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, Money Advice Scotland and National Debtline.

If the deduction leaves you short of rent, food or heating, do not sit on it. A sheriff cannot reduce a Schedule 2 deduction, so the answer has to come from a debt solution.