Those tables were still the live figures in August 2026, and a lot of what you will find elsewhere has not caught up. If the deduction on your payslip is still a mystery, start with what a wage arrestment actually is.

Below are all three statutory tables, two ready reckoners and the charges added on top.

Net earnings are what is left after income tax, National Insurance and pension contributions have come off. Bonuses, commission and overtime all sit inside that figure, so they lift the deduction in the period they are paid.

Your employer works the figure out through the usual PAYE run, then applies the table that matches your pay frequency. That duty sits with payroll, and the way a wage arrestment works gives them no discretion about it.

What is in the figure and what is not

• In: wages, salary, fees, bonuses, commission, overtime and holiday pay.
• Out: income tax, National Insurance and pension contributions, which come off before the table is applied.
• Out: benefits paid by the DWP, which are not wages at all. A Direct Earnings Attachment is the separate instrument used against those.
• Out: your gross pay. Nothing in the calculation is worked from the gross figure.

Why the deduction moves from one pay day to the next

The sum is redone at every pay date from that period’s net earnings. A month with overtime or a bonus in it produces a bigger deduction than a quiet one.

Drop below the protected figure for the period and nothing is taken. Monthly net pay of £749.00 produces a nil deduction, and the arrestment simply picks up again next time.

On monthly net pay the first £750.00 is untouched. Above that the deduction climbs through four charging bands, from 15% of the excess up to £625.00 plus 50% of anything over £3,750.00.

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. No April 2026 uprating was made, so they were still the current figures in August 2026.

Monthly net pay of £1,800.00 gives £112.50 plus 20% of the £300.00 above £1,500.00, which is £172.50. Net pay of £2,000.00 gives £212.50.

What changed in April 2025, and why a figure you found elsewhere may be years old

The current monthly table runs five bands, charged at 15%, 20%, 25% and 50%, above a nil band of £750.00. It replaced an earlier version of Schedule 2 whose protected figures were lower.

Pages still showing four bands at 19% and 23% are quoting figures replaced on 6 April 2025 by SSI 2024/293. Several of the pages ranking for this question still display them, some stamped with a recent update date.

If your arrestment started before April 2025, check your employer moved across from the first pay period on or after 6 April 2025. Payroll can tell you which table they are running, and our wage arrestment calculator is a quick second opinion.

The monthly ready reckoner

Read down to the net pay closest to yours. Every figure below is worked from the table above rather than estimated.

The last column is the part nobody publishes. Even on £4,500.00 net a month the deduction is 22.22% of your pay, because the lower bands still charge at their own lower rates.

Take another £1.00 off the left to live on column where your employer applies the administration charge. Our guide to how a wage arrestment is calculated on monthly pay walks through the arithmetic line by line.

Weekly net earnings are protected up to £172.61 and daily net earnings up to £24.66. Above those figures the same five bands apply, scaled to the length of the pay period.

Your employer has to use the table matching how often you are actually paid. Using the wrong one is one error worth checking for, whichever name your paperwork gives the diligence.

The weekly deduction table, from 6 April 2025

Same instrument, same date, same five bands, with weekly equivalents of the monthly thresholds.

Weekly net pay of £400.00 gives £25.89 plus 20% of the £54.78 above £345.22, which is £36.85 a week.

The weekly ready reckoner

Weekly deductions look small and mount up fast.

That £36.85 a week is £1,916.20 across a full year. Weekly paid workers also lose the £1.00 administration charge every week rather than every month.

The daily deduction table, from 6 April 2025

Same instrument again, and the table that covers shift work, agency work and pay periods that are not a clean week or month. Daily net earnings of £100.00 produce £14.72.

There is no fortnightly table and no four-weekly one. Those periods are normally handled using the daily table, or by applying the weekly table to each week in the period, and a smaller deduction only means the arrestment runs for longer.

No. There is no percentage cap on a Scottish earnings arrestment, and the 60% of net pay you may have read about belongs to a different instrument entirely.

That 60% floor comes from the DWP’s guide for employers on Direct Earnings Attachments, and it protects people with a DEA or a child maintenance Deduction from Earnings Order. It has nothing to do with an earnings arrestment.

An earnings arrestment is protected in a different way. It has a fixed cash floor instead, £750.00 a month, £172.61 a week or £24.66 a day, and nothing above that floor is capped as a share of your pay.

What the top band actually takes

Above £3,750.00 net a month the rate is 50% of the excess, with no ceiling on it. Someone on £6,000.00 net a month therefore loses £1,750.00.

Each rate only applies to the slice of earnings inside its own band. That is why the share of your whole pay always works out lower than the headline rate.

Can two creditors take two deductions?

Only one diligence against earnings can operate against the same employment at a time. A second creditor has to apply for a conjoined arrestment order, which the sheriff clerk at your local sheriff court administers and pays out.

The deduction does not double. It stays at the table figure and is divided between the creditors enforcing against you.

A current maintenance arrestment is the one exception and can run alongside an ordinary earnings arrestment.

How the pennies are rounded

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

That is why the pennies on your payslip may not match a rough sum done on your phone.

Your employer may take £1.00 for each deduction, on top of the arrested sum. On council tax a 10% surcharge and the sheriff officers’ expenses are added to the debt itself.

The £1.00 employer administration charge

It comes out of your pay rather than off the debt. A deduction of £172.50 therefore costs you £173.50 in that month.

It should appear as its own line on your payslip. Ask payroll to break the deduction down if it does not, because that is a separate question from why you were given the arrestment.

The council tax surcharge and the sheriff officer expenses

Where the debt is council tax, 10% of the outstanding balance is added when the summary warrant is granted. That happens without a hearing, before any sheriff officer contacts you.

Sheriff officer expenses are set by the court and added to what you owe. The scale is updated from time to time, so ask for the actual figures in writing rather than trusting a number you read online.

Interest can also keep running on an ordinary decree, depending on which of the debts that lead to a wage arrestment is behind yours.

Our council tax debt advice page covers what a council will and will not agree to, and a special payment arrangement is often what persuades one to call the sheriff officers off.

You cannot ask your employer to reduce it, and no sheriff can cut a Schedule 2 deduction because you cannot afford it. What can change is the arrestment itself, through a formal debt solution or a Time to Pay Order.

Why payroll cannot help, and what section 50 does not give you

Refusing to operate the schedule makes your employer liable for the sums they should have deducted. So there is no point putting pressure on payroll.

Section 50 of the 1987 Act is the only review route against an earnings arrestment. It lets you ask the sheriff to declare the arrestment invalid or spent, or to settle a dispute about how it is being operated.

There is no affordability or hardship ground anywhere in it.

The routes that genuinely stop the deduction

• An approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme, run by the Accountant in Bankruptcy. Interest, fees and charges are frozen and an existing earnings arrestment stops.
• A statutory moratorium, giving six months of protection once in a rolling 12 months. It stops service of a charge for payment, new diligence and creditor petitions for sequestration.
• A moratorium does not stop a creditor obtaining a decree, and interest and charges keep accruing. Whether a creditor can carry on an arrestment already running is treated differently in the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s adviser guidance from the general rule, so ask a money adviser.
• A Time to Pay Order, which is competent against a summary warrant. Where the sheriff grants one the sheriff must recall any existing earnings arrestment, and the debt has to be £25,000 or less excluding interest.
• A Time to Pay Direction is a different thing and is not available on summary warrant debt. A money adviser or the sheriff clerk can confirm whether an application is competent on your facts.
• A protected trust deed on the date of protection, under the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016. Sequestration ends one on the date of sequestration, and Minimal Asset Process counts as sequestration for this.

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

What to ask for this week

• Which table payroll used, and whether it matches how often you are paid.
• A written breakdown from the creditor showing the debt, the surcharge and the expenses as separate figures.
• Your last three payslips, so the £1.00 charge shows up as its own line.
• The current position on debt and decrees from mygov.scot, plus free advice from Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, Money Advice Scotland or National Debtline.

If the correct figure still leaves you short of rent, food or heating, that is a reason to get advice rather than a reason to accept it. Our council tax billing and collection guide is the place to start where the arrears are council tax.