It is a horrible feeling, particularly if the debt is older than you remember. You are not in trouble with the police, because this is civil debt recovery and nothing more.

The rules sit in Schedule 2 to the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, and there is a protected slice of your pay that cannot be touched at all.

It starts when a creditor serves an earnings arrestment schedule on your employer. Before that, the creditor needs either a court decree followed by an expired charge for payment, or a summary warrant if the debt is council tax.

There are two routes, and they feel very different from the debtor’s side.

The ordinary court route

A creditor raises a court action, gets decree, then instructs sheriff officers to serve a charge for payment under s.90 of the 1987 Act. You can read the court’s own explanation of decrees on mygov.scot.

That charge gives you 14 days to pay if you are in the UK. Once the days run out, diligence becomes competent and an earnings arrestment is usually the first thing a creditor reaches for.

The council tax route

Council tax works differently, and this is what catches people out. The council applies to the sheriff court for a summary warrant, which is granted without a hearing and without you getting a chance to argue about liability at that stage.

A 10% statutory surcharge is added to the balance when the warrant is granted, under the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 1992. For council tax, the council can move straight to an earnings arrestment without serving a charge for payment.

If council tax is behind your arrestment, our council tax billing and collection guide sets out the notices that should have arrived first.

How to check the arrestment was served properly

Very few advice pages give you a way to audit your own arrestment, which is a shame because errors do happen. Three things are worth checking before you accept the deduction.

• The creditor holds a decree or a summary warrant, and you can name which one.
• For an ordinary debt, a charge for payment was served and the 14 days expired.
• The deduction matches the table for your pay frequency, not a neighbouring one.

If any of those looks wrong, s.50 of the 1987 Act lets you ask the sheriff to declare the arrestment invalid or to settle a dispute about how it is operating. There is no time limit on either application.

Nothing is taken from monthly net earnings of £750.00 or less, or weekly net earnings of £172.61 or less. Above those thresholds the deduction rises in fixed bands set by law.

The current tables were substituted into Schedule 2 by the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024, in force since 6 April 2025. They were still in force in August 2026.

This matters more than it sounds. Several advice pages are still showing figures that were replaced on 6 April 2025, so a number you find elsewhere may be out of date.

Monthly deduction table, from 6 April 2025

Weekly deduction table, from 6 April 2025

What that means on real monthly pay

Rather than working the percentages yourself, read the figure straight off this table.

Deductions come out of net earnings, meaning after tax, National Insurance and pension contributions. Your employer may also take £1.00 per deduction as an administration charge.

There is no percentage cap on a Scottish earnings arrestment. The 60% floor readers often come across belongs to a DWP direct earnings attachment and to a Child Maintenance Service order.

At the top band the deduction is £625.00 plus half of everything above £3,750.00 a month. Below the nil band, monthly net pay of £749 produces no deduction at all.

Three parties matter: the creditor who is owed the money, the sheriff officers who serve the paperwork, and your employer, who has a legal duty to make the deduction.

Sheriff officers, not bailiffs

Sheriff officers are officers of the court, appointed by and accountable to the sheriff. They are not bailiffs, because bailiffs and High Court Enforcement Officers work in England and Wales under entirely different law.

The firms Scottish councils most often instruct are Scott & Co, Stirling Park, Walker Love and Alex M Adamson.

They are regulated under the Act of Sederunt (Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers Rules) 1991. Complaints about conduct go to the firm first, then to SMASO, then to the sheriff principal.

Your employer

Once the schedule arrives, your employer has to operate it. Refusing to comply makes the employer liable for the sums they should have deducted, so payroll will almost always act on it.

Your employer has no discretion to take more or less than the tables say. They also cannot agree a smaller figure with you, however sympathetic payroll may be.

Your employer cannot lawfully sack you for having a wage arrestment. There is no law permitting dismissal on that ground alone.

Dismissing someone for that reason would expose the employer to an unfair dismissal claim where the employee has the required service. In practice only payroll and whoever processes the paperwork need to know.

There is one honest caveat. Some regulated roles, for example in financial services under FCA rules, involve fitness and propriety checks where serious financial difficulty is relevant.

A wage arrestment on its own is not a bar to any of those roles. If you work in one, it is worth reading your firm’s disclosure policy rather than guessing at it.

What your payslip will show

The deduction appears as its own line, usually labelled earnings arrestment, EA or something close to it. The £1.00 employer charge sits separately from the arrested amount.

Nothing on the payslip names the creditor. Payroll holds the schedule, so that is who to ask if you want to know which debt is behind it.

If you leave that job

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

The creditor would have to trace where you now work and serve a fresh schedule. That is a fact rather than a tactic, because changing jobs leaves the debt intact and usually makes the eventual position worse.

Yes, in several ways. Paying the balance ends it, and statutory solutions such as the Debt Arrangement Scheme, a protected trust deed or sequestration all stop an existing earnings arrestment.

The routes that actually end it

A Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme stops an existing earnings arrestment once it is approved, and freezes interest and charges while you repay.

A protected trust deed ends an arrestment on the date of protection, under s.173 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016.

Sequestration does the same on the date of sequestration, under s.72(2) of the 1987 Act. It happens automatically by operation of law, so there is no separate application to make.

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.

Whether a creditor can carry on an earnings arrestment your employer is already operating is treated differently in the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s adviser guidance from the general statement of the rule. Ask a money adviser to confirm the position on your facts before relying on it.

Time to Pay Orders, including for council tax

A Time to Pay Order is competent against council tax collected by summary warrant, which surprises most people. Where the sheriff grants one, the sheriff must recall any existing earnings arrestment.

That duty is mandatory where an earnings arrestment is running. For an attachment or another form of arrestment the sheriff only has a power to recall or restrict it.

The debt has to be £25,000 or less excluding interest. A money adviser or the sheriff clerk can confirm whether an application is competent on your facts.

A Time to Pay Direction is a different thing, and it is not available on summary warrant debt. A Direction is applied for inside a live court action before decree, and a summary warrant involves no court action to respond to.

If the debt is council tax and you want an arrangement rather than a court route, a special payment arrangement with the council is often the quicker conversation.

Free, impartial money advice is available across Scotland and costs you nothing. Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, Money Advice Scotland and National Debtline all deal with earnings arrestments every day.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy is the statutory body behind the Debt Arrangement Scheme, sequestration and the moratorium, and its guidance is the authoritative source on all three.

Your local council usually has its own welfare rights team, and if the debt is council tax our council tax debt advice page explains what they can and cannot agree to.

What to do this week

• Ask payroll for a copy of the earnings arrestment schedule so you know who the creditor is.
• Check your last payslip against the table above and confirm the figure is right.
• Write down your income and essential outgoings before you speak to anyone.
• Book one advice appointment rather than waiting to see what happens.