Child maintenance works to its own rulebook, and that rulebook sits outside Scots diligence law. It can also outrank Scottish diligence, and the reason is statutory rather than a payroll convention.

Here is how the order is worked out, how much of your pay it can reach, and what happens when it lands on top of an arrestment. The seven types of wage arrestment in Scotland puts every deduction in the family side by side.

The Child Maintenance Service sends the order to your employer, who takes the amount from your net pay. It is an instruction to your employer rather than a request to you.

What the order can cover

An order can collect ongoing child maintenance, arrears that have built up, or both at the same time. The ongoing liability and the arrears are different things, and they can be looked at separately.

Which pay figure it comes off

Deductions are worked out from your net pay for that period. The Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 has its own closed definition for a Scottish arrestment, which is not necessarily the figure used here, and what counts as net earnings for a wage arrestment sets that statutory version out.

The figure moves with your pay, because the calculation is run each pay period. Only payroll needs to handle it.

Where it shows up

The order appears as a deduction line like any other. How you know if you have a wage arrestment covers what to look at on a payslip and what to ask payroll about it.

Because the Child Support Act 1991 gives it an administrative power of its own. No court order and no charge for payment stand behind it.

The two instruments side by side

How that compares with a Scottish arrestment

A creditor pursuing an ordinary debt needs a decree, and a charge for payment has to be served and expire first, giving 14 days to pay in the United Kingdom or 28 days if you are abroad or your whereabouts are unknown.

A council collecting council tax under a summary warrant can move to an earnings arrestment without serving a charge for payment. Whether you can get a wage arrestment without going to court takes that route apart.

The Department for Work and Pensions has a similar power

A direct earnings attachment for a benefit overpayment also needs no court order. Whether the DWP can take money from your wages without a court order covers both powers together, and what a direct earnings attachment is covers that instrument in depth.

Where a question about the amount goes

The calculation behind the order is the Child Maintenance Service’s own decision, so questions about the amount go to the Service rather than to the sheriff court.

There is no fixed percentage, but you must be left with at least 60% of your net earnings. That floor is the protected earnings proportion.

The 60% floor in practical terms

Putting it the other way round, an order cannot take more than 40% of your net pay in a pay period. Where the full amount due would breach that, the deduction is limited.

Three different floors, and they do not merge

Those three floors are not interchangeable. A Scottish earnings arrestment protects a fixed cash nil band with no percentage cap above it, while a deduction from earnings order and a direct earnings attachment each work to a 60% floor.

The direct earnings attachment floor is also measured against your total deductions rather than against the attachment alone. Which type of arrestment takes priority sets the three floors out side by side.

The protected earnings limits for a wage arrestment sets out the Scottish cash bands on their own, in force since 6 April 2025.

The Scottish arrestment has no percentage protection

Above the top threshold a Scottish earnings arrestment takes 50% of everything over £3,750.00 a month or £863.06 a week, both in force since 6 April 2025. Whether a wage arrestment can take more than half your wages works that band through.

It can, and the reason sits in the definition of net earnings rather than in a payroll rule of thumb. Section 73(1)(d) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 takes a priority deduction from earnings order off before net earnings are worked out.

What section 73(1)(d) actually does

A child maintenance deduction from earnings order can outrank an earnings arrestment. Section 73(1)(d) takes off, before net earnings are worked out, any deduction from earnings order that the child support regulations give priority over diligences against earnings, so the tables are then applied to what is left.

The subsection sits in section 73 of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, which is the interpretation section for the whole of Part III.

Why it is stated conditionally

The subsection makes the priority depend on the child support regulations giving that order priority over diligences against earnings. Where they do, the effect is built into the definition of net earnings, so the arrestment tables are applied to a smaller figure.

That is a mechanism, not a discount. Nothing in it lets a sheriff reduce a Schedule 2 deduction, and nothing in it reduces the debt behind the arrestment.

The employer guidance says the same thing from the payroll side

The Department for Work and Pensions employer’s guide to direct earnings attachments sets out the Scottish running order, with the priority orders taken first. That is payroll guidance describing the same effect from the other side.

Both can sit on the same payslip. A deduction from earnings order sits outside Scots diligence law, so the Scottish rule limiting diligence against earnings does not keep it out.

The one-at-a-time rule, and who it binds

Only one diligence against earnings can operate against the same employment at a time, with a current maintenance arrestment as the recognised exception. A second ordinary creditor has to apply for a conjoined arrestment order instead.

That rule governs Scottish diligence rather than a Child Maintenance Service order. Whether you can have more than one wage arrestment at the same time sets out which combinations are competent.

That rule is about diligence against earnings, and a bank arrestment is a separate diligence against a separate asset. The difference between a bank arrestment and a wage arrestment sets the two against each other.

Where a direct earnings attachment lands

A direct earnings attachment comes after the priority group. Where those orders already take 40% or more of your net earnings, no attachment is deducted for that period, though the employer still returns a nil schedule to the Department for Work and Pensions.

The arrestment is not capped by the total

An earnings arrestment is calculated from the statutory tables on its own terms, and the 60% protection is a deduction from earnings order and direct earnings attachment concept that does not apply to it, which how much they can take from your wages sets out band by band.

The route runs through the Child Maintenance Service rather than the sheriff court. A deduction from earnings order is not Scottish diligence, so the arrestment provisions in the 1987 Act do not reach it.

Where a question about the order goes

What the section 50 route is and is not

Section 50 is the only review power over an earnings arrestment, covering validity and disputes about how it operates. Challenging a wage arrestment you think is wrong sets out both applications.

Neither limb carries an affordability ground, and the unduly harsh test in sections 73Q and 73R reaches funds and moveable property rather than wages. An unduly harsh application explains where that test does bite.

Ongoing maintenance and arrears are separate questions

An order can collect ongoing child maintenance, arrears that have built up, or both at once. Which of those the deduction is collecting is a question for the Child Maintenance Service.

What happens to a wage arrestment if you leave your job covers the equivalent question for a Scottish arrestment, which section 47(2) answers expressly.

Deal with the other deductions on the same payslip, because those are the ones a statutory route can act on. The maintenance conversation stays with the Child Maintenance Service.

The routes that act on an arrestment

An approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme stops an existing earnings arrestment, freezes interest, fees and charges and blocks new diligence. Council tax arrears can be included, and the current year’s bill cannot.

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.

A statutory moratorium is the exception. It does not stop an earnings arrestment that was already running.

Section 197(5)(d) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 lets a creditor carry on executing an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment or a conjoined arrestment order that came into effect before the moratorium began.

The insolvency routes

Sequestration ends an existing earnings arrestment on the date of sequestration, and a protected trust deed does the same on the date of protection. Both run through or are registered with the Accountant in Bankruptcy.

Where a sheriff makes a time to pay order, section 9(2)(a) requires recall of any existing earnings arrestment. The debt outstanding must be £25,000 or less excluding interest, and the sheriff must be satisfied an order is reasonable in all the circumstances.

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. How you stop a wage arrestment in Scotland sets the routes out in order.

Check the rest of the household budget

Council Tax Reduction can cover the whole of a council tax liability, and our council tax debt advice page covers how to put an offer to a council.

None of that touches the maintenance itself. It gives the rest of the budget room, and general guidance on debt and diligence sits on mygov.scot.