§ 63.006.Administrative Fee for Certain Costs Incurred by Employers

A cost-recovery provision for the employer caught in someone else’s collection.

An employer required by state or federal law to deduct from an employee’s current wages an amount garnished under a withholding order may deduct monthly an administrative fee from the employee’s disposable earnings, in addition to the amount withheld.

The fee is capped at the lesser of the employer’s actual administrative cost or $10.

Both halves of that cap matter. The employer cannot profit — recovery is limited to actual cost — and cannot recover fully where the cost exceeds $10.

The provision exists because withholding is real work. Payroll systems must be adjusted, remittances made, records kept, and the order tracked against a balance.

The fee comes from the employee, not the creditor, which is the allocation to notice. The person whose wages are being withheld bears the administrative cost of withholding them.

Chapter 158 of the Family Code is expressly excluded, so child support withholding is outside this section and governed by its own fee provision.

"Withholding order" is defined to cover two things: an order under the Higher Education Act student loan provision, and any analogous state or federal order that requires garnishment of current wages and does not itself address the employer’s administrative costs.

The second limb makes this a gap-filler. Where the governing statute deals with employer costs, this section does not apply; where it is silent, this supplies the answer.

The section is a reminder that Texas wage garnishment happens, despite the exemption — but only under the federal and family law regimes the exemption defers to.