Bank account garnishment for debt in Peru: a judge orders it for private debt, and some income is protected

The underlying mistake: assuming a creditor can move directly against your account

When someone owes money and starts getting insistent collection calls, it’s easy to feel like the bank could freeze the account at any moment, at the creditor’s request. That’s not how it works for a private debt: garnishing a bank account over a private debt requires, without exception, a judicial order within a legal process — it is never a decision the bank or the creditor can make on their own.

This page focuses on private debt, which is the most common case. But there’s an important exception not to confuse with the above: if the debt is a tax debt (owed to Sunat), the agency does not need to go to a judge. Article 118 of the Tax Code lets an ejecutor coactivo — an administrative official, not a judge — directly order that same garnishment by retention on your bank account. Municipal debts (property tax, municipal fees, traffic tickets) are collected under a different law, Law No. 26979 on coercive enforcement: its article 33(d) lets the ejecutor coactivo order the same retention on accounts held by third parties, also with no judge. It is not article 118 of the Tax Code. The rest of this page, unless stated otherwise, describes the judicial procedure for private debt.

How a bank account garnishment actually works

The legal mechanism is called garnishment by retention (embargo en forma de retención), set out in article 657 of the Code of Civil Procedure:

“Cuando la medida recae sobre derechos de crédito u otros bienes en posesión de terceros, cuyo titular es el afectado con ella, puede ordenarse al poseedor retener el pago a la orden del Juzgado, depositando el dinero en el Banco de la Nación.”

In plain terms: the bank is a “third party” holding money that belongs to you. The judge, within a judicial process, orders that bank to withhold your funds and deposit them to the court’s order — not directly to the creditor. Without that specific judicial order, the bank has no authority whatsoever to freeze your account.

Since 2008, when the third party is a bank or other financial institution, the judge sends the retention order by email and it takes effect immediately (article 657, as amended by Decreto Legislativo 1069).

This obligation has teeth. If the bank lies to the court and denies holding your money, article 659 makes it liable to pay it anyway, plus any criminal liability that applies:

“Si el intimado para la retención niega falsamente la existencia de créditos o bienes, será obligado a pagar el valor de éstos al vencimiento de la obligación, sin perjuicio de la responsabilidad penal a que haya lugar.”

And if the bank receives the retention order but pays you directly anyway — say, because it didn’t update its systems in time — article 660 forces it to pay again, this time to the court:

“Si el retenedor, incumpliendo la orden de retener, paga directamente al afectado, será obligado a efectuar nuevo pago a la orden del Juzgado.”

How much of your salary or pension is actually protected

Here’s the second part people usually don’t know: even with a valid judicial order, not all of your money can be garnished. Article 648 sets out a list of assets that are exempt from garnishment, with the most relevant one for employees in its subsection 6:

“Las remuneraciones y pensiones, cuando no excedan de cinco Unidades de Referencia Procesal. El exceso es embargable hasta una tercera parte. Cuando se trata de garantizar obligaciones alimentarias, el embargado procederá hasta el sesenta por ciento del total de los ingresos, con la sola deducción de los descuentos establecidos por ley.”

This creates two very different scenarios:

• Ordinary debt (a loan, a credit card, a commercial debt): your salary or pension is protected up to 5 Unidades de Referencia Procesal (URP). Of whatever exceeds that amount, only a third can be garnished.
• Child-support debt (pensión alimenticia): the limit is far broader — up to 60% of your total income can be garnished, with only the legally required payroll deductions subtracted first.

The same article protects other categories of assets, regardless of the type of debt: strictly personal belongings, books and basic food; vehicles, machines and tools indispensable for directly practicing your profession or trade; insignia and uniforms of public officials and military or police equipment; child-support payments you receive; the movable property of religious temples; and gravesites:

“Son inembargables: … 3. Las prendas de estricto uso personal, libros y alimentos básicos del obligado y de sus parientes con los que conforma una unidad familiar, así como los bienes que resultan indispensables para su subsistencia; 4. Los vehículos, máquinas, utensilios y herramientas indispensables para el ejercicio directo de la profesión, oficio, enseñanza o aprendizaje del obligado … No obstante, pueden afectarse los bienes señalados en los incisos 3. y 4., cuando se trata de garantizar el pago del precio en que han sido adquiridos.”

That last sentence matters: the protection on your work tools or basic belongings falls away if the debt being claimed is precisely the outstanding price of those same items (for example, a machine you bought on credit and haven’t finished paying off).

Foreigners

If you have a bank account in Peru, these same garnishment-by-retention rules and the same exemptions under article 648 apply regardless of your nationality — what triggers these rules is that the judicial process and the bank account are in Peru, not the account holder’s nationality.