Veterans Alliance is privately owned and operated to serve veterans. We are not affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Veterans Alliance — Veterans Alliance
← All Kansas benefits
otherstate

Federal Pension Money Is Shielded From Garnishment — Three Months of It, and Only on an Affidavit

Money received as a pensioner of the United States within the three months immediately preceding the issuing of an execution, attachment or garnishment may not be applied to the pensioner’s debts where it appears the money is necessary for the maintenance of the debtor or a family supported wholly or in part by it. Filing the debtor’s affidavit is prima facie evidence of that necessity, and the court must then release the money immediately.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

Money received as a pensioner of the United States within the three months immediately preceding the issuing of an execution, attachment or garnishment may not be applied to the pensioner’s debts where it appears the money is necessary for the maintenance of the debtor or a family supported wholly or in part by it. Filing the debtor’s affidavit is prima facie evidence of that necessity, and the court must then release the money immediately.

What it's worth: Up to three months of federal pension money released from a garnishment

  • The sum protected is whatever three months of the pension comes to, so no figure applies generally.
  • It is not an automatic exemption. The protection is conditional on the money being necessary for maintenance, and it has to be asserted — by affidavit or other proof — inside the proceeding.

Who is entitled to it

  • You served, which is the usual route into a federal pension.
  • You are in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

Deadline: As soon as the execution, attachment or garnishment issues
  1. 1File the affidavit, because it is what shifts the position. The subsection makes the filing of the debtor’s affidavit, or making proof as the section provides, PRIMA FACIE evidence that the pension money is necessary for that support.
  2. 2Say who the money supports. The wording covers money necessary for the maintenance of the debtor’s support OR of a family supported wholly or in part by the pension money, so a household that is partly funded by it is inside the section.
  3. 3Once the affidavit is filed the court has a duty, not a discretion: it shall release all moneys held by the attachment or garnishment process IMMEDIATELY upon the filing of the affidavit or the making of the proof.
  4. 4Mind the three months. The protection attaches to money received within the three months immediately preceding the issuing of the execution, attachment or garnishment process — older money in the same account is outside this subsection.
  5. 5Keep pension money identifiable. The section speaks of money received as a pensioner; commingling it with wages and other deposits makes the three-month tracing argument far harder to run.
  6. 6Retirement plan money is protected separately and more strongly. Subsection (b) exempts money or assets payable from, or an interest in, a plan qualified under the named sections of the federal internal revenue code from all claims of creditors, and deems such a plan conclusively to be a spendthrift trust.
  7. 7Two carve-outs cut through subsection (b): an alternate payee under a qualified domestic relations order, and a child support order under article 30 of chapter 23. Neither is a general creditor and neither is stopped by the exemption.
Form
Affidavit of the debtor filed in the pending proceeding
File with
The Kansas district court where the execution, attachment or garnishment is pending
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThis is habitually listed as "Kansas exempts veterans’ benefits from garnishment", full stop. Subsection (a) is far narrower than that on its face: it reaches money received in the THREE MONTHS before the process issued, it is conditional on the money being necessary for maintenance, and it does nothing at all until the debtor files an affidavit or makes proof. An exemption that has to be claimed is not the same as one that runs automatically.
CorrectionThe words in the statute are "pensioner of the United States", not "veteran". The section is therefore both wider than veterans in one direction and, on its face, silent on how it treats compensation paid for a service-connected disability as distinct from a pension. Anyone relying on it for disability compensation should get that question answered in the proceeding rather than assumed.
Worth knowingThe Revisor prints a note against the subsection recording that the word "a" should have been included before "pensioner of the United States" — a drafting slip that has survived since 1887 and changes nothing about the meaning, but is worth knowing before a court asks about it.
Known gapNo form is prescribed for the affidavit, and the section names none. Whether a Kansas court will accept a bank statement showing the deposits as "making proof as provided in this section" was not verified this session.

Sources

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.