{"data":{"id":"us/31-cfr-212.3","jurisdiction":"us","citation":"31 CFR 212.3","heading":"Definitions.","body":"For the purposes of this part, the following definitions apply.\nAccount means an account, including a master account or sub account, at a financial institution and to which an electronic payment may be directly routed.\nAccount holder means a natural person against whom a garnishment order is issued and whose name appears in a financial institution's records as the direct or beneficial owner of an account.\nAccount review means the process of examining deposits in an account to determine if a benefit agency has deposited a benefit payment into the account during the lookback period.\nBenefit agency means the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), or the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB).\nBenefit payment means a Federal benefit payment referred to in § 212.2(b) paid by direct deposit to an account with the character “XX” encoded in positions 54 and 55 of the Company Entry Description field and the number “2” encoded in the Originator Status Code field of the Batch Header Record of the direct deposit entry.\nFederal banking agency means the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, or the National Credit Union Administration.\nFinancial institution means a bank, savings association, credit union, or other entity chartered under Federal or State law to engage in the business of banking.\nFreeze or account freeze means an action by a financial institution to seize, withhold, or preserve funds, or to otherwise prevent an account holder from drawing on or transacting against funds in an account, in response to a garnishment order.\nGarnish or garnishment means execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process.\nGarnishment fee means any service or legal processing fee, charged by a financial institution to an account holder, for processing a garnishment order or any associated withholding or release of funds.\nGarnishment order or order means a writ, order, notice, summons, judgment, levy or similar written instruction issued by a court, a State or State agency, a municipality or municipal corporation, or a State child support enforcement agency, including a lien arising by operation of law for overdue child support or an order to freeze the assets in an account, to effect a garnishment against a debtor.\nLookback period means the two month period that begins on the date preceding the date of account review and ends on the corresponding date of the month two months earlier, or on the last date of the month two months earlier if the corresponding date does not exist. Examples illustrating the application of this definition are included in appendix C to this part.\nProtected amount means the lesser of the sum of all benefit payments posted to an account between the close of business on the beginning date of the lookback period and the open of business on the ending date of the lookback period, or the balance in an account when the account review is performed. Examples illustrating the application of this definition are included in Appendix C to this part.\nState means a State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Guam, or the United States Virgin Islands.\nState child support enforcement agency means the single and separate organizational unit in a State that has the responsibility for administering or supervising the State's plan for child and spousal support pursuant to Title IV, Part D, of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 654.\nUnited States means:\n(1) A Federal corporation,\n(2) An agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States, or\n(3) An instrumentality of the United States, as set forth in 28 U.S.C. 3002(15).","path":["Title 31—Money and Finance: Treasury","Subtitle B—Regulations Relating to Money and Finance","CHAPTER II—FISCAL SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY","SUBCHAPTER A—BUREAU OF THE FISCAL SERVICE","PART 212—GARNISHMENT OF ACCOUNTS CONTAINING FEDERAL BENEFIT PAYMENTS"],"source_url":"https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2026-08-25/title-31.xml","current_through":"2026-08-25","vintage":"","retrieved_at":"2026-08-27T02:25:25Z","sha256":"6ba43189a853ea539d55e342dbf15a5fe4c23030cb65689afae114bcc39f981c","source_id":"us-cfr","stale":true,"prev":"us/31-cfr-212.2","next":"us/31-cfr-212.4"},"notice":"GroundRules: Original legal text. Not legal advice."}