The superannuation guarantee, explained

What the guarantee actually obliges an employer to do

The superannuation guarantee is a legal minimum, not a benefit an employer chooses to offer. If you are an employee, your employer must contribute a set percentage of your earnings to a complying super fund on your behalf, and must do it on time. For 2026–27 that percentage is 12%. It is a minimum in the true sense: an award, an enterprise agreement or your own contract can require more, and many public-sector schemes do, but nothing can require less.

Two features of the guarantee cause most of the confusion. First, it is calculated on your earnings and paid on top of them, so it is not a deduction from your pay — see how Australian take-home pay is actually calculated for where the actual deductions come from. Second, the money is not yours to spend now. It goes to a fund, is generally preserved until you reach your preservation age and retire, and is taxed inside the fund on the way in and on its earnings.

Employer super = min(earnings base, maximum contribution base) × 12%

2026–27:  rate 12%
          maximum contribution base $270,830 a year ($67,707.50 a quarter)
          maximum compulsory super  $32,499.60 a year

Ordinary time earnings is the base, and overtime usually is not

Super is not 12% of everything your employer pays you. The earnings base is built around ordinary time earnings, or OTE: what you earn for your ordinary hours of work. Getting this boundary right matters most to people whose pay is not a flat salary, because two employees with identical gross pay can be entitled to quite different amounts of super.

Generally inside the base

• Ordinary hours pay, including salary and wages for your normal roster.
• Casual loading and shift loadings paid for ordinary hours.
• Most allowances paid as part of ordinary pay, such as a site or qualification allowance.
• Over-award payments, commissions, and bonuses that relate to ordinary hours of work.
• Paid leave you take while employed, such as annual and personal leave.

Generally outside the base

• Overtime — hours worked outside your ordinary hours, and overtime penalty rates.
• Expense reimbursements, which are repayments of money you spent, not earnings.
• Unused annual leave paid out when your employment ends.
• Some genuine performance bonuses tied specifically to work outside ordinary hours.

The boundary is defined by your ordinary hours, which come from your award, agreement or contract rather than from what feels normal. If your roster has no clearly defined ordinary hours, the ATO’s guidance on how much super to pay explains how the base is worked out, and it is worth reading before assuming that everything on your payslip attracts 12%.

Where compulsory super stops growing

The guarantee has a ceiling. The maximum contribution base is the level of earnings above which an employer is not required to contribute, set at $270,830 for 2026–27. The ATO publishes it as a per-quarter figure — $67,707.50 of earnings in a quarter — because the test is applied quarter by quarter rather than as a single annual total. For a steady salary the two amount to the same thing.

Notice that the last two rows contribute the same dollar amount. Once earnings pass the maximum contribution base, extra salary generates no extra compulsory super, so super becomes a smaller and smaller share of total remuneration. That is worth knowing when you are reading a total package at a high salary, because the usual “divide by 1.12” shortcut quietly stops working.

When it has to be paid, and why the timing matters

Accruing super is not paying it. The long-standing minimum has been quarterly: contributions for a quarter must reach the fund shortly after that quarter ends, and the ATO publishes the cut-off dates, which fall 28 days after the end of each quarter. Many employers pay with each pay run instead, and the direction of reform is towards contributions arriving with your ordinary pay rather than months later. Check the ATO’s guidance on paying super contributions for the timing that applies to your employer in the current year.

Timing is not a technicality for two reasons. Contributions that arrive late are invested late, and over a career the compounding difference is real. Late payment also has consequences for the employer, which is why the deadline is enforced rather than treated as a target. If your payslip shows super accruing every fortnight but your fund shows one deposit a quarter, that is normal — the payslip records the entitlement, not the payment.

Which fund it goes to, and what happens once it arrives

Most employees can choose their fund by giving their employer a standard choice form. If you do not choose, your employer asks the ATO whether you already have a “stapled” fund and pays into that one. Stapling exists to stop a new account, with a new set of fees and often a new insurance policy, being opened every time you change jobs. Some employees under particular agreements or in defined benefit schemes have limited choice.

Once the money arrives it stops behaving like salary. Employer contributions are concessional contributions, taxed inside the fund at the concessional rate rather than at your marginal rate, and the fund’s investment earnings are taxed there too. The balance is generally preserved until you reach your preservation age and meet a condition of release. Concessional contributions are also subject to an annual cap, which matters if you add salary sacrifice on top of a large employer contribution — worth checking with your fund before you set the amount.

If your super has not been paid

1. Compare your payslips with your fund. Payslips show what was accrued; only your fund account or its app shows what arrived, and when.
2. Check which fund your employer is actually using. Contributions sometimes go to an older account you have forgotten, particularly if you never returned a choice form.
3. Ask your employer in writing for the payment dates and the fund details for the periods in question.
4. If the money is still missing, lodge an enquiry with the ATO about unpaid super. The ATO can investigate the employer and pursue the shortfall.
5. Keep your records. Payslips, contracts and your fund's transaction history are the evidence any enquiry will rest on.

It is worth doing this once a year even when nothing looks wrong. Unpaid super is easiest to recover when it is recent, and the shortfall is invisible on a payslip that lists the contribution as though it had already been made.

What the OzCalc super calculator does and does not model

The super calculator applies the 12% rate to the salary you enter, caps the earnings base at $270,830, and can split an inclusive package into base salary and super. The salary package calculator does the same from the job-ad side, which is the subject of salary plus super versus a total package.

The important simplification is that both treat the figure you enter as the earnings base. If part of your pay is overtime, that figure is too high and the calculators will overstate your super; if an award or contract requires more than 12%, they will understate it. They do not model salary sacrifice, personal deductible contributions, contribution caps, insurance premiums or fees deducted inside the fund, investment returns, or the under-18 hours test. Nor do they know whether a bonus in your package is part of ordinary time earnings — that judgement belongs to your award and the ATO’s guidance, and for a payslip-level view of what you actually take home, use the salary calculator.

Common questions