Payday Super: What Employers Need to Get Right Now
The biggest change to superannuation guarantee in 30 years took effect on 1 July 2026. It applies to every employer, and it applies now.
The Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Act 2025 commenced on 1 July 2026. Superannuation guarantee is no longer a quarterly obligation. It is now due on every payday, calculated on a broader base, and enforced through an ATO-assessed charge with interest running daily.
If you employ anyone, you are already operating under these rules. Below is where the law now stands, what to check in your payroll, and what to do if super has already been paid late.
Where the Rules Now Stand
1. Super is due on payday
The super fund must receive the contribution within 7 business days of payday. The test is receipt by the fund — not the day you press pay, and not the day your bank account is debited. Clearing house and processing time sits inside your 7 days, not outside it.
Two longer periods apply:
- 20 business days for the first contribution to a particular fund for an employee — a new starter, someone re-starting, or an employee moving from another fund.
- Off-cycle payments — allowances, bonuses, commissions, loadings, payments in advance and back payments — can be deferred to your next regular payday, but only where the employee actually has one.
That last point catches people out. A final bonus or back payment to a departing employee gets no extension, because there is no next regular payday. It is due within 7 business days like anything else. Employers with no settled pay cycle cannot use the off-cycle rule at all.
The SG rate remains 12%.
2. Qualifying Earnings has replaced Ordinary Time Earnings
The calculation base is now Qualifying Earnings, which is wider than OTE. It picks up ordinary time earnings plus all commissions, payments for serving as a company director, payments under labour-only contracts, and the amount of any salary sacrifice reduction.
That last item has a trap in it. A pay event consisting only of salary sacrifice, with no cash paid, is still a payday and still starts the 7 business day clock.
The maximum contributions base is now worked out per payment rather than per quarter.
3. The charge for getting it wrong has been rebuilt
The Superannuation Guarantee Charge is now assessed by the ATO, not self-assessed, and late payment attracts daily compounding interest at the General Interest Charge rate.
The charge is made up of the shortfall itself, notional earnings, and an administrative uplift of 60%. That uplift falls to 40% if the ATO has not initiated an assessment or estimate against you in the past 24 months, and can be reduced to nil if you lodge a voluntary disclosure before an assessment is made.
If the charge is still unpaid after the ATO issues a notice to pay, a further penalty applies — 25% of the unpaid amount, or 50% if you have been penalised on an earlier notice within 24 months.
There is genuinely good news here too. The core charge is now tax deductible, and so are late contributions. Under the old rules neither was. Interest and the late-payment penalty remain non-deductible.
4. The ATO can see it in real time
Single Touch Payroll now reports Qualifying Earnings and your super liability, which is what makes ATO assessment work in practice. There is no longer a lag between missing a payment and the ATO knowing about it.
5. The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House has closed
The SBSCH closed to new registrations on 1 October 2025, and existing users were required to move to an alternative clearing house or direct fund payments by 30 June 2026. If you have not moved, you are exposed now.
6. Funds must allocate within 3 business days
APRA-regulated funds must allocate a contribution to the member’s account within 3 business days of receiving it, down from 20. Employees see their super almost immediately, and any error in fund details, USIs or member numbers surfaces straight away rather than weeks later.
Self-managed funds are different — an SMSF trustee has 28 days after the end of the month. If you contribute to a related SMSF, the allocation timetable is not the same as it is for a retail or industry fund.
What To Check In Your Payroll
1. Confirm your receipt dates, not your payment dates.
Run one pay cycle and check when the money actually landed with each fund. If it took five business days to clear, you have two days of buffer, not seven.
2. Check your earnings classifications.
Commissions, directors’ fees, allowances and salary sacrifice all need to be mapped to Qualifying Earnings. Getting this wrong understates every contribution you make.
3. Look at your new starters separately.
Their first contribution to a fund has a longer deadline, but only the first. It is easy to carry the assumption forward into later pay runs.
4. Identify your off-cycle payments.
Bonus runs, commission payments and back pay need a deliberate decision about which deadline applies — and terminations need to be treated as ordinary 7-day payments.
5. Verify employee fund details.
With a 3 business day allocation window, incorrect USIs and member numbers now cause immediate failures rather than quiet delays.
6. Revisit your cash flow.
The annual cost has not changed but the timing has. Super now leaves your account every pay cycle instead of four times a year.
If Super Has Already Been Paid Late
The position on historical shortfalls is not the same as it is going forward, and one change is easy to miss.
The late payment offset is gone. Under the old rules you could elect to have a late contribution offset against the charge for that quarter. That election now only applies to contributions made before 1 July 2026. If you are working through an old shortfall and you pay it today, you cannot offset it.
Deductibility depends on the period. The charge is deductible for paydays from 1 July 2026. Charge relating to a quarter that ended before then remains non-deductible under the old rules.
Voluntary disclosure still helps. Disclosing before the ATO assesses you can reduce the administrative uplift to nil. Once an assessment is issued, that option is gone.
If you have an unpaid shortfall from an earlier period, the sequencing of what you pay and when now materially changes the cost. Talk to us before you pay it.
Relief For Circumstances Outside Your Control
Where a natural disaster or a widespread technology or platform outage affects employers on a large scale, the ATO can determine that a class of employers is affected and extend the deadline. Where such a determination covers you, the late payment penalty is reduced to nil.
This is not a hardship provision and it is not applied case by case — it operates by class. It is worth knowing it exists if a major outage takes your clearing house or payroll platform down.
ATO guidance: The Commissioner has issued Practical Compliance Guideline PCG 2026/1 on payday super, together with draft Law Companion Rulings LCR 2026/D1 to D3 and draft Practice Statement PS LA 2026/D3 on exceptional circumstances determinations. We are tracking these and will update this page as the drafts are finalised.
How We Can Help
We can review your pay cycles against the new receipt deadlines, map your earnings classifications to Qualifying Earnings, and work through the cost of any historical shortfall before you pay it. If you are not certain your last pay run met the deadline, that is the place to start.
Call us: (02) 6964 4400
Roy Spagnolo & Associates — Chartered Accountants, Griffith NSW
This information is general in nature and current as at 31 July 2026. It does not constitute advice. Please contact our office to discuss your specific circumstances.
