PAYDAY SUPER IS HERE
From 1 July 2026, employers must pay their employees’ super at the same time as their salary and wages. This is known as Payday Super.
Team Super has the resources to help you, including answers to your frequently asked questions and a troubleshooting guide to help you make payments under the new rules.
WHAT ARE THE KEY RESPONSIBILITIES FOR EMPLOYERS?
Legally, there are a few responsibilities employers need to be aware of when it comes to their super obligations:
Super must be paid to qualifying employees, and the amount under the Super Guarantee is at least 12%;
Under the ATO’s SuperStream rules these payments must be electronic and sent in a standard format;
Employers must allow new and current employees choice of fund and must not give financial advice;
If the employee does not make a choice and has no stapled fund, super may be paid to the employers’ default fund (which must be a MySuper fund like Team Super);
Under Payday Super, super must be paid within seven days of payment of wages or salary (with limited exceptions, such as 20 days for new employees); and
Employers must not give financial advice.
Please see below for more detail, and to see how Team Super could support you with managing your employees’ super.
CHOICE OF FUND AND SUPER STAPLING
A stapled fund is linked, or ‘stapled’, to a person. This means their super will follow them when they change jobs. Stapled funds stop the creation of duplicate super accounts, which may lead to employees paying multiple fees or insurance premiums and would likely reduce their retirement savings.
You need to offer your eligible employees a choice of super fund (PDF) and pay into their chosen account. This includes independent contractors who are employees for super purposes.
If you have eligible new employees start and they don't choose your default or nominated super fund, or elect another fund entirely, you may have an extra step to take to comply with regulations by requesting their ‘stapled super fund’ details from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
You must provide any new eligible employees with an ATO Superannuation Standard Choice form (PDF). This form allows new employees to nominate their preferred super fund or choose the employer’s default fund to pay their super contributions to.
You must also provide employees with this form if you change default funds or if your employee asks for one a Standard Choice form.
Note: New starters must be paid within 20 days of starting under the Payday Super rules.
If an employee doesn't make a choice, you’ll need to check with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to see if they have a ‘stapled super fund’ for you to pay their super contributions into. See 'How do I request an employee's super fund details' below to find out how to do this. If there is a stapled super fund, you must pay their super to this fund.
If your employee does not make a choice and the ATO advises that they don’t have a stapled super fund, you can pay their super contribution into your default super fund.
Before you make a stapled fund request, you need to:
establish an employment relationship.
Some payroll services are integrated with ATO systems, enabling you to search for a stapled fund. If this is not the case, you will need to find the stapled fund via the ATO – see the ATO website for a step-by-step guide.
PROVIDING EMPLOYEE DETAILS
Team Super provides automatic insurance cover, and new members will automatically be invested in the default Lifecycle Investment Strategy according to the person's age, so it’s important you provide us with your employee's correct date of birth.
Providing an employee’s date of birth ensures that:
they receive the correct insurance cover and premium rates; and
they're invested according to their age.
If your employee provides you with their TFN you must pass it on to us with the next super contribution or within 14 days of receiving the TFN, whichever is the later.
If you don’t pass on your employee’s TFN:
they may pay an extra 32% tax on their before-tax contributions;
we can’t accept their after-tax contributions, so they may miss out on government co-contributions if they’re eligible; and
you, the employer, may face fines from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
THE SUPER GUARANTEE AND QUALIFYING EARNINGS
Employers need to make Super Guarantee (SG) contributions for eligible employees regardless of how much the employee is paid.
From 1 July 2026, all employers must use Qualifying Earnings (QE) as the base to calculate both the SG amount and the Super Guarantee Charge (SGC). See the ATO QE factsheet for more information.
PAYING SUPER
Generally, employees are entitled to super contributions equivalent to 12% of their Ordinary Time Earnings (OTE). OTE is not simply ‘gross’ or ‘net’ wage but includes an employee’s total earnings for ordinary hours of work plus over-award payments, shift loading, bonuses, certain paid leave and commission.
Employers must calculate super based on Qualifying Earnings (QE).
Qualifying earnings (QE) is a new concept that applies from 1 July 2026 for the calculation of the Super Guarantee (SG). QE are the types of payments made to employees that are used to calculate the SG under Payday Super.
Employers are required to report the year-to-date amount of QE for each employee through their Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting each payday.
Qualifying earnings include:
OTE;
All commissions paid to an employee;
Salary sacrifice amounts that would qualify as QE had they not been sacrificed to superannuation; and
Earnings paid to workers who fall under the expanded definition of employee, including payments to independent contractors paid mainly for their labour.
This Australian Taxation Office (ATO) factsheet (PDF) lists the payments that will count as QE from 1 July 2026.
Super must be paid within seven business days of salary or wages in most cases – see our Payday Super page for more details. For new starters, you have 20 days.
If you previously paid quarterly
Even if you are not processing your final quarterly payment for 1 April 2026 to 30 June 2026 until the final quarterly deadline payment on 28 July 2026, you will still need to pay any super contributions for pay periods occurring from 1 July 2026 within seven days of paying salary or wages.
You must record your employees’ Reportable Employer Superannuation Contributions (RESC) and report this information to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
The government uses RESC to work out a person’s eligibility for a range of government benefits, including Family Tax Benefit and to calculate child support and Medicare levy obligations.
The ATO has advised that employers must monitor their super contributions for errors after payments are submitted. A super fund has three business days to allocate or reject a payment. If a payment is rejected or returned by a super fund you must identify the issue and fix it quickly, because there’s no extension to the seven business day deadline if a payment is rejected by the fund.
Therefore, when paying super you should:
know where errors will appear (for example, in your payroll software or clearing house);
understand common error messages; and
correct issues as soon as possible so your payment can be resubmitted.
Team Super has put together a list of some of the most common error codes, with information about what they mean and what you can do to rectify them to ensure your payments go through in time to avoid the Superannuation Guarantee Charge.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO GIVE ADVICE
Financial services law prohibits unlicensed persons from giving any advice that takes into account an individual's objectives, financial situation or specific needs.
WHAT INFORMATION CAN YOU GIVE EMPLOYEES?
You can give employees factual information such as:
Provide employees with our Team Super factsheets;
Explain how superannuation works;
Provide factual tax information on superannuation; and
Explain your company's default super fund, including providing a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) issued by the fund.
WHAT CAN'T YOU DO?
You can’t make a recommendation or give an opinion that may influence a person's decision about a financial product unless you’re licensed to do so.
EMPLOYER SUPPORT SERVICES
We’re here to help make managing employees’ super as simple and easy as possible. To see what services we offer, and to find out how to use these services, see our Employer Support page.
THE SMALL BUSINESS SUPER CLEARING HOUSE IS NOW CLOSED
If you previously used the Small Business Super Clearing House (SBSCH), please be aware that the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) switched off this service on 30 June 2026. This means that previous records of payments made through the SBSCH can no longer be accessed. The ATO has provided a checklist which you can download here (PDF) to help guide employers who need to transition away from the SBSCH. If you plan to make payments via your payroll provider, we have provided links to those providers on our Troubleshooting tips page. You may also wish to register as a Team Super employer to access our QuickSuper payment portal at no cost – please see the end of this page for more details.
OPT IN TO REAL-TIME PAYMENTS BY USING QUICKSUPER
QuickSuper* is SuperStream-complaint and accepts New Payment Platform (NPP) payments. Employers who have registered with Team Super can use QuickSuper* clearing house to pay super. The service is free to use, and you can make these payments to employees who are with multiple funds – not just Team Super.
Note: You’ll need to register as a Team Super employer before you can access the Team Super QuickSuper* clearing house portal.
HOW TO REGISTER AS A TEAM SUPER EMPLOYER
Fill out the last two pages after reading the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS)
Email the form to help@admin.teamsuper.com.
Tip: You only need to email the final two pages of the document (the application form which is attached to the end of the Product Disclosure Statement (PDF)).
ALREADY REGISTERED WITH TEAM SUPER?
You can register for QuickSuper*.
* QuickSuper is issued by Westpac Banking Corporation (ABN 33 007 457 141, AFSL 233714). An offer to issue this product may be made to you by Westpac, subject to completion of the application process. The Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) for QuickSuper is available on the Westpac website. You should consider the PDS before deciding to accept any offer made by Westpac to issue the product.