What's your new year looking like?
New year, new super system! I'm excited for the introduction of Payday Super, which will bring a generational change to Australia's super system from 1 July 2026. If you’re an employer who hasn't heard about Payday Super, here are some tips to help you get ready.
Before the new year starts, I'd encourage you to check your business processes and speak to your tax professional if you use one.
What's changing with Payday Super?
For those of you already paying super on payday, there won't be much change. Put simply Payday Super is about paying super on payday. It doesn't matter whether that's weekly, fortnightly or monthly, you will need to pay super at the same time as salary and wages.
Super will now need to be in your employees' accounts within 7 business days. However, if you're onboarding a new employee or paying to a new fund for the first time, you'll have a bit longer (20 business days) for the first payment to hit the account.
Super funds and your payroll providers will also be making updates to their systems to support you complying with Payday Super, including clearer error messages when a fund rejects a contribution. When and how will depend on each provider and fund.
With Payday Super, you'll see changes to how you calculate and report super.
Super will be calculated at 12% on qualifying earnings (QE). This is a new term that includes ordinary time earnings, salary sacrifice contributions, and other amounts paid to extended definition employees (e.g. contractors paid for their labour). For most employers, this won't change the amount of super you pay.
You'll report QE and super liability through Single Touch Payroll (STP). This is where your payroll provider updates will come into play.
How should employers get ready?
Getting ready for Payday Super is a lot like getting ready for the holidays. You don't want to leave it to the last minute. There's plenty you can do now:
- Start paying super payments more frequently. Instead of paying super quarterly, you can start making payments weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
- Check your employees’ super fund details are up to date. Check for error messages about rejected contributions. Keeping accurate records now will save you time down the track.
- Review your internal governance and assurance processes for super reporting.
- Look for alternatives if you’re currently using the ATO’s Small Business Superannuation Clearing House. It will be closed from 1 July 2026.
- Review your cash flow to understand how moving to paying super more frequently will affect your business.
- If you use a tax professional, speak to them or your payroll provider to make sure you're ready for the changes.
Where can employers find out more?
We're continuing to update our website with the latest information. However, we know running a business keeps you busy, so to make it easy we've developed a:
- videoExternal Link and factsheetThis link will download a file on the changes
- SuperStream changes factsheet.
We'll provide more content as we move closer to the start date, so be sure to keep up with our newsrooms and social media channels.
Keep up to date
We have tailored communication channels for medium, large and multinational businesses, to keep you up to date with updates and changes you need to know.
Read more articles in our online Business bulletins newsroom.
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