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Payday Super legislation introduced

On 9 October, the Government introduced Payday Super legislation. It starts 1 July 2026 but is not yet law.

Last updated 3 November 2025

If you're a small business employer, you need to be aware of the key changes. This includes:

  • You must pay superannuation guarantee (SG) at the same time as salary and wages.  
  • Closure of the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) to new registrants from 1 October 2025, and all users from 1 July 2026.
  • SG contributions will generally need to arrive in your employees’ super funds within 7 business days of payday. If the amount is not received by the super fund within the required timeframe, you will be liable for the superannuation guarantee charge (SGC).  

Error messaging from super funds will be improved to ensure you can better understand why a super contribution was rejected and what you need to do to fix it. There will also be changes to provide faster payments and new services, like the member verification request. This will help you to reduce the likelihood of rejected contributions.

Although these proposed changes won’t take effect until 1 July 2026, you don’t have to wait to start paying your super more frequently. You should start preparing now to be able to pay your SG contributions for your employees on payday from 1 July 2026.

We’ve also published draft guidance on our compliance approach for employers for the first year of Payday Super. PCG 2025/D5 sets out the factors we will consider when deciding how to apply our compliance resources to investigate employers in relation to the first year of Payday Super.

Our proposed compliance approach will recognise that employers who try to do the right thing from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, and resolve any issues quickly, should not be the focus of ATO compliance action.

We welcome your feedback by 7 November.

For more information, visit Payday Super.

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