It's important you pay super guarantee contributions to the right super fund account to avoid penalties.
Super guarantee contributions should be paid to one of the following:
- Employee's chosen fund
- Employee's stapled super fund
- Other fund that meets your choice of fund obligations
Employee's chosen fund
You must pay super guarantee contributions to your eligible employee's chosen fund if they nominate one. An employee will generally tell you their choice of fund by completing a Superannuation standard choice form.
You have 2 months to start paying contributions into their chosen fund. However, where you are required to make contributions earlier, and you are not yet able to pay to the chosen fund, you must pay to:
- their stapled super fund (for employees who joined you from 1 November 2021)
- your employer default fund (if we advise you that the employee does not have a stapled super fund).
Employee's stapled super fund
If your employee doesn't choose a super fund, you pay super guarantee contributions to their stapled super fund.
You can request the stapled super fund details for new employees from us via ATO online services.
- You can make a request once they have accepted your offer of employment (you must still provide them with a Superannuation standard choice form).
- If the employee started with you before 1 November 2021, you're not required to pay their super into a stapled super fund. You can pay to your employer default fund.
If the stapled super fund account provided by us can't accept contributions for the employee, you should request an alternate stapled super fund from us. This may occur, for example, if the account has since been closed or a defined benefit account won't accept your contributions.
If the stapled super fund account provided by us is a self-managed super fund, you should obtain the electronic service address and bank account details from your employee.
Phone us on 13 10 20 if:
- you make another request for an alternate stapled super fund and the same, or no, stapled super fund details are returned
- your employee can't provide you with their self-managed super fund bank account details.
Other funds that meet your choice of fund obligations
You can pay into your employer default fund, or another fund that meets the choice of fund rules if both the following conditions are met:
- your employee doesn’t choose a super fund
- your employee started from 1 November 2021 and we have advised you that they don’t have a stapled super fund.