Payday Super Now in Force: Employers Must Pay Super Every Payday

Background

Superannuation guarantee contributions were previously payable at least quarterly, with due dates of 28 October, 28 January, 28 April, and 28 July. That cadence created a lag between when wages were paid and when the corresponding super contribution reached an employee’s fund, and unpaid or underpaid super has been a persistent enforcement issue for the ATO.

Payday Super aligns super payments with wage payments directly, using improvements to the SuperStream payment rails and near real-time New Payments Platform transfers to support faster processing. The reform had been flagged well in advance of its 1 July 2026 start date to give employers and payroll providers time to migrate systems.

What Changed

• Employers must now pay SG contributions within 7 business days of each payday, instead of quarterly.
• Super is calculated on “qualifying earnings,” a new term combining ordinary time earnings and other payments, rather than the previous OTE-only quarterly base.
• The maximum contribution base (MCB) — the earnings ceiling above which SG is no longer required — moved from a quarterly to an annual calculation. For 2026–27, the annual MCB is $270,830.
• The SG rate remains 12%, with no further legislated increases currently scheduled.
• The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) closed to new users on 1 October 2025, with existing users required to transition to another SuperStream-compliant solution before 30 June 2026.
• The super guarantee charge (SGC) penalty framework shifted from a quarterly shortfall model to a per-pay-period model, with the $20 per-employee administration fee now applied per pay period rather than per quarter.

Payroll Impact

• Payroll teams: Super must now be processed and remitted as part of every pay run, not batched quarterly — this is a structural change to payroll cash-flow timing, not just a rate or threshold update.
• Finance: Cash-flow planning needs to account for weekly, fortnightly, or monthly super outflows aligned to payroll frequency, rather than a single quarterly payment.
• Payroll software / providers: Confirm your provider has migrated off the SBSCH (if previously used) and supports per-payday SG calculation using qualifying earnings and the new annual MCB.
• Compliance: Late or missed payments are now assessed per pay period rather than per quarter, which means compliance monitoring needs to happen far more frequently than under the old system.
• HR: Employees whose year-to-date qualifying earnings reach the $270,830 annual cap partway through the year will stop accruing further SG contributions for the remainder of that financial year — payroll and HR should be able to explain this to affected employees.

Employer Actions

• Confirm your payroll system pays SG contributions within 7 business days of every payday.
• Confirm migration away from the SBSCH is complete, if it was previously used.
• Update internal cash-flow forecasting to reflect per-payday super outflows instead of quarterly lump sums.
• Review high-income employees against the $270,830 annual maximum contribution base for 2026–27.
• Brief payroll administrators on the new per-pay-period super guarantee charge penalty model.
• Take advantage of the ATO’s “educate first” compliance approach during the first 12 months by proactively fixing genuine errors early.

Effective Date

Future Outlook

The ATO has indicated it will take an educate-first approach to Payday Super compliance during the first 12 months, focusing on helping employers adjust rather than issuing penalties for genuine transitional errors. Beyond the immediate rollout, the transfer balance cap rose to $2.1 million from 1 July 2026, and the concessional contributions cap for 2026–27 is $32,500. Employers should expect the ATO to continue publishing guidance and refining SuperStream requirements as the first full year under Payday Super plays out.

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