Guide To Making Super Contributions In Australia

Employer contributions are the general superannuation guarantee (SG) contributions that employers are required to pay into your account by law.

This rate currently sits at 11% and is scheduled to rise to 12% by 2025. A few employers pay more than the SG into your superannuation, which is something to keep in mind in any salary negotiations. Universities, for example, may offer above the SG rate at 17.5%.

You can read more about how the super system was set up and how it works in Australia in our guide.

Related: How Much Super Do I Need to Retire at My Age?

Concessional superannuation contributions are the amounts paid into your superannuation before tax and then taxed at 15% within the fund. So, each pay cycle your employer pays 11% of your wage into a fund of your choice and this is then taxed at 15% within the fund.

In addition to your employer contributions, you can choose to salary sacrifice amounts into your superannuation fund before tax. You do this by filling in a form with your employer and they will take the specified additional amount out of your salary each pay cycle. This is especially useful for anyone in a higher tax bracket, as the additional super funds will only be taxed at 15% once they are in your superannuation fund—a very competitive tax rate.

There are limits on how much you can make in concessional contributions a year with the cap currently sitting at $27,500. But if your superannuation balance is less than $500,000 you may be able to roll up unused caps from the five previous years (but not before 2018-2019 financial year). You can check your personal concessional contributions cap through ATO online services in your myGov account.

Concessional contributions include SG employer contributions, salary sacrifice contributions and tax-deductible contributions made by the self-employed.

Non-concessional contributions are after-tax amounts that you add to your super that you have already paid tax on. To be eligible to make after-tax contributions, you must have less than $1.7 million in super on June 30 of the previous financial year.

If you have exceeded your concessional contributions caps of $27,500 per year, you may still decide to make contributions from after-tax dollars. The annual non-concessional contributions cap is $110,000. Depending on your balance and your age you may be able to use the three-year bring forward rule and make three years’ worth of contributions in one year as well.

There may not be obvious tax advantages to non-concessional contributions but if you have received a large bequest or come into a large sum of money it’s certainly worth putting some of it away to enjoy in your retirement.

Under the government co-contribution scheme the government will also co-contribute up to a limit of $500 if you meet certain eligibility criteria.

To receive the full $500 you need to be earning no more than $42,016 (you may still get some co-contribution if you earn less than $57,016), make non-concessional contributions of $1000 or more into your super fund in a year and not exceed your non-concessional cap for the year.

You also need to be younger than 71 years old and have a superannuation balance less than the general transfer balance cap (currently $1.7 million) at the end of the previous financial year.

You can also claim a tax offset—up to $540—for superannuation contributions you make into the account of a spouse if they earn less than $40,000 ($37,000 for the full tax offset).

To get the full tax offset, the partner would need to make a superannuation contribution into an eligible super fund of $3,000.

If you earn less than $37,000 a year and make a concessional contribution into superannuation you may also be eligible for the low income superannuation tax offset (LISTO) paid into your super fund. This is 15% of the concessional contribution made into super up until a maximum of $500. You just need to make sure your super fund has your tax file number to receive this payment.

And finally, as of January 1, downsizers aged 55 years or older can choose to make a downsizer contribution into their super fund of up to $300,000 per person—or $600,000 for a couple—from the proceeds of selling their home without it affecting contribution limits

All Australians over the age of 18 (and those younger than 18 but who work more than 30 hours a week) are now eligible for superannuation and should be paid the SG rate of 11% on their annualised earnings. Furthermore, the Labor government announced in May that employers would be required to pay workers their super on pay day, rather than quarterly. The rules will apply from July 2026.

To see if you are being paid the correct amount you can check ATO online via myGov to see if payments are being made or contact your superannuation fund. Amounts need to be paid quarterly (at least—most employers pay super as part of their pay cycle) and your employer can be fined if they don’t pay on time.

If it is difficult to discuss with your employer, the ATO also has this checklist and these tools you can use to find out the correct amount, which also details how to report an employer who isn’t paying.

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