Payday super: paying employee super within seven business days of payday

What changed on 1 July 2026

Before 1 July, super guarantee for a quarter had to reach the fund by the 28th of the month after the quarter ended. Wages paid on 1 July 2025 could carry super that was not due until 28 October. That gap has closed.

For pay from 1 July 2026, your contribution is on time only if the employee's fund receives it within 7 business days after payday, with enough information to put it into the right member account. The ATO calls payday the QE day, and it counts as day 0. What counts is the day the fund receives the money. A payment that leaves your account on day 6 and lands on day 8 is late (ATO: payment deadlines for Payday Super).

Counting the seven business days from Brisbane

A business day is any weekday that is not a public holiday for the whole of any Australian state or territory. That includes holidays in other states. The ATO's own examples add a day for Picnic Day in the Northern Territory, which no Queensland employer gets off.

The Ekka holiday works the other way. The Royal Queensland Show holiday applies in the Brisbane area only, so it is not a holiday for the whole of Queensland and still counts as a business day. Next year it falls on Wednesday 11 August 2027 (Queensland Government: public holidays). The King's Birthday holiday on the first Monday in October covers the whole state, so it is not a business day.

When you get longer than seven days

• The first contribution for a new employee, or the first one to a new fund after an existing employee switches, has 20 business days. The same applies when you rehire someone under a new arrangement.
• A payment outside the usual pay cycle, such as a bonus or a back payment, is due with the super for the next regular payday.
• If a new employee's 20-day due date is later than the due date for their second payday, both contributions share the later date. The ATO calls this the bunching rule.
• After a natural disaster or a widespread IT or communications outage, the ATO can make a determination that gives employers in the affected area 20 business days. There is no application, and a determination never covers one employer alone.

What counts as qualifying earnings

Super guarantee is now 12% of qualifying earnings. Everything that counted as ordinary time earnings still counts. The addition most employers will notice is commission: all of it now counts, including commission for work done entirely outside ordinary hours. A bonus for work done entirely outside ordinary hours still does not. Salary sacrificed to super still counts as if it had been paid as wages. Overtime is still excluded where the award or agreement clearly identifies ordinary hours (ATO: what payments are qualifying earnings).

Contractors paid mainly for their labour, and company directors, can still count as employees for super guarantee. Directors' fees are qualifying earnings.

The maximum contribution base is now an annual figure. For 2026–27 it is $270,830 of qualifying earnings; once an employee passes it you can stop paying the minimum super guarantee for the rest of the year, unless an award or agreement says otherwise (ATO: maximum contribution base).

The super guarantee charge is a different charge now

For paydays from 1 July 2026 you no longer lodge a super guarantee statement. The ATO works out the charge for each payday and sends a notice of assessment. The charge has four parts: the unpaid super, notional earnings on it compounding daily at the general interest charge rate, an administrative uplift, and a choice loading of 25% of the contributions if you did not follow the choice of fund rules, capped at $1,200 per notice period (ATO: what happens if you don't pay super correctly).

The uplift starts at 60% of the shortfall and notional earnings. It drops by 20 percentage points if the ATO has not had to assess you in the previous two years, and by up to 40 more if you lodge a voluntary disclosure before you are assessed. For an employer with no ATO-initiated assessment in that period, a disclosure within 30 days of payday takes it to nil.

Two details catch people. The charge for paydays from 1 July 2026 is tax deductible, which the old charge never was, but general interest on a charge you pay late is not. And contributions are applied to the earliest payday with unpaid super, automatically. If you missed two pay runs and then pay the current one on time, the ATO applies that payment to the older of the two missed paydays, and the current payday is left unpaid (ATO: how to work out and pay super).

For the first year, 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, the ATO has said it will sort employers into risk bands by how they handled a late payment. An employer who pays each payday and fixes rejected payments quickly is treated as low risk. One who catches up within 28 days after the end of the quarter is medium risk. For pay runs in July to September 2026, that date is Wednesday 28 October 2026 (ATO: compliance in the first year of Payday Super). If anything from those months is still unpaid, pay it to the funds now rather than waiting for a notice.

The ATO's clearing house has closed

The free Small Business Superannuation Clearing House stopped taking new users on 1 October 2025. Existing users could use it until 30 June 2026, and it has not been available since 1 July 2026. Employers who relied on it now pay through the super function in their payroll software, through a super fund, or through a commercial clearing house (ATO: about Payday Super).

A clearing house's processing time comes out of your seven days. Ask yours how long a payment takes to reach a fund and whether it uses the New Payments Platform, which can deliver on the same day. Funds now have 3 business days to allocate a contribution or send it back, so a rejection can arrive halfway through the window.

Single Touch Payroll and your pay items

Each STP report now has to carry year-to-date qualifying earnings and year-to-date super liability for every employee. If your software could not report them from 1 July, start as soon as it can: from 1 July 2027 the ATO says it will reject reports without them and penalties may apply (ATO: managing the changeover).

Start with the pay items, in Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks or any other payroll software. A commission item flagged as not subject to super was sometimes correct before 1 July, for commission earned outside ordinary hours. It is now wrong in both the super payment and the STP report. If your software offers the new member verification request, use it to check that a fund will accept a contribution before you send the first one.

Cash flow

Quarterly super let the money sit in the business account for up to four months. Now it leaves with the wages.

GST and PAYG withholding still build up in the account between BAS lodgements. If that balance has been quietly covering super too, the buffer is smaller than it looks.

A checklist for your next pay run

• Set the super payment to go on payday, not at the end of the week or month.
• Find out how long your clearing house or payroll super function takes to reach a fund.
• Know where rejection messages appear, and check them within a day or two of each payment.
• Check commission, allowance and bonus pay items against the ATO's qualifying earnings tables.
• Confirm STP is reporting qualifying earnings and super liability for each employee.
• Get a choice of fund form, or the stapled fund details from the ATO, before a new starter's first payday.
• List any contractors and directors who may count as employees for super.
• Pay any unpaid amounts from July to September 2026 by 28 October 2026.

This is general information, not advice for your business. If you are not sure your pay items, contractors or the July changeover were handled correctly, our bookkeeping and payroll work covers payroll, super and STP, and we can look over your set-up. Start with the new client form or get in touch.