Payday Super: a guide for accountants advising employers

From 1 July 2026, employers pay super guarantee (SG) with each pay run rather than each quarter. The fund has to receive the contribution, with enough detail to allocate it to the member, within 7 business days after payday. The SG rate stays at 12%. What changes is the timing, the earnings base, the charge for getting it wrong, and what goes into Single Touch Payroll.

This guide is written for accountants and bookkeepers who advise employer clients. Every rule below is taken from ATO guidance or the amending Act, with links at the end. If you only need the date for a particular payday, use the Payday Super due date calculator. For a working list to go through with a client, use the Payday Super checklist.

The law and the start date

The changes are made by the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Act 2025 (No. 57, 2025), which received assent on 6 November 2025. Schedule 1, the main Payday Super amendments, commences at the same time as the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Act 2025, which is 1 July 2026.

The ATO is clear that the new rules apply to earnings paid from 1 July 2026. Earnings paid up to 30 June 2026 stay under the quarterly rules. In practice that means the April to June 2026 quarter is still a quarterly obligation, and anything outstanding for it is dealt with under the old SG charge regime, even if it is paid after 1 July.

The 7 business day rule

The ATO describes the rule this way: a contribution is on time if the employee's fund receives it, with the information needed to allocate it to the member's account, within 7 business days after the payday. The ATO calls that payday the QE day, short for qualifying earnings day.

Three details matter in practice.

• The test is receipt by the fund. Sending the money on day 7 is not enough. Clearing houses, including those built into payroll software, take time to process. The ATO's own advice is that paying on payday is best practice for this reason.
• The contribution must be allocatable. Money that arrives with a wrong member number or missing details is not on time just because it reached the fund.
• The QE day is the day the earnings are paid. The ATO says recording the payment on another day, paying other staff on different days, or having a longer STP reporting period does not move the QE day.

The rule covers everyone entitled to SG, including people inside the extended definition of employee, such as contractors paid mainly for their labour, some sportspeople and performers, and company directors.

What counts as a business day for Payday Super?

This is where the rule differs from most of the deadlines accountants are used to. On the ATO's payment deadlines page, a business day excludes:

• Saturdays and Sundays
• any day that is a public holiday for the whole of any Australian state or territory

The ATO adds two points. A whole-of-state or territory holiday is excluded even if the employer does not operate in that state or territory. And a holiday that covers only part of a state or territory is still a business day. The ATO's example is Royal Hobart Show Day.

So a Sydney employer's deadline can be pushed out by Picnic Day in the Northern Territory, Western Australia Day, Reconciliation Day in the ACT, or the Friday before the AFL Grand Final in Victoria. It is not pushed out by the Ekka Wednesday in Brisbane, Tasmanian regional show days or a regional NSW local holiday.

Two practical consequences follow. First, the due date is the same for every employer in Australia for a given payday, wherever the business is. Second, it is easy to get wrong if payroll staff count only their own state's holidays. That error makes the date earlier, not later, so it costs a day of slack rather than causing a late payment. Counting a part-state holiday as a non-business day is the error that causes late payments.

The ATO's Picnic Day example

The ATO's worked example for a new employee includes this second payday:

QE day 2 is 30 July 2026, and the contribution is due 11 August 2026. The ATO notes the date includes an extra day because Picnic Day (Northern Territory) is not a business day.

Thursday 30 July 2026 is day 0. Counting forward:

Date	Business day?	Count
Friday 31 July 2026	Yes	1
Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 August	No, weekend
Monday 3 August	No, Picnic Day is a public holiday for the whole of the NT
Tuesday 4 August	Yes	2
Wednesday 5 August	Yes	3
Thursday 6 August	Yes	4
Friday 7 August	Yes	5
Monday 10 August	Yes	6
Tuesday 11 August	Yes	7, due date

The same answer applies to an employer in Hobart, Perth or Sydney. Monday 3 August 2026 is also a NSW Bank Holiday, but the NSW Government says that day is not a declared public holiday, so it is Picnic Day that matters here.

More dates worked through

These use the public holiday dates published by each state and territory government, applied with the ATO's rule. They are our workings, not ATO examples.

Payday (QE day)	Whole-of-state holidays in the window	Contribution due
Thursday 24 September 2026	Fri 25 Sep (VIC, AFL Grand Final eve), Mon 28 Sep (WA, King's Birthday)	Thursday 8 October 2026
Thursday 1 October 2026	Mon 5 Oct (NSW, ACT and SA Labour Day; QLD King's Birthday)	Tuesday 13 October 2026
Thursday 24 December 2026	Fri 25 Dec, Mon 28 Dec, Fri 1 Jan 2027	Thursday 7 January 2027
Thursday 25 March 2027	Good Friday, Easter Monday (Tasmanian Easter Tuesday is not counted, see below)	Wednesday 7 April 2027

The Christmas Eve row treats 24 and 31 December as business days. Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory have part-day public holidays on those evenings. The ATO page does not say how a part-day holiday is treated, so the safer approach is to count them as business days, which gives the earlier date.

Tasmania's Easter Tuesday is shown as a holiday for the Tasmanian Public Service only, not a general public holiday, so we count it as a business day. Melbourne Cup Day is a Victorian public holiday, but Business Victoria notes that non-metropolitan councils can arrange an alternative local day. Whether that makes it a part-state holiday for this rule is not something the ATO has addressed in the pages we reviewed. If a payday's due date depends on Melbourne Cup Day, pay a day earlier. The same applies to WA King's Birthday on 28 September 2026, which the City of Karratha and Town of Port Hedland observe on 3 August instead. Counting it as a business day would move the 24 September 2026 row above to Wednesday 7 October 2026.

When the deadline is longer

The ATO sets out several cases where more time applies. They are listed here as the ATO states them.

Situation	Due
First contribution for a new employee	20 business days after the QE day
First contribution to a new complying fund for an existing employee, after contributions to another fund stopped	20 business days after the QE day
First contribution for a worker who is rehired or recommences under a new arrangement	20 business days after the QE day
Out-of-cycle payments: bonuses, commissions, allowances, back payments and payments in advance	7 business days after the next regular payday
Exceptional circumstances (natural disasters, widespread IT or communications outages) covered by an ATO determination	The later of 20 business days after the QE day or 20 business days after the determination

There is no separate exception for small payments. On irregular payments, the ATO says payments to workers with intermittent or irregular paydays, such as contractors paid on invoice, are not out-of-cycle. Each of those payments is its own QE day with the normal 7 business days. The out-of-cycle rules are in LI 2026/20, the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) (Out-of-Cycle Qualifying Earnings) Determination 2026.

For exceptional circumstances, the employer does not apply. The ATO says employers can self-assess whether a determination covers them, should keep records of the determination and the relevant paydays, and that individual circumstances do not qualify.

The bunching rule

If the longer due date for one QE day overlaps with the normal due date for the next, the next QE day's contribution takes the same later date. The ATO's example: QE day 1 is 9 July 2026 for a new employee, so it is due 7 August 2026 (20 business days, with Picnic Day excluded). QE day 2 is 23 July 2026 and would normally be due 4 August 2026, but under the bunching rule it is also due 7 August 2026.

The ATO's other examples

• New fund: QE day 7 August 2026 is due 4 September 2026 (20 business days). The next payday, 4 September 2026, is due 15 September 2026.
• Out-of-cycle bonus: a $1,000 bonus paid 7 December 2026 is due with the 10 December 2026 payday contribution, on 21 December 2026.
• Back payment: a back payment made 29 August 2026 is due with the 3 September 2026 payday contribution, on 14 September 2026.
• Natural disaster: a determination issued 7 August 2026 covers 4 to 24 August 2026. Contributions for QE day 4 August 2026 are due by 4 September 2026, and for 18 August 2026 by 15 September 2026.

Qualifying earnings and how they differ from OTE

From 1 July 2026, SG is worked out on qualifying earnings (QE) rather than ordinary time earnings (OTE). The calculation is 12% of QE for each pay period. The ATO's example: 12% of $3,000 is $360.

QE starts with OTE and adds a few things.

Item	Qualifying earnings?
All ordinary time earnings	Yes
Commissions, including commissions solely for work outside ordinary hours	Yes (the outside-hours commission is not OTE but is QE)
Salary sacrificed to super, where it would have been QE if paid as wages	Yes
Salary sacrificed to other benefits, such as a novated lease	No
Certain payments to people in the extended definition of employee, such as contractors paid mainly for their labour	Yes
Annual leave loading	Yes, unless there is written evidence it is clearly linked to lost overtime
Payment in lieu of notice	Yes
Bonus paid solely for work entirely outside ordinary hours	No
Overtime	No
Employer-paid and government parental leave	No
Unused leave paid on termination and most other termination payments	No
Expense reimbursements, fringe benefits and overpayments	No

The ATO's salary sacrifice examples show the arithmetic. An employee paid $2,000 who sacrifices $500 to super has QE of $2,500. An employee paid $1,500 who sacrifices $200 to a novated lease has QE of $1,300. For payment in lieu of notice, $10,000 gives $1,200 of SG.

On annual leave loading, the ATO says it will not review previous treatment where the employer self-assessed the loading as excluded because it compensated for lost overtime, and there is no evidence it was paid for something else.

Maximum contribution base

The ATO gives the 2026–27 maximum contribution base as $270,830. It is the $32,500 concessional cap that applies from 1 July 2026, multiplied by 100 and divided by 12, rounded down to the nearest $10. Under Payday Super the base is annual. Once an employee's year-to-date QE reaches $270,830, SG stops for the rest of the financial year, although any award or agreement super obligation still applies.

The ATO's example is an employee whose year-to-date QE reached the base on the payday a $100,000 bonus was paid. Only $64,580 of the bonus attracted SG, which was $7,749.60.

High-income employees with more than one employer can apply for an SG shortfall exemption certificate. Applications must reach the ATO at least 30 days before the period starts. A certificate covers up to one financial year and cannot be varied or revoked once issued.

How contributions are allocated

The ATO allocates contributions to the earliest QE day that still has an unpaid SG shortfall. Employers cannot choose a different order. If an employer pays above 12%, for example 15% under an enterprise agreement, the excess can offset SG for the next available QE day for up to 12 months. The agreement obligation itself still has to be met in full.

This matters when advising a client who is catching up. A payment made today may be applied to an older payday, leaving today's payday short.

What happens if super is paid late?

For QE days from 1 July 2026, employers no longer lodge an SG statement. The ATO works out the charge and issues a notice of assessment. The charge is calculated per QE day and has four components.

Component	How it works
Individual final SG shortfall	Unpaid SG for each employee after on-time and late contributions are counted
Individual notional earnings	Interest on the shortfall at the general interest charge daily rate, compounding daily. It starts if the contribution is not received within 7 business days and stops when late contributions clear the shortfall or the day before assessment.
Administrative uplift	Up to 60% of the final shortfall plus notional earnings, reduced as set out below
Choice loading	25% where choice of fund rules were not followed, capped at $1,200 per notice period

The administrative uplift reduces by 20 percentage points if there was no ATO-initiated SG charge assessment in the 2 years before the QE day. Pre-1 July 2026 charges and assessments based on voluntary disclosure statements are ignored for that test. Lodging a voluntary disclosure statement before assessment reduces it further.

Voluntary disclosure lodged (from QE day)	Uplift, no prior ATO-initiated assessment	Uplift, prior ATO-initiated assessment
Within 30 days	0%	20%
31 to 60 days	5%	25%
61 to 120 days	10%	30%
More than 120 days	25%	45%
Not lodged before assessment	40%	60%

The charge is payable to the ATO, not the fund, and is due on the day of assessment. The ATO then passes the shortfall and notional earnings to the employee's fund. If it is not paid within 28 days, the ATO issues a notice to pay. If that is not paid within a further 28 days, a late payment penalty applies. The ATO's advice is to pay the outstanding amount first and then consider whether a voluntary disclosure is worthwhile.

Deductibility

This is a real change from the quarterly regime, where the SG charge was not deductible. According to the ATO:

• Deductible: on-time and late eligible contributions, and all four SG charge components paid for QE days from 1 July 2026.
• Not deductible: general interest charge on a late payment of the SG charge, late payment penalties, and SG charge for quarterly periods before 1 July 2026.

The ATO's approach in the first year

For 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, the ATO's compliance approach is set out in PCG 2026/1. It looks at behaviour as well as the error, and sorts employers into three risk zones.

• Low: the employer made a genuine attempt to pay the right amount on time and corrected any late or unallocatable contribution as soon as reasonably practicable, leaving no SG unpaid for that payday. No further review is expected.
• Medium: the employer corrected all unpaid SG within 28 days after the end of the quarter in which the QE was paid. These cases are lower priority.
• High: amounts remain uncorrected after that 28-day window. These are the ATO's priority.

Employers can move between zones during the year. Voluntary disclosure is optional for low-risk employers, and the ATO says the 2026–27 statement has been simplified. Records of how QE and contributions were calculated, including corrections, are part of staying in the low zone.

Single Touch Payroll changes

STP reporting is still required on or before each payday. From 1 July 2026 the ATO uses it to check Payday Super.

• Year-to-date QE is reported for each employee. The increase in YTD QE from one pay event to the next is what the ATO treats as that payday's QE. Non-QE amounts should not be reported as QE.
• Year-to-date super liability is mandatory from 1 July 2026. It includes minimum SG and any additional award or agreement super, even where it is on non-QE amounts such as parental leave paid under an agreement.
• Once the maximum contribution base is reached, YTD QE stays at $270,830 for the rest of the year.
• Where an exemption certificate applies from the start of the year, YTD QE is $0. Where it starts part-way through, YTD QE stays at the level reached before the certificate.

There is a transition period. Until 30 June 2027 the ATO still accepts super liability and OTE in pay events, but once an employer starts reporting QE, OTE is no longer accepted. From 1 July 2027, reports from employers not reporting both QE and super liability will be rejected, and penalties may apply. Errors are corrected through the next pay event or an update event.

Small Business Superannuation Clearing House

The ATO's Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed permanently on 1 July 2026. Existing users could use it until 30 June 2026 and new registrations had already stopped. The ATO asked users to download their records by 30 June 2026 and move to another SuperStream option.

If you have a client who did not download their history, raise it with the ATO now rather than at the next SG review.

Paying faster

From 1 July 2026, contributions can be made through the New Payments Platform, which can allow same-day receipt by the fund. The ATO notes some providers may still take longer. The ATO also says employers should use member verification requests before making a first contribution to a fund, where their software supports it. Both reduce the two most common causes of a late contribution: processing time and rejected member details.

What to do now with employer clients

Most clients have now run several months of Payday Super. The useful work at this point is checking that what was set up in June is working.

1. Match contributions to paydays. For a sample of pay runs since July, compare the payday with the date the fund received the money. Anything over 7 business days is late, whatever the clearing house says it sent.
2. Check the payroll calendar uses all states. If software or a spreadsheet counts only local holidays, the due date it shows can be wrong. The due date calculator lists every whole-of-state holiday to mid-2028.
3. Review pay items against QE. Commissions, leave loading, salary sacrifice arrangements and outside-hours bonuses are where OTE and QE differ.
4. Look at STP. Confirm the client is reporting YTD QE and YTD super liability, and plan the change for anyone still on OTE before 1 July 2027.
5. Find late or short paydays and fix them fast. Paying before assessment, and within the PCG 2026/1 windows, is what keeps a client low risk. Remember the earliest-shortfall allocation rule when catching up.
6. Plan for new starters and bonuses. Know which payments get 20 business days or move to the next regular payday, and record why.
7. Close off the quarterly regime. Any shortfall for the April to June 2026 quarter or earlier stays under the old rules and old non-deductible charge.
8. Update tax workpapers. SG charge for QE days from 1 July 2026 is deductible, apart from GIC on late charge payments and late payment penalties. Earlier quarterly charges are not.

Payday Super questions are among the 112 Australian accounting questions in the Nagaris AI Accounting Index, which tests the major AI models on tax, super, state duty and Fair Work. Ask Nagaris routes each question to the setup that does best.

Questions

When does Payday Super start?

It applies to qualifying earnings paid from 1 July 2026. Earnings paid up to 30 June 2026 stay under the quarterly SG rules.

When is super due under Payday Super?

The employee's fund must receive the contribution, with enough detail to allocate it, within 7 business days after the payday (QE day). Longer periods apply to new employees, new funds, out-of-cycle payments and ATO-declared exceptional circumstances.

What is a business day for Payday Super?

The ATO excludes weekends and any day that is a public holiday for the whole of any Australian state or territory, even one the employer does not operate in. A holiday in only part of a state or territory, such as Royal Hobart Show Day, is still a business day.

Why is super for wages paid on 30 July 2026 due on 11 August 2026?

In the ATO's example, Monday 3 August 2026 is Picnic Day, a public holiday for the whole of the Northern Territory, so it is not a business day. That pushes the seventh business day to Tuesday 11 August 2026 for every employer in Australia.

How long do employers have for a new employee's first contribution?

20 business days after the QE day. The same applies to the first contribution to a new fund for an existing employee and to a worker rehired under a new arrangement.

Is the SG charge tax deductible under Payday Super?

For QE days from 1 July 2026, the ATO says the SG charge components are deductible. General interest charge on late payment of the charge, late payment penalties and charges for quarterly periods before 1 July 2026 are not.

Is the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House still available?

No. The ATO closed it permanently on 1 July 2026. Users needed to download their records by 30 June 2026 and move to another SuperStream option.

What is the maximum contribution base for 2026-27?

$270,830 per year. Once an employee's year-to-date qualifying earnings reach it, SG stops for the rest of the financial year, although award or agreement obligations still apply.

Sources

• ATO, Payment deadlines for Payday Super
• ATO, Paying super on payday (print whole section: qualifying earnings, maximum contribution base, STP, SBSCH, deductibility)
• ATO, What happens if you don't pay super correctly
• ATO, Getting it right: compliance in the first year of Payday Super
• Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Act 2025 (No. 57, 2025)
• NT Government, NT public and regional holidays
• NSW Government, NSW public holidays
• Business Victoria, Victorian public holidays 2026
• Service Tasmania, Public holidays
• Tasmanian Department of State Growth, State-wide public holidays
• WA Government, Public holidays in Western Australia
• Queensland Government, Public holidays
• SafeWork SA, Public holidays 2025-2028
• ACT Government, Public holidays