Australian Superannuation (Super) Guide
Understanding Super, fund selection, account consolidation, and DASP refund.
Understanding Super, fund selection, account consolidation, and DASP refund.
Superannuation (Super for short) is Australia's mandatory retirement pension system. Employers must contribute 12% (from 1 July 2025) of employee wages into their super account. This is in addition to salary, not deducted from it.
| Period | Rate |
|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 11.5% |
| 2025-26 | 12% |
| 2026-27 onwards | 12% (final target reached) |
Super is contributed for all employees (part-time, casual) earning $450+/month. Applies equally to WHV and student visa holders. Check super contributions on your pay slip regularly.
Australia's largest super fund. Low fees, good returns. ~3.2M members.
QLD-based large fund. Sunsuper + QSuper merged. ~2.3M members.
Default fund for hospitality/tourism. Common for WHV holders. Low fees.
Default fund for retail industry. ~2M members. Easy app management.
WHV Tip: If staying short-term, choose a low-fee fund. Cancel unnecessary insurance (Life Insurance, Income Protection) to reduce fees. However, consider carefully before cancelling insurance.
New super accounts may be created with each job change. Multiple accounts mean duplicate admin fees and insurance premiums from each, reducing your balance. Consolidating into one account saves fees and simplifies management.
Super may be classified as 'Lost Super' due to address changes or moving overseas. ATO manages these, and you can search via MyGov. Check if you've ever worked in Australia.
DASP (Departing Australia Superannuation Payment) is a scheme for temporary visa holders who worked in Australia to claim their super balance after permanent departure.
| Category | Tax Rate |
|---|---|
| Working Holiday Visa (417, 462) | 65% |
| Other Temporary Visa (taxed component) | 35% |
| Other Temporary Visa (untaxed component) | 0% |
Note: Consolidating super accounts before DASP makes processing faster and easier. Multiple accounts are refunded separately, taking more time.
Temporary resident super guide and DASP application
Check super balance, consolidate, find Lost Super
Australia's largest super fund official site
DASP online application system
Government financial education — Understanding super
The 12% your employer pays in isn't money that protects itself — it only stays safe if you keep an eye on it. From Payday Super, which took effect in July 2026, through verifying fund performance and using tax-concession caps, to planning your DASP when you leave the country, this guide pulls together the deeper side of super. Figures like caps and tax rates are adjusted each financial year, and how they apply can differ by visa type and personal circumstances, so always confirm the final details with official bodies such as the ATO or moneysmart before acting.
From 1 July 2026, Payday Superannuation takes effect: instead of lumping super into quarterly payments, employers must now pay it at the same time as each pay run. The contribution has to reach your fund account within 7 business days of payday, and the old quarterly deadline system (28 October, 28 January, 28 April, 28 July) ended with the quarter closing on 30 June 2026. For migrant workers, the biggest change is that you can now confirm the deposit in your fund app within a week or two of your first pay. Instead of waiting months as before, you can spot non-payment early and act on it, so at a new job, make checking your fund deposit after your first pay a habit.
Alongside Payday Super, the contribution base is being redefined from the old OTE (Ordinary Time Earnings) to Qualifying Earnings. Overtime is still excluded, but casual loading, commissions, shift allowances, and paid leave are all included, and amounts you redirect to super via salary sacrifice also count toward the base — so an employer can't use that as an excuse to cut your SG. The check is simple: multiply the total of the relevant items on your payslip by 12% and see whether it matches the super accrued. If you're casual, remember in particular that your entire loaded hourly rate is the base.
Even when a super amount is printed on your payslip, that's only a record of what accrued — not proof it was actually paid — and unpaid super is the most common form of wage theft in Australia. To check whether it truly arrived, look at the transactions in your fund app, or link the ATO online services to myGov and view your employer contribution history under the Super menu. From July 2026, if no deposit appears more than 7 business days after payday, you can treat that as a warning sign straight away. If you see a gap, first query your employer in writing, and if there's no reply or it keeps happening, move on to the ATO's unpaid-super reporting process.
Once you confirm non-payment, use the ATO's Report unpaid super online form — just have your TFN, employment dates, and a copy of your payslip ready; reporting is free. An employer who hasn't paid is hit with the SG charge, which adds interest and penalties on top of the unpaid principal, and from Payday Super it's been reworked to accrue interest on a daily basis, so the later it gets, the more the employer owes — and that interest ultimately flows into your account, so there's no reason to delay reporting. One thing to note: if your employer goes bankrupt, the government's FEG (Fair Entitlements Guarantee) covers unpaid wages and leave, but it does not cover unpaid super. If you see signs the business is folding, don't wait — report immediately to be safe.
Even if you invoice as a contractor under an ABN, if the substance of the contract is 'mainly for labour', the party giving you the work has an obligation to pay SG. Cleaning, delivery, and construction subcontracting are the industries where migrants are most often misclassified this way, and simply having an ABN doesn't make your super rights disappear. Use the employee/contractor decision tool on the ATO website to check which side your contract falls on. Even if the contract says 'super included in the rate', that doesn't remove the separate obligation to contribute, so if no actual money reaches your fund, it can be reported just like any other non-payment.
An employer's SG obligation has an income ceiling (the maximum contribution base), and on income above it the employer doesn't have to pay super. Through 2025-26 it ran at $62,500 per quarter, but with Payday Super it switches to an annual basis, becoming $270,830 per year from 2026-27. Under the quarterly system, if commissions or bonuses were concentrated in one quarter, they'd hit that quarter's cap and contributions were trimmed; under the annual system it's calculated on the full-year total, which changes who comes out ahead among people whose income is uneven across the year. If you're a high earner, it's worth doing a year-end check that your total SG came in correctly against the ceiling.
Your first yardstick for choosing a fund should be official data, not ads or YouTube recommendations. The ATO's YourSuper comparison tool standardises the fees and net returns of every MySuper product and lines them up side by side, and if you log in via myGov you can see a personalised comparison based on your own balance. It's also worth checking the fund comparisons and calculators on the government financial-information site moneysmart.gov.au. Treat community reputation as a reference only, but make it a habit to always run the numbers through these official tools.
The regulator APRA runs an annual performance test each year, comparing the long-term performance of super products against benchmarks. A fund that fails is required to notify its members of the failure in writing, and a fund that fails two years in a row is closed to new members. You can check whether your fund has a history of failing in the test results published by APRA and the ATO. If you receive a failure notice, seriously consider switching — but before you move, first check the difference in fees and the issue that your existing insurance may not carry over.
Even within the same fund, long-term returns and volatility vary widely depending on the investment option — High Growth, Balanced, Conservative, or Indexed. If you're in your 20s or 30s and planning to settle long-term, you have decades of compounding left until retirement, so the higher expected return of a growth option is often the better fit. On the other hand, if you're a temporary-visa holder planning to take a DASP refund on departure within a few years, a conservative option can be sensible given the risk that a market crash just before you leave could shave your balance. Some funds also offer lifecycle options that automatically shift more conservative as you age, so choose your option directly in the fund app to match your own stay plans.
Super fees come in three layers — administration fees (a flat amount plus a percentage of your balance), investment fees, and transaction costs — and the fee example table in the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) shows the total annual cost on a $50,000 balance in a standard format so you can compare products. A 1-percentage-point difference in total fees may look like just $500 a year now, but compounded over decades it can split your retirement balance by tens of thousands of dollars. Put your own balance and fee rate into moneysmart's superannuation calculator and you can simulate that difference for yourself. Returns change from year to year, but fees are a fixed cost, so if performance is similar, the lower-fee option wins as a rule.
Rolling several accounts into one takes only a few minutes on myGov, but getting the order wrong is costly. The moment you empty an old account, the death, TPD (total and permanent disability), and income-protection insurance attached to it is cancelled, and to re-take it out in the new account you may be asked for health disclosures or given reduced cover. So the rule is to first secure the insurance you need in the new account, then close the old one — and if you have an insurance claim in progress, you should hold off on consolidating. Exit fees have been banned by law since July 2019, so the transfer itself carries no fee.
An account with a balance under $6,000 that has received no contributions for 16 months is compulsorily transferred to the ATO twice a year, on 30 April and 31 October. This is an especially common scenario for migrants who have periods where contributions stop — for example, going back to study after a working holiday. Fortunately, just one action — changing your investment option, nominating a beneficiary, or lodging a written declaration — resets the 16-month counter. If you know contributions will pause for a while, doing one of these things in the fund app is enough to prevent the compulsory transfer.
Under the Protecting Your Super laws, insurance on an account with no contributions for 16 months is automatically cancelled. The fund sends notices at the 6-, 9-, and 12-month marks asking whether you want to keep the cover, and if you miss this contact, your cover can disappear without you realising. If contributions stop because of parental leave or a temporary return home but you want to keep the cover, you need to reply to opt in, or pay in even a small amount to reset the counter. Once cancelled, insurance can come back on worse terms — such as health-disclosure requirements — when you re-take it out, so it's important to decide before it lapses.
Since April 2020, new accounts for members under 25 or with a balance under $6,000 do not automatically come with default insurance — you have to opt in yourself for cover to exist. This means a young international student or working-holiday-maker who assumes 'I'm in a fund, so I must have insurance too' can be wrong. Especially if you work in a high-injury industry like construction or farm work, you need to actively consider taking out death and TPD cover. You can check whether your account has insurance attached straight away in the insurance menu of your fund app or in your annual statement.
The rule that 'you get no super if you earn under $450 a month' is old information — it was abolished on 1 July 2022. Now, regardless of the amount, 12% of your pay must be contributed even for a few hours of casual work. The only exception is workers under 18, who are only entitled when they work 30 or more hours a week. The outdated belief that 'casual jobs don't get super' still circulates in the community, but if an employer refuses to contribute citing this old rule, that in itself is non-payment.
If you work multiple jobs, each employer creates a new account in their own default fund, so accounts pile up and admin fees and insurance premiums get deducted two or three times over. The fix is simple: submit a Superannuation standard choice form to your new employer specifying your existing fund's USI (Unique Superannuation Identifier) and account number, and every employer will pay into the same account. You can find the USI in your fund app or website, or on your annual statement. Even if you submit nothing, the stapled-fund rules provide a safety net that links to your existing account, but spelling it out with a choice form is more certain.
A high earner who expects the combined SG from multiple employers to exceed the concessional cap ($32,500 for 2026-27) can apply to the ATO for an employer shortfall exemption certificate (form NAT 75067) to release some employers from their SG obligation. You have to lodge it at least 30 days before the start of the period it applies to, and at least one employer must keep contributing. Note that the certificate only removes the employer's obligation — it doesn't prohibit contributing — so an employer could ignore the exemption and keep paying anyway. It's usually premised on an adjustment where you take the compensation as salary instead of SG, so talk it through with your employer before applying.
If you work as a sole trader or in a partnership, there's no SG obligation on you — no one pays it in on your behalf, so unless you contribute yourself, your retirement balance stays at zero. A classic trap is gig workers doing Uber or delivery leaving it alone because 'I'm a business, so super doesn't apply to me'. The method is a personal deductible contribution: pay into your own fund, then claim a deduction, and you get a tax effect similar to an employee's salary sacrifice. If 10% or more of your income is from employment or business, you may also be able to look into eligibility for the government co-contribution (visa requirements apply separately), so check that too.
There are two ways to put money into super pre-tax: salary sacrifice, where it's redirected from your pay in advance, and a personal deductible contribution, where you pay in first and then claim a deduction. Both are taxed only at the 15% contributions tax, so at a marginal rate of 30-45% they mean substantial tax savings. Salary sacrifice is handled automatically by the employer's payroll system with no paperwork, whereas for a personal deductible contribution you must lodge a Notice of intent (NOI) with the fund and receive an acknowledgement before doing your tax return. In particular, there's an ordering trap: if you don't lodge the NOI before a rollover, withdrawal, or DASP, the whole deduction is lost — so always deal with the NOI first before you move accounts.
The pre-tax contribution limit (concessional cap) rose from $30,000 to $32,500 on 1 July 2026 — it's structured to index in $2,500 steps, linked to average earnings (AWOTE). The key point is that this cap is measured on the total including your employer SG. In other words, the headroom you can add yourself has to be calculated as $32,500 minus your annual SG. If you exceed the cap, the excess is re-taxed at your personal income-tax rate and the process is a hassle, so rather than piling it in at year-end, it's safer to contribute while checking your current total contributions on myGov.
If your total super balance (TSB) is under $500,000, you can carry forward the concessional cap you didn't fully use over the last 5 years and use it all in a single year (carry-forward). If you barely used your cap during the low-income early years of migration, that unused portion doesn't disappear — it stacks up. This makes a real scenario possible where, in a year your income jumped sharply after settling or a year you sold an overseas asset, you contribute tens of thousands of dollars pre-tax at once and greatly reduce that year's tax. You can check your own carry-forward cap year by year in the ATO online services on myGov, so look at this screen before any large contribution.
The biggest trap in the DASP tax rate is the 'whole-contamination' rule: if even a single cent of the payment includes contributions from a working-holiday visa (417/462) period, the entire payment — including amounts built up during later student or work visa periods — is taxed at 65%. It means that as long as it's mixed in the same account, you can't get the 35% rate that would apply to non-WHM contributions. If, when you switch from a working-holiday visa to a student or work visa, you open a new fund account and keep your later contributions separate, then on departure you can preserve the 35% rate on the non-WHM account. A single decision to split accounts can mean thousands of dollars, so anyone changing visa type should definitely look into it.
The ATO's DASP online application system lets you fill in and save the application in advance while you're still in Australia, and only the actual submission needs to happen after you've left and your visa has ceased. It's the standard approach to finish the application before departure, because while you're still here it's far easier to confirm your fund, tidy up your account details, and prepare documents. If your balance is $5,000 or more, the fund may require a certified copy of identity documents such as your passport — and within Australia you can get this certified for free or cheaply through a pharmacist, a JP (Justice of the Peace), and the like, so it's better to do it in advance. Getting certification that meets Australian standards in your home country after you've left is far more of a hassle.
If you don't claim your DASP within 6 months after leaving and your visa has expired or been cancelled, the fund transfers the balance to the ATO as unclaimed super — and at that point you get no separate notice and no exit statement. Once transferred, the account's insurance is cancelled and the investment stops. There's no deadline on the claim itself, so you can still get it from the ATO years later, but in money terms it's better to claim early within 6 months. After departure, don't put off the application, and if a long time has already passed, claim the ATO-held balance together through the DASP online system.
Superannuation (Super for short) is Australia's mandatory retirement pension system. Employers must contribute 12% (from 1 July 2025) of employee wages into their super account. This is in addition to salary, not deducted from it.
Your employer requests super fund selection when paying first salary. Without an existing account, you're auto-enrolled in the employer's default fund. Major funds include AustralianSuper, ART, and Hostplus. The stapling system means your first fund follows you to subsequent jobs.
Link ATO through MyGov to see all super accounts and balances. You can also check directly via each fund's app/website. ATO also tracks Lost Super.
Yes, strongly recommended. Multiple accounts mean duplicate admin fees and insurance premiums from each. Consolidate easily via MyGov or your super fund's app (Consolidation/Rollover).
If you don't provide your TFN (Tax File Number) to your fund, employer contributions are taxed at an extra 32% on top of the standard 15% — a total of 47% — and your own personal contributions are refused outright. This genuinely happens often to migrants who start work before their TFN is issued in the early days after arrival. Check whether your TFN is registered in your fund app or annual statement, and register it immediately if it's missing. The fund can refund the over-charged tax within a set period, so if you registered your TFN late, it's worth asking the fund straight away whether a backdated refund is possible.
The stapling rules, in force since November 2021, mean that if you don't submit a choice form when you change jobs, your existing account is automatically carried over to your new employer. Flip that around and it means the default fund assigned at your first job could be stapled to you for life. Before you get locked into a fund with poor performance or high fees, roll over in advance to a fund you've picked using the comparison tools, and that fund will then follow you automatically through every future job change. In other words, stapling is a trap if you ignore it, but if you move first you can turn it into a safety net that prevents a pile-up of accounts.
Super transferred to the ATO can be viewed in the ATO online services linked to myGov, and you can apply online to move it back to an active fund. The problem is that while it's held by the ATO it isn't invested like a fund, so you miss out on market returns entirely — the longer you leave it, the more your retirement balance suffers. It's worth making it a roughly twice-yearly routine to run a Lost Super search and an ATO-held balance check on myGov together. It's not uncommon for a forgotten account from your old working-holiday days to turn up here.
Public pension schemes in your home country and Australian super cannot be transferred to each other — the only exception is New Zealand's KiwiSaver, which allows two-way movement under the Trans-Tasman arrangement. It's important to distinguish that a social security agreement between your home country and Australia isn't a scheme for moving pensions either; it's a certificate of coverage that exempts posted workers from contributing twice in both countries. So a migrant who has worked across both countries needs to plan on the basis that their retirement savings are split and building up in two nations. Because each country's access age and tax treatment differ, as retirement nears it's safest to consult a specialist who understands both systems.
Working-holiday makers (417/462 visas) and student casual workers are subject to the same 12% contribution obligation as citizens — if an employer claims 'working-holiday workers don't get super', that in itself is a sign they're breaking the law. That said, working-holiday makers have 65% withheld under DASP on departure, so the management strategy is different. If your stay is short, rather than chasing high returns, minimising fees by cancelling unnecessary insurance and keeping a single account often puts more money in your pocket. Conversely, if you plan to move from a student visa into work and permanent residency, you can manage it with the same long-term outlook as any ordinary settler.
Cash-in-hand jobs are a double-loss structure even before the tax problem — not only is super not contributed, but no work record is left, making it hard to even claim it back retrospectively later. If you had no choice but to work one, keep as much of a record as you can: notes of your hours, bank transfers showing your pay, messages exchanged with the employer, and so on. These records become evidence when you report unpaid super to the ATO. People who report are protected regardless of visa status, so there's no need to fear reporting just because you're on a temporary visa.
The after-tax (non-concessional) contribution limit is $130,000 a year from 2026-27 (four times the concessional cap), and the bring-forward rule lets you put in up to $390,000 — three years' worth — in a single year. It's a leading channel for moving overseas funds, such as proceeds from selling property in your home country, into a low-tax investment environment. Note, though, that once your TSB passes certain bands, the amount available to bring forward steps down from three years to two, then one, then zero, so before moving a large sum you must check the amount available for your own TSB. Reversing an excess is a hassle, so if you're near a boundary, it's worth having a tax specialist confirm.
For 2026-27, the government co-contribution matches 50 cents for every $1 of after-tax contribution, up to $500 a year, if your income is $49,293 or under, tapering as income rises and cutting out at $64,293. No separate application is needed — once your tax return and the fund's reporting line up, it's paid into your account automatically. But there's a point migrants most often get wrong: if you held a temporary visa at any point during the relevant financial year, you're ineligible (New Zealand citizens excepted), and only permanent residents and citizens qualify. There's also a requirement that 10% or more of your income be from employment or business, so don't count on it during your working-holiday or student years — use it after you get permanent residency.
Low earners on $37,000 or under get contributions tax refunded automatically up to $500 under the LISTO scheme — no separate application needed. Under a legislated change, from July 2027 this expands to a cap of $810 and an income threshold of $45,000. If you're a first-home buyer, the FHSSS (First Home Super Saver Scheme) is also worth noting: you can withdraw your voluntary contributions — up to $15,000 a year and $50,000 in total — toward a deposit, and the withdrawal is taxed at your marginal rate minus a 30% offset, which is more favourable than ordinary savings. A couple each using it can access up to a combined $100,000, so if you're planning a first home, design your voluntary contributions to meet the FHSSS requirements from early on.
DASP requires that your temporary visa has expired or been cancelled, so if you've left permanently but your visa still has time left, you can ask Home Affairs to cancel the visa to meet the requirement. Conversely, if you plan to have another go at permanent residency, the rule is not to touch your DASP — claiming it is premised on the temporary visa ceasing, and if you later get PR, keeping your super intact and staying in Australia's retirement system is, in most cases, more favourable than accepting the 65% withholding. Because it's a completely different choice depending on whether your departure is temporary or permanent, if you're unsure, holding off on the claim is the reversible option.
DASP is free if you apply directly through the ATO online system, and a complete application is usually paid within 28 days. Refund agents simply do this free process on your behalf while taking a hefty percentage of the refund as commission, so unless there's a special reason, applying yourself is the right answer. Compare the payout route too — receiving it straight into an overseas account adds intermediary-bank fees and exchange-rate margins on top. Keeping an Australian account open for a while and then moving the money home via a mid-market-rate transfer service is often cheaper on total cost.
The 65% or 35% taken out of DASP is a final withholding — you don't report that amount again as income on your Australian tax return, and there's no further refund. Separately from DASP, though, you still have to do a tax return for your final year of work, and if you leave permanently partway through a financial year, early lodgment is also possible. Also, whether a DASP received after you've become a tax resident of your home country is reportable there varies by country, so you need to check your home country's tax rules separately. To wrap up your departure, remember it as three separate items to handle: the DASP claim, your last tax return, and checking your home-country reporting.
Working holiday visa holders (subclass 417, 462) pay 65% tax on super refunds. Other temporary visa holders pay 35-45%. After-tax refunds may be less than expected, so calculate in advance.
Only after permanently leaving Australia with an expired or cancelled visa. You cannot apply while in Australia. There's no deadline, so you can apply anytime after departure.
Employers are legally obligated to contribute super. If unpaid, report to ATO via the 'Report unpaid super' form. ATO investigates and recovers unpaid super. Check your pay slip regularly as super contributions are shown there.