Now lawWork & Super Introduced in the House of Representatives, 09 Oct 2025

Employers must pay super on payday from 1 July 2026

Before this law, bosses could pay super once every three months. Billions went unpaid. Now super must reach your fund within about a week of each pay. Bosses who are late pay bigger charges.

Official name: Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025

Who it affects

• Workers: Your super comes with every pay. It starts to grow sooner, and missing payments show up faster.
• Employers: They must send super every pay cycle. They may need to update their pay software.
• Small businesses: The free Tax Office service for sending super closes on 1 July 2026.
• New staff and people switching funds: Bosses get 20 business days for the first payment to a new fund.
• Super funds: They will handle many more, smaller payments.

Quarterly super hid missed payments

Super is money your boss puts aside for when you retire. It sits in a super fund and grows over time. By law, bosses must pay at least 12 per cent of your pay into your fund. This is called the superannuation guarantee.

Until now, bosses only had to pay super four times a year. It was due 28 days after each three-month block ended. That made it hard for workers to notice when payments went missing.

Unpaid super came to nearly $5.2 billion in 2021-22. Missing super means smaller savings and less growth. Some people also lose the insurance they get through their fund.

The government first said it would bring in payday super in the 2023-24 Budget. This law came with a partner law. The partner law sets the charge on bosses who fall short.

A 7 business day deadline

Each day a boss pays wages counts as a qualifying earnings day. On that day the boss owes 12 per cent of what it paid you.

The money must reach your fund within 7 business days. It must also be ready to go into your account. If it comes on time and in full, the boss owes no charge.

Say Anna earns $1,000 on payday. Her boss must get $120 into her fund within 7 business days. Say the fund sends it back because her details were wrong. If it then arrives late the second time, it counts as late.

Each payment is matched to the earliest payday it can cover. Extra money carries forward to later paydays, for up to 12 months.

One measure of earnings

Before, bosses worked out super on one measure of pay, called ordinary time earnings. If they fell short, the charge was worked out on a different measure. This was confusing.

Now there is one measure called qualifying earnings. It covers your normal pay, such as normal hours, commissions and extra pay for shifts. Commissions are extra pay for making sales. It also counts pay you swap for more super. That swap is called salary sacrifice.

There is a yearly cap on the pay a boss must pay super on. It used to be checked every three months. Now it is checked over the whole year.

Extra time in some cases

Bosses get 20 business days for the first payment for a new worker. The same goes when you switch funds and the boss pays a new fund for the first time.

Pay outside the normal cycle, such as bonuses or back pay, which is pay owed from earlier, can also get more time. The Tax Office decides which payments count.

The head of the Tax Office can give more time to bosses hit by events like floods or big computer breakdowns. Say a country bakery closes in a flood. It could get 20 business days after that decision to pay its staff's super.

What late employers pay

A boss that misses the deadline owes the superannuation guarantee charge. It is a tax. The Tax Office passes the money on to the workers' funds.

The charge includes the unpaid super. It also adds interest, called notional earnings, to make up for the growth you missed. The interest uses the Tax Office's usual rate for late tax and is added each day.

On top of that is an extra amount of up to 60 per cent of the unpaid super and interest. It can be cut if the boss owns up fast, or has a good record.

Some bosses do not pay into the fund you chose. They pay an extra 25 per cent of the super owed.

Penalties for unpaid charges

Say the charge is still unpaid 28 days after it is due. The Tax Office must then send a notice to pay. This only happens if more than $30 is owed.

If the boss then does not pay within 28 days, it gets a late fine. The fine is 25 per cent of the unpaid amount. It rises to 50 per cent if the boss got the same fine in the last 24 months.

The Tax Office cannot let anyone off this fine. Bosses who got extra time after a flood or disaster do not pay it.

Small business clearing house closes

The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closes on 1 July 2026. It was a free Tax Office service. It let small businesses pay all their staff's super in one go. The Tax Office says it does not suit payday super.

The law updates 21 other laws to use the new terms. These include super laws for government workers.

The Tax Office has said what it will do for the first 12 months. It will sort bosses into low, medium and high risk. It will mostly check the higher risk ones.

Start date

The bill went into the House of Representatives on 9 October 2025. It passed there on 30 October. The Senate, Parliament's second house, passed it on 4 November 2025.

The Governor-General, the King's representative, signed it into law on 6 November 2025. It became Act No. 57 of 2025.

It starts on 1 July 2026 and covers wages paid from that day. Super for wages paid before then follows the old rules.

How they voted

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum
• Bills Digest

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