Who the guarantee covers
The ATO starts from a wide rule: “Generally, all employees are eligible for super guarantee.” It then says this holds whether the employee is full time, part time or casual, with exceptions; one is that an employee under 18 is eligible only for a week in which they work more than 30 hours. Moneysmart puts the same rule from the worker’s side: from 18, an employer must usually pay super, and under 18 it must pay when the work runs past 30 hours a week.
How much someone earns does not decide it. The ATO says an employee is eligible regardless of earnings.
A few working arrangements have rules of their own on the ATO’s page:
- Independent contractors. A contractor paid wholly or principally for their labour is treated as an employee for super purposes, and the guarantee is payable on the labour part of the invoice. The contract has to be directly between the contractor and the business, not through another person, a company, a trust or a partnership.
- Working overseas for a while. Where an Australian employer sends someone overseas for a temporary period, the ATO says the employer must keep paying their super in Australia; its page on super from your employer lists exceptions.
- More than one employer. A person whose employers’ contributions together are expected to go over the concessional contributions cap can apply to opt out of the guarantee from some of those employers. The cap is the subject of the guide to contribution caps.
How much: 12% of qualifying earnings
The ATO gives the super guarantee amount as 12% of qualifying earnings, the measure that applies from 1 July 2026. They are the earnings used to work out the guarantee, and in the ATO’s words: “Qualifying earnings include ordinary time earnings, all commissions, salary sacrifice contributions and other amounts that were previously included in an employee’s salary or wages for super guarantee.”
Before that date the measure was different. For quarters ending on or before 30 June 2026, the minimum was a percentage of each eligible employee’s ordinary time earnings.
The ceiling: the maximum contribution base
The guarantee has an upper limit. The maximum contribution base is the most of an employee’s earnings on which the employer is required to pay the guarantee; above it, the employer does not have to pay. Up to 30 June 2026, the ATO says, it was indexed each income year in line with average weekly ordinary time earnings, as published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Its shape changed with Payday Super. Up to the quarter ending 30 June 2026 it was a quarterly earnings amount. From 1 July 2026, once an employee’s qualifying earnings reach the maximum contribution base in a financial year, the employer can stop paying the minimum guarantee for that employee for that year. The ATO’s super guarantee rates page sets out the maximum contribution base.
The guarantee also counts towards a limit on the employee’s side: the ATO classes it as an employer contribution that counts towards the concessional (before-tax) contributions cap.
When: Payday Super, from 1 July 2026
On 1 July 2026 the timing changed: the employer now pays for each payday instead of for each quarter. Moneysmart sums up the change as one of timing: Payday Super moves when an employer pays super, and leaves the rules themselves as they were.
| What changes | Up to 30 June 2026 | From 1 July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| How often | At least quarterly for each employee | For each payday |
| On-time deadline | Within 28 days of the end of each quarter | Received by the fund within 7 business days after payday, with the information needed to allocate it to the member’s account |
| Measured on | Ordinary time earnings | Qualifying earnings |
| Maximum contribution base | A quarterly earnings amount | Reached across a financial year |
| When the charge applies | Amounts not received by a fund within 28 days of the end of a quarter | Amounts not received within 7 business days after payday, unless a longer time applies, such as for new employees |
The ATO notes that there are some exceptions to the 7 business day deadline, new employees among them. Under the quarterly rule, the due dates were 28 October, 28 January, 28 April and 28 July.
Late or missing payments
The guarantee is backed by a charge rather than left to goodwill. If an employer does not pay the contributions, the ATO says, the employer is liable to the super guarantee charge.
Moneysmart’s guidance for workers is that an employer’s payments should reach the account within 7 business days, and that a payment can take a few business days to show, because the fund first has to receive and process it before allocating it to the member. If the problem goes on, Moneysmart says a worker can tell the ATO, which can investigate and recover unpaid super.
The fund it is paid into
The guarantee goes into a super fund, and the ATO says most employees can choose which one. Once there, the money is invested by the fund, and it stays inside the system until the law lets it out.
The next stops on the route follow it in: how much can go in each year, how it is taxed along the way, and when it can come out.