Employers currently need to make superannuation guarantee (SG) contributions for their employees by 28 days after the end of each quarter (28 October, 28 January, 28 April and 28 July). There is an extra day’s allowance when these dates fall on a public holiday.
To comply with these rules the contribution must be in the employee’s superannuation fund on or before this date, unless the employer is using the ATO small business superannuation clearing house (SBSCH).
The ATO has been applying considerable compliance resources in this space in recent years which can have an impact on both employees and employers.
Employers
To be eligible to claim a tax deduction on SG contributions the quarterly amount must be in the employee’s super account on or before the above quarterly due dates. The only exception to this is where the employer is using the ATO SBSCH. In that case a contribution is considered made provided it has been received by the SBSCH on or before the due date.
Employers using commercial clearing houses should be mindful of turnaround times. Commercial clearing houses collect and distribute employee contributions and may be linked to accounting / payroll software or provided by some superannuation platforms. Anecdotally it seems that turnaround times for some clearing houses could be up to 14 days, so it is recommended that employers allow sufficient time before the quarterly deadlines when processing their employee SG contributions.
If these deadlines are missed (yes even by a day!) that will trigger a superannuation guarantee charge (SGC) requirement which will result in a loss of the tax deduction and other penalties. The SGC requirements are outlined in the ATO link below:
The super guarantee charge | Australian Taxation Office
Employers do have the option to make SG payments more frequently than quarterly and this is something that employers will need to become used to if the proposed ‘payday’ superannuation reforms become law. This change is proposed to commence from 1 July 2026 and would require SG to be paid at the same frequency as salary or wages. There is some discussion on the payday super proposal at this link (noting that this is not yet law). The SBSCH will close at this time so employers using this service should start to consider transitioning to a commercial clearing house, please let us know you would like assistance with this.
Employees
It is recommended that you regularly check your superannuation fund statements and reconcile employer contributions to the amounts listed on your pay slips.
Where SG contributions are not received on time (or at all!) employees are encouraged to discuss this first with their employer. Should this not result in a satisfactory conclusion, employees can consider bringing this to the attention of the ATO.
There is some helpful discussion on this process at the following link.
