Payday Super for employers: the 7-business-day rule and what to change

Since 01-07-2026, super guarantee is no longer a quarterly bill. Every time you pay staff, the super on that pay has to land in their fund within seven business days. The rate hasn't changed and the employees you pay for haven't changed — but the timing, the earnings base, the reporting and the consequences of being late all have. Here's what employers need to know a quarter in.

The 7-business-day rule

For every payday (the ATO calls it the QE day — the day you pay qualifying earnings), your super guarantee contribution must be received by the employee's fund, with enough information to allocate it to their account, within 7 business days. Sent isn't received: if your clearing house takes three days to process, you've used three of your seven. A business day excludes Saturdays, Sundays and any day that is a public holiday for a whole state or territory — anywhere in Australia, not just yours.

The ATO's stated best practice is simply to pay super on payday. With the New Payments Platform now built into SuperStream, contributions from many payroll systems and clearing houses can reach the fund the same day, and funds now have 3 business days to allocate or bounce a contribution, which leaves time to fix an error inside the window.

When you get longer

• New employees, or an existing employee who has switched to a new fund: the first contribution has 20 business days from the QE day. Later contributions revert to 7.
• Rehired or recommenced workers under a new arrangement: 20 business days for the first contribution.
• Out-of-cycle payments such as bonuses, commissions and back pay: the super is due 7 business days after the next regular payday, so it lines up with your normal run.
• Exceptional circumstances such as natural disasters or wide IT outages, where the ATO issues a determination covering a class of employers: 20 business days.
• Bunching: if a later due date for one payday falls after the normal due date for the next, both share the later date.

Qualifying earnings and the 12 % rate

The SG rate is 12 % — it reached that level on 01-07-2025 and Payday Super doesn't move it. What changed is the base: super is now 12 % of qualifying earnings, a new term that brings ordinary time earnings, all commissions, salary-sacrificed super and other amounts previously counted in salary or wages for SG into one definition. For most employers the dollars are the same; the point is that payroll must map pay items to the new code correctly. The annual maximum contribution base for 2026–27 is $270,830 of qualifying earnings, replacing the old quarterly cap.

The super guarantee charge, reworked

Under the old system a late employer self-assessed the charge by lodging an SG statement, interest ran at a flat 10 %, and none of it was deductible. For paydays from 01-07-2026:

• the ATO assesses the charge itself, matching STP reports against what funds receive — there is no SG statement to lodge;
• the shortfall is calculated on qualifying earnings;
• interest compounds daily at the general interest charge rate from the due date;
• an administrative uplift is added to reflect enforcement cost, reduced where you have no history and voluntarily disclose;
• a penalty of 25 % or 50 % of the unpaid charge applies depending on prior penalties, replacing the old up-to-200 % penalty; and
• the charge (but not the penalty or interest) is tax deductible, as are late contributions themselves.

Late contributions still help: a payment received after the deadline but before the ATO assesses you reduces the charge, though interest and the administrative component can still apply. One trap: contributions are now allocated automatically to the earliest unpaid payday, in the order the fund receives them. You can no longer elect to apply a payment to a particular period, so an on-time payment for this week's pay will be swallowed by last month's shortfall if one exists.

STP reporting changes

From 01-07-2026, each pay event in Single Touch Payroll must report, for every employee, the year-to-date qualifying earnings and the year-to-date super liability — both, where previously one or the other was accepted. The ATO will tolerate missing qualifying earnings during 2026–27 while software catches up, but from 01-07-2027 reports without both figures will be rejected and penalties may apply. If your payroll product hasn't been updated, ask your provider when it will be.

The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House has closed

The ATO's free clearing house closed to new users on 01-10-2025 and to existing users after 30-06-2026; from 01-07-2026 it is no longer accessible. Employers who relied on it need another SuperStream-compliant route: the super function built into Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks, a commercial clearing house, or a super fund's employer portal. If you were an SBSCH user and haven't downloaded your payment history, contact the ATO.

What to update in Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks

1. Install the Payday Super update for your payroll product and confirm it reports qualifying earnings and super liability through STP.
2. Review pay-item mapping. Check that commissions, allowances, bonuses and salary-sacrifice super are flagged as qualifying earnings where the law requires.
3. Switch on auto super (Xero), Pay Super (MYOB) or the QuickBooks super payment feature, and set it to batch on each pay run rather than monthly or quarterly.
4. Check processing time. Ask your clearing house whether it pays via the New Payments Platform and how long a payment takes to reach the fund.
5. Use member verification. The new SuperStream member verification request lets your software confirm a new employee's fund details before the first contribution, cutting rejections.
6. Clean up employee data. Wrong USIs, member numbers, names and inactive SMSF electronic service addresses are the common causes of bounced payments.
7. Set alerts so rejected contributions are seen and resubmitted the same day.

Cash-flow planning

Super used to sit in your account for up to four months. Now it leaves with wages. For a business with $40,000 of monthly payroll, that is roughly $4,800 of super going out each month instead of $14,400 once a quarter — the same annual total, but you no longer get to use it as working capital in between. Practical steps:

• Treat super as part of the payroll cost on payday, and fund the pay run accordingly.
• If you pay weekly, consider whether fortnightly pay (where your award or agreement allows) reduces admin — super is now due per pay run.
• Keep a buffer for the first contribution to a new fund, which can bounce and need resubmitting.
• Review pricing or payment terms with customers if the quarterly float was propping up your cash position.

First-year compliance approach

The ATO has published its approach for the first year: employers who pay on each payday and fix errors promptly are treated as low risk and won't be the focus of compliance action. The firmer line is reserved for deliberate non-payment and for employers who don't attempt to move to per-payday payments at all. Note that this leniency doesn't extend to the final quarterly period — the April–June 2026 quarter had to be received by 28-07-2026, and the late-payment offset wasn't available for it.

Sources

• ATO — About Payday Super
• ATO — Payment deadlines for Payday Super
• ATO — How to work out and pay super
• ATO — Payday Super: how to manage super during the changeover
• ATO — The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House is closing
• ATO — Super guarantee rates and maximum contribution base