When are wages and super due?

What changed on 1 July 2026

Before 1 July 2026, employers could pay super guarantee quarterly. Under payday super, described in ATO: Payday Super, super must be paid for each payday. ATO: Paying super for your employees states the deadline precisely: contributions must be received by the employee's super fund, with enough information to allocate the payment to that employee's account, within 7 business days after each payday. Three details do the real work here:

• It is measured on the payday, so the obligation arises every time you run payroll rather than once a quarter.
• It counts as paid when the fund receives it, not when you submit it. The ATO notes there is no extension to the 7-business-day window if a payment fails to arrive in time.
• Eligibility did not change. The same workers are covered as before, and the rate is still 12% of qualifying earnings.

The ATO's own advice is to pay super at the same time as wages, so there is room for your payroll system or clearing house to process the payment inside that window. It also notes a fund has three business days to allocate or reject a contribution — which is time you should not be spending at the end of the seven.

How often you pay wages is a different question

Payday super did not change pay frequency. How often you pay wages is set by the applicable award, enterprise agreement or the worker's contract — weekly, fortnightly or monthly. If you pay fortnightly, super is now a fortnightly payment too. If you have some staff weekly and others monthly, super follows each of those cycles.

That interplay is worth thinking through before you hire, because it turns super from a quarterly event into a per-pay-run cost. The Pay cycle converter will turn an annual salary into the figure for a weekly, fortnightly or monthly run; add 12% on top of that for super, and you have the true cost of the pay run rather than the wage alone.

The last quarterly payment, and the transition

Under the old rules the quarterly super payment dates were 28 October, 28 January, 28 April and 28 July, as the ATO's employer checklist sets out. The final quarterly payment — for the June 2026 quarter — was therefore due by 28 July 2026, after which payday timing takes over. If your payroll setup has changed recently, the ATO's payday super pages are the place to confirm the current position rather than a summary like this one.

Before the first pay run: PAYG withholding

Super is not the only obligation that starts with your first employee. You must register for PAYG withholding before your first payment that requires withholding — business.gov.au: Register for pay as you go (PAYG) withholding covers the registration, and the ATO's checklist for taking on a worker lists the rest of the setup. That registration is required even if it turns out you withhold nothing from a particular worker.

Once registered, the amount you withhold is worked out using the worker's tax file number declaration, and it is reported and paid through your activity statement. Reporting through STP does not replace that: as the same ATO checklist puts it, even where you report PAYG withholding through Single Touch Payroll, you still report the same amounts on your activity statements and pay the amount owed.

Withholding is not a cost to you. It is the worker's tax, which you are holding and passing on — the same distinction as GST on your sales. Super is different: that is a real cost to the business, on top of the wage.

Reporting each pay run

Employers report payroll information — wages, PAYG withholding and super — to the ATO through Single Touch Payroll as part of each pay run, using payroll software that supports it. If you report this way, you generally do not issue payment summaries at the end of the year. The ATO's guide for new employers sets out the software and registration steps, including getting set up for online services and a default super fund arrangement for workers who do not choose their own.

Getting it wrong is expensive, and avoidable

If super is late, short or paid to the wrong fund, the super guarantee charge applies: the shortfall plus interest and an administration component, and the charge is not deductible. Withholding missed or paid late attracts penalties and interest too. Both are avoidable with a payroll routine that does the same things every pay run:

1. Pay wages on the cycle the worker is actually on.
2. Calculate super at 12% at the same time, and send it in the same run.
3. Report through STP before or on payday.
4. Reconcile the fund's confirmation before treating the contribution as made.

If you are taking on your first worker, the ATO's checklist for new employers is the place to work through the setup step by step — and if you are still deciding whether the work is employment or contracting, that question comes first, because it decides whether any of this applies.

For what super costs on a single wage before you commit to a rate, the Super guarantee calculator does that arithmetic; Do sole traders have to pay super? explains who is eligible in the first place.