- Super contributions now need to reach the fund within 7 business days of payday.
- Qualifying earnings and super liability are reported through STP every payday.
- The final June 2026 quarter super guarantee statement deadline was 28 August 2026.
From 1 July 2026, super guarantee contributions must be received by the employee's fund within 7 business days of payday, not paid quarterly. Super is now calculated on qualifying earnings rather than ordinary time earnings, which for most employers does not change the amount payable, and both qualifying earnings and the super liability are reported through Single Touch Payroll every payday.
The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed permanently on 1 July 2026, with no further payments and no record downloads. For June 2026 quarter contributions not received in full by 28 July 2026, the final quarterly super guarantee charge statement and payment were due on 28 August 2026.
What actually changed on 1 July 2026?
Four connected parts of the payroll process changed at once: the deadline, the earnings base, STP reporting and the clearing-house option. Together, they mean super now needs to be part of the pay-run process rather than a separate quarterly task.
Timing: contributions must reach the employee's fund within 7 business days of payday. Not left your bank account, not reached a clearing house. Received by the fund.
Base: super is calculated on qualifying earnings rather than ordinary time earnings. Reporting: qualifying earnings and the super liability go through STP each payday. Infrastructure: the ATO's clearing house is gone. The ATO's overview of the new regime is at about payday super.
Why is 7 business days tighter than it sounds?
Because the clock runs to receipt by the fund, and you do not control the last leg of that journey. The day you pay qualifying earnings is day 0, and the deadline does not move because a contribution hit an error in processing. There are limited exceptions, such as for a new employee, but they are exceptions.
A payment that leaves your account on day six through a commercial clearing house, sits over a weekend, then gets allocated by the fund on day eight is late. Bank cut-off times, public holidays that differ between states, and a rejected contribution because of a wrong member number all eat the same seven days.
The practical answer for most employers is to initiate the contribution with the pay run itself, not after it. If your process is "pay staff Thursday, do super the following week", that process no longer works.
The clearing house has closed. What do I use instead?
The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed permanently on 1 July 2026. No further payments can be made through it and payment records can no longer be downloaded. The ATO's page on the closed clearing house sets that out.
If you relied on it, you need a payroll system that lodges contributions directly and confirms receipt. For most of our clients that means super is paid out of the payroll software as part of the pay event, with a record of when each fund accepted or rejected it.
Two housekeeping items. First, check whether anyone in your business downloaded the SBSCH payment history before closure, because you will want it if a contribution is ever queried. Second, if the history was not saved, the reconstruction comes from bank statements and fund records, and that takes time you would rather not spend. We help clients set this up through Xero bookkeeping and payroll.
What are qualifying earnings, and will my super bill go up?
Qualifying earnings replaces ordinary time earnings as the base from 1 July 2026, and for most employers the answer is that the bill does not move. The rate is still 12%, every payment that counted towards super up to 30 June 2026 still counts, and employee eligibility has not changed. The ATO's detail on what payments are qualifying earnings is the reference point.
The ATO lists two additions to what counts as qualifying earnings. The first is commissions paid solely for work performed entirely outside ordinary hours. The second is certain payments to people who fall under the expanded definition of employee, which is the subcontractor question dealt with below. Ordinary commissions were already ordinary time earnings and already carried super, so a sales-driven business paying commission on work done in normal hours sees no increase.
Performance and Christmas bonuses are unchanged, and a bonus for work performed entirely outside ordinary hours is still excluded. Salary-sacrificed amounts are included on effectively the same rule that applied before payday super.
So if you have read that the base has been broadened and your wage bill is about to rise, check both of those cases before you budget for it. The first applies to a business paying commission on after-hours work, and there the cost of employing those people has genuinely moved. The second applies to a business paying subcontractors mainly for their labour.
The change that affects nearly everyone is timing, not quantum. Super now leaves the business every pay run instead of up to three months after it, and for a business used to holding that money until the 28th, that is a working capital change rather than a payroll setting. It is a sensible thing to model with us through business advisory.
What about subcontractors?
The ATO's own words on the same qualifying earnings page are that qualifying earnings include "certain payments (whether undertaken during or outside of any ordinary hours of work) specifically included for individuals who fall under the expanded definition of employee, including payments to independent contractors paid mainly for their labour, where that payment is made in respect of the person's labour".
The deeming itself is not new. Independent contractors paid mainly for their labour are considered employees for super guarantee purposes, and that was the position before 1 July 2026 as well.
What has changed is the machinery around those payments and, for these workers, the reach of the base: super on them is now calculated on qualifying earnings each time you pay them, on the same 7 business day clock as wages, and the ATO's wording catches those payments whether the work was done inside ordinary hours or outside them.
So the reassurance above comes with one caveat. If your business pays subcontractors mainly for their labour, super guarantee attaches to those payments whether or not it has ever been part of the arrangement, and every payment since 1 July has carried the same deadline as your payroll. Whether a particular contract is caught depends on its terms, and that is a question worth putting to us rather than assuming.
What applied to the June 2026 quarter?
The old quarterly rules continued for the June 2026 quarter, even though payday super began on 1 July. Contributions that were not received in full by the fund by 28 July could still trigger a final super guarantee charge statement and payment.
If contributions for the June 2026 quarter were not received in full by the fund by 28 July 2026, a final quarterly super guarantee charge statement and payment were due on 28 August 2026. The statement fell due within a month of the quarterly due date, as the ATO sets out in its guidance on missed and late quarterly super payments. The change on 1 July did not remove that obligation.
It was a lodgement deadline as well as a payment deadline, which made it easy to overlook while attention was on the new system.
What happens if super lands late under the new rules?
Late super stops being a contribution and becomes a charge dealt with through the ATO, and you lose control of the cost. The ATO has published guidance on compliance in the first year of payday super, which is worth reading before you assume a first-year error will be waived.
The exposure is not only financial. Directors carry personal risk on unpaid super, and a pattern of late payments is visible to the ATO every payday now through STP rather than surfacing once a quarter. An unpaid super guarantee charge is one of the amounts the ATO can recover from a company's directors personally, under the director penalty regime.
That visibility is the real change. Under the old system a timing slip could be fixed quietly inside the quarter. Now each pay event either reconciles or it does not.
What about family members on the payroll?
The same rules apply to a spouse or adult child paid a wage through the family company or trust. There is no relief because the employee shares your surname.
This is where we see the most breaches in practice, because family wages are often processed casually, and super is caught up later. Under payday super there is no later. Where family salaries interact with contribution planning, the superannuation and taxation and accounting sides need to be looked at together.
We make sure the employer obligation is met correctly and on time, and we work with your financial adviser on fund choice where that comes up.
What should employers check now?
The June 2026 quarter position is still worth reconciling. Where contributions were not received in full by 28 July 2026, the statement and payment deadline was 28 August 2026.
Then check three things in your payroll: that super is initiated with the pay run and receipt is confirmed, that your earnings categories are mapped to qualifying earnings, with commissions for work performed entirely outside ordinary hours now included and payments to subcontractors engaged mainly for their labour treated as qualifying earnings, and that STP is reporting qualifying earnings and the super liability each payday.
Finally, check that whoever presses the button knows that seven business days runs to the fund, not to your bank.
If you would like us to review your payroll setup and the June quarter position, get in touch or see our people.
Your position depends on your pay cycle, your earnings categories and your payroll system.