Australia Payday Super Calculator (Super Due Dates and SG Charge)

About the Australia Payday Super Calculator (Super Due Dates and SG Charge)

Under Payday Super, an employer pays each employee’s super guarantee with every pay: the contribution must reach the employee’s fund within 7 business days of the day qualifying earnings are paid (the QE day) — 20 business days for a new employee’s or a new fund’s first contribution. When it arrives late or short, the employer owes the super guarantee charge (SGC) for that payday: the final shortfall, notional earnings at the general interest charge rate, an administrative uplift and any choice loading.

List the paydays of one employee with the qualifying earnings and what the fund received and when. The calculator works out the SG owed (12%, with the yearly maximum contribution base), the due date of each payday — skipping weekends and every public holiday of a whole state or territory, and applying the ATO’s rules for first contributions, out-of-cycle payments, exceptional circumstances and bunching — and the SGC if a payment is late, with the due dates of the next paydays and what a later payment would cost. Nothing you type leaves your browser. Without a pass the page gives a free preview of your own result: the due dates, the rules and the status of each payday, with every amount hidden until you unlock it with a Premium pass.

When super is due under Payday Super

The contribution must be received by the employee’s fund within 7 business days after the QE day, with the details the fund needs to credit it (ATO). Longer periods apply:

• 20 business days for the first contribution for a newly engaged employee (or a rehired one), or to a new complying fund after the employee changes funds;
• out-of-cycle payments (an allowance, bonus, commission, loading, payment in advance or back pay paid outside the regular pay schedule, as the ATO’s out-of-cycle determination lists them): 7 business days after the next regular payment of qualifying earnings — a payment is out of cycle only when that regular payment follows;
• an ATO exceptional circumstances determination (natural disasters, widespread outages): the later of 20 business days after the QE day and 20 business days after the determination;
• the bunching rule: once a contribution for an earlier payday has reached the fund in time, a later payday that would fall due before that earlier payday’s longer due date takes that date too (section 18C of the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992).

Business days leave out Saturdays, Sundays and any day that is a public holiday for the whole of any state or territory — wherever the employer is. A holiday in part of a state, such as Royal Hobart Show Day or the Brisbane show day, is still a business day. The calculator holds the statewide holidays of every state and territory from the Fair Work Ombudsman’s lists; add a newly proclaimed holiday under the extra days.

What the super guarantee charge is made of

For each QE day the ATO works out the SGC as the total of four parts (ATO):

• Final shortfall: the SG (12% of qualifying earnings, nothing above the maximum contribution base of $270,830 for 2026-27) less what the fund received by the due date (the base shortfall), less what it received late but before the assessment.
• Notional earnings: the base shortfall compounded daily at the general interest charge daily rate, from the day after the due date for each day the final shortfall is above nil (section 19A of the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992). A part payment does not reduce the base it accrues on; paying the whole shortfall stops it.
• Administrative uplift: 60% of the final shortfall and notional earnings, less 20 points if in the 24 months ending on the QE day the ATO made no SGC assessment on its own initiative and no SGC estimate for the employer (for QE days up to 30 June 2028 those months count from 1 July 2026), and less up to 40 points for a voluntary disclosure statement lodged before the assessment: 40 in the 30 days starting on the QE day, 35 to day 60, 30 to day 120 and 15 after that (regulations 13C and 13D).
• Choice loading: 25% of the contributions for a QE day paid without following the choice of fund rules, at most $1,200 a notice period.

The SGC is paid to the ATO; late contributions go to the fund. The ATO lists the SGC for paydays from 1 July 2026 as tax deductible, the GIC on an unpaid SGC as not.

The general interest charge rate

The GIC daily rate is the quarter’s annual rate divided by the days of the calendar year (ATO GIC rates). The calculator holds 11.43% for July to September 2026 and 11.51% for October to December 2026; for later quarters, enter the rate the ATO publishes before each quarter.

Qualifying earnings

Qualifying earnings are what SG is worked out on from 1 July 2026: ordinary time earnings plus all commissions, salary sacrificed to super that would otherwise be qualifying earnings, and payments to contractors and others under the wider employee definition. Overtime for hours outside ordinary hours, most termination payments, reimbursements and fringe benefits are not included (ATO). Enter the qualifying earnings of each payday as payroll works them out.

Limitations

• One employee at a time; the uplift, which the ATO applies to all employees’ shortfalls for a QE day, is worked out here for the employee listed.
• The ATO assesses the charge; the amounts here estimate it from the published rules. A voluntary disclosure’s day count is chosen as a band, as the ATO states it.
• The built-in holiday list covers the statewide holidays of 2026 and 2027; add later or newly proclaimed ones.
• Choice loading uses the contributions paid for the QE day and one notice period for the list; the ATO sets each notice period in writing.
• Each contribution counts for the payday it is entered on. The law applies contributions in the order the fund receives them, earliest QE day first, and one received in the 12 months before a QE day can count for it, so an overpayment can cover a later payday: enter such an amount on the payday it covers.
• One GIC rate is used for every quarter after the ones built in; when a late period runs over several later quarters with different rates, the notional earnings are an estimate.
• The quarterly rules for pay periods before 1 July 2026 are not covered.

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