This Payday Super calculator works out the date each payday's super must reach your employees' funds, gives you a calendar file of every due date, and shows how much cash you need to carry before your clients pay. Payday Super started on 1 July 2026. For a traffic control company that pays crews every week, it turns a quarterly super bill into a weekly one.
What changed on 1 July 2026
Before July 2026, super guarantee could be paid quarterly, due 28 days after the end of each quarter. Under Payday Super:
- super must be received by the fund within 7 business days after each payday, with enough information for the fund to allocate it
- it's still 12%, now worked out on "qualifying earnings": ordinary time earnings plus salary sacrifice and other amounts already counted for super
- the ATO's Small Business Superannuation Clearing House has closed, so you pay through payroll software, your fund or a commercial clearing house
- a late payment means the super guarantee charge, which the ATO now assesses for each payday
The ATO's best practice is to pay super on payday. A clearing house can take several days to get the money to the fund, so paying on payday leaves room for delays.
How the due date is worked out
Count 7 business days after payday. Payday itself is day 0. A business day is any day except a Saturday, Sunday or a day that's a public holiday for the whole of any state or territory. That last part surprises people: the Northern Territory's Picnic Day on 3 August 2026 wasn't a business day for a Queensland employer either. A holiday that covers only part of a state, like a regional show day, still counts as a business day.
Some payments get longer:
| Situation | Deadline |
|---|---|
| A normal payday | 7 business days after payday |
| A new employee's first contribution | 20 business days after payday |
| First contribution to a new fund, or a rehired worker | 20 business days after payday |
| An out-of-cycle payment (bonus, back pay) | 7 business days after the next regular payday |
| A payday whose due date falls before an earlier extended date | The same later date (bunching rule) |
| An ATO exceptional circumstances determination (disaster, outage) | Later of 20 business days after payday or after the determination |
The calculator loads the official 2026 and 2027 public holiday lists for all eight states and territories. Where a day isn't clearly a whole-state holiday (Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve evenings, Melbourne Cup, Tasmania's Easter Tuesday, and holidays not yet confirmed), it's counted as a business day. That means a date here can be a day early, never late.
A worked example
A Queensland traffic control company pays 12 casual traffic controllers every Thursday. Each works 38 ordinary hours at the award casual rate of $35.55, so qualifying earnings are $16,210.80 a week, plus about $2,500 of overtime. Two new starters join on the third payday, each earning $1,350 a week. The company invoices $34,000 a week, two days after payday, on 30 days end of month terms, and clients pay about a week late.
- Payday Thursday 29 October 2026: super of $1,945.30 must reach the funds by Monday 9 November.
- Christmas: the payday on Thursday 24 December has super due by Thursday 7 January 2027, because Christmas Day, the Boxing Day additional day and New Year's Day are skipped.
- New starters: their first contribution from the 12 November payday has until Thursday 10 December (20 business days). Their super from the 19 and 26 November paydays would normally be due earlier, so the bunching rule moves it to the same date.
- Cash: the first client payment doesn't arrive until 7 December. Before then the company pays out about $136,000 in wages and super, $12,968 of it super, and the peak cash it has to fund is $196,753 on 31 December. That's about $16,400 per traffic controller.
- Compared with quarterly: under the old rules this super would have been due on 28 January or 28 April 2027. Now it leaves the account on average 69 days earlier.
If a payment is late
For each late payday, the ATO assesses a super guarantee charge with up to four parts:
- Final shortfall: any super still unpaid when the ATO assesses you. Paying late but before the assessment reduces this to nil.
- Notional earnings: the general interest charge rate (11.51% a year for October to December 2026) on the late amount, compounded daily from the day after the due date.
- Administrative uplift: 60% of the first two parts. It drops by 20 points if you haven't had an ATO-initiated assessment in the past 2 years, and by up to 40 more if you lodge a voluntary disclosure quickly.
- Choice loading: 25% of the payday's contributions if you didn't follow the choice of fund rules, capped at $1,200 a notice period.
The charge is tax deductible for paydays from 1 July 2026. Leaving it unpaid can bring penalties of 25% or 50%. The ATO has said that in the first year it won't review employers who pay super each payday and fix errors quickly. The calculator shows an estimate for one late payday so you can see what slipping a week or a month costs.
Cash flow for traffic control companies
Labour is most of a traffic control company's cost, and it goes out every week. Payday Super adds 12% of ordinary pay to every one of those weekly outgoings, while client terms stay the same. The calculator lays the two side by side:
- out: wages every payday, and super on payday or by your send-by date
- in: each pay period's invoice, paid on your terms plus the days clients usually run late
The running balance shows how deep the hole gets and when it starts to fill. Divide the peak by your crew size and you have the cash each extra traffic controller ties up. That's the number to know before you take on a big new contract. Our guide to traffic control cash flow covers invoicing from signed dockets, deposit terms and debtor follow-up, and starting a traffic control company explains how much working capital to set aside.
Getting it right every week
- Pay super on payday, or set your payroll software to send it on payday.
- Load the calendar file so every due date sits in your diary with a 2-day reminder.
- Check new starters' fund details and do the member verification before their first payday.
- Keep a buffer for the peak cash gap, or agree deposit or progress terms with large clients.
Cost each hour properly with the labour cost calculator, and check crews are paid correctly with the traffic controller pay calculator. For anything unusual, such as out-of-cycle payments, contractors who count as employees for super, or an exceptional circumstances determination, check the ATO's guidance or talk to your accountant or BAS agent.