Payday Super

What is Payday Super?

Note: The relevant legislation passed both houses of parliament on 4 November 2025. The ATO website will contain the most current information regarding Payday Superannuation and at their request we link to that information, rather than republish.

With a commencement date of 1 July 2026, Payday Superannuation is an initiative to reduce unpaid super and ensure employees' superannuation accounts receive contributions in a timely fashion. The legislation passed the Australian parliament on 4 November 2025. Payday Superannuation will require superannuation to be paid at the same time as regular salary or wages, instead of the current quarterly requirements. Further, super contributions must hit member accounts within 7 business days of pay date, and super funds have 3 days to match the funds to members where auto matching fails.

Unlike other recent initiatives, there is no scope for Payday Super deferrals. The ATO will work with employers on compliance issues before jumping straight to penalties, unless the breaches are deliberate. The ATO has published these guidelines regarding their compliance approach.

Ordinary Time Earnings replaced by Qualifying Earnings

Prior to Version 25.10, Sybiz Visipay had an informal concept of OTE; this has now been formalised as a check box in pay items in Version 25.10. However, as more information has materialised from the ATO there is a new term, Qualifying Earnings (QE) which denotes whether a pay item would ordinarily attract super. As such, it is crucial for Sybiz Visipay users to revisit their pay items and ensure OTE (relabelled as QE from Sybiz Visipay 26.00) is being applied correctly to the relevant pay items. Reporting of QE will be required under STP2 and is expected to be supported from Sybiz Visipay 26.10 for the 2026/27 financial year and beyond.

Qualifying Earnings

Qualifying Earnings includes all pay items that are currently treated as OTE and also includes additional amounts that are not classified as OTE (for example, commissions earned wholly from work performed outside of normal hours).

Essentially Qualifying Earnings is the number which the ATO will use in calculating the Superannuation Guarantee Charge in the event you fail to meet Payday Super obligations. Please refer to the ATO resources regarding these concepts.

We also invite Sybiz Visipay users to check our our Getting Ready for Payday Super webinar, a recording of which has been made available on our site. But please be aware updated information will be more reliable as it becomes available.

Planning ahead

There are steps Sybiz Visipay users can take now ahead of Payday Super to prepare for its future implementation:

Sybiz Visipay 25.10 has added a flag to designate pay items as Ordinary Time Earnings. Note that the name of this flag has changed to Qualifying Earnings (QE) from Sybiz Visipay 26.00.
Review director's fees, and bonus and commission pay items regarding the applicability of super and Qualifying Earnings. Any pay items that are not Qualifying Earnings but you wish to pay extra super upon should have their Qualifying Earnings flags unchecked.
Review your pay frequency as it may make sense to change to a less frequent payroll to reduce the administrative burden.
Make plans now to move away from the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House, which will cease operation on 1 July 2026.
Plan to update to version 26.10 of Sybiz Visipay well prior to 1 July 2026 - this version will be required for STP reporting updates.
Be aware that the Maximum Super Contribution Base is changing from Quarterly to Annually.
Ensure you have the ability to complete Member Verification Requests (our onboarding solution will support MVR).