Super contribution caps 2025–26

The two caps, in one table

Concessional contributions — what counts

The $30,000 annual cap covers everything pre-tax that goes into your super:

• Your employer's Super Guarantee (currently 12%)
• Salary sacrifice from your pay
• Personal contributions you claim a tax deduction on (form NAT 71121)
• Some defined-benefit notional amounts

On a $100,000 salary, SG alone is $12,000 — so your real annual sacrifice/personal room is around $18,000 before you hit the cap. On $180,000, SG is $21,600 and your room is about $8,400. The calculator handles this for you.

Carry-forward: the part most people miss

Since 1 July 2018, if your Total Super Balance was under $500,000 at the most recent 30 June, you can roll forward any unused concessional cap from the previous five financial years and use it this year. Unused amounts older than five years expire.

In practice, that means someone who's only been getting SG contributions for a few years can have $100,000+ of effective cap sitting there unused. That's the difference between a $4,500 tax saving (using this year's $30k cap if you're on the 32% marginal rate) and a $25,000+ tax saving (using five years of rolled cap). It's an absolutely enormous lever and barely anyone uses it.

A worked example

Emma is 37, earns $110,000, and has a super balance of $180,000. Her employer pays $13,200 SG. In the last five FYs, she never salary-sacrificed, so she has $25,000, $27,500, $27,500, $27,500 and $27,500 of unused cap — that's $135,000 carry-forward. Her effective cap this year is $165,000. If she has savings or a bonus, she can personal-contribute up to $151,800 (the room remaining after SG) and claim it as a deduction, saving tax at her marginal rate (around 32%) and paying only 15% inside super — a saving of roughly $25,000 in a single tax return.

Where to find your prior-year unused cap

Log into myGov → ATO → Super → Information → Carry forward concessional contributions. The ATO pre-calculates it for you — but the number relies on every super fund you've ever had reporting correctly. If you've had multiple funds, eyeball the figure against your own records.

Non-concessional contributions

These are post-tax dollars you put into super — from savings, inheritance, sale of an asset, or redirecting a bonus. The annual cap is $120,000, but if you're under 75 and your Total Super Balance at 30 June is under $1,900,000, you can bring forward up to 3 years of cap in one go — $360,000 in a single hit.

Why put post-tax money into super? Because earnings inside super are taxed at 15% (or 0% in pension phase), vs up to 47% outside super. For someone 15+ years from preservation age, that tax-drag difference compounds into a very big number.

The TSB cap on non-concessional

If your Total Super Balance at 30 June is equal to or greater than $1,900,000, your non-concessional cap drops to zero. This is the general transfer balance cap — the same number that caps how much you can move into pension phase. It's indexed in $100k increments; check the current figure on the ATO rates page.

What happens if you exceed

Excess concessional

The ATO adds the excess to your assessable income, taxes it at your marginal rate, then gives you a 15% offset for tax already paid inside super. You also pay an excess concessional contributions charge (interest, effectively). You can elect to release up to 85% of the excess from your fund to pay the bill.

Excess non-concessional

You can elect to release the excess plus 85% of its associated earnings (taxed at your marginal rate) or leave it in and pay 47% tax. Releasing is almost always the right call.

The common mistakes

• Forgetting about employer contributions. SG counts against your concessional cap. If you're salary-sacrificing $15k but your SG is already $18k, you're $3k over.
• Timing. Contributions count in the FY they're received by the fund, not the FY you pay. Don't leave 30 June contributions to the last day.
• Bringing forward without checking TSB. Contributing $360k in July when your 30 June TSB was $1.91M means the extra is all excess.
• Claiming a deduction you didn't lodge. Personal deductible contributions require a valid NAT 71121 form lodged before you claim the deduction in your tax return.

The one-minute version

• $30k concessional (pre-tax), $120k non-concessional (post-tax) this FY.
• If your TSB at 30 June was under $500k, carry-forward can unlock huge unused concessional room.
• Log into myGov → ATO → Super to see your actual figures.
• Use our cap tracker to see the tax you'd save by using your full room.