Your final quarterly super payment is due 28 July, and the safety net is gone
Venues that pay super quarterly have until Tuesday 28 July 2026 to get the April to June quarter into employees' funds. Miss it and the usual late payment offset isn't available, which turns an $18,000 bill into $20,104 you can't deduct.
Tuesday 28 July 2026 is the last quarterly super deadline your venue will ever have. From 1 July, super is paid on every payday instead, and that's permanent. The catch is that this final quarterly payment is the least forgiving one the ATO has run in years: the late payment offset isn't available for it.
That one rule changes the maths completely. Pay the June quarter late and the money still lands in your employees' accounts, but it counts toward your payday super obligations from July, not your June debt. The June bill stays there in full, now as the super guarantee charge.
The short version: super for the 1 April to 30 June 2026 quarter has to be received in your employees' funds by Tuesday 28 July 2026, not just sent from your account. Miss it and you lodge a super guarantee charge statement by 28 August and pay the SGC, with no offset for what you eventually pay the fund. Anything a fund receives on or after 29 July is treated as a payday super contribution instead.
What's actually due in July, and when
| What you owe | Worked out on | Must be received by the fund by | If it's late |
|---|---|---|---|
| June quarter super, 1 April to 30 June 2026 | 12% of ordinary time earnings paid in the quarter | Tuesday 28 July 2026 | SGC statement due 28 August 2026, no late payment offset |
| Super for each payday from 1 July 2026 | 12% of qualifying earnings paid that day | 7 business days after payday | The new super guarantee charge, assessed by the ATO |
| First contribution for a brand new employee | 12% of qualifying earnings paid that day | 20 business days after that payday | The new super guarantee charge |
Read the third column again: received by the fund, not sent from your account. Clearing houses take days to process and allocate, and the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed permanently on 30 June 2026. If that's what you used in April, you're on a new provider whose timings you've never tested. Send it today rather than Tuesday.
The ordering trap most venues won't see coming
Buried in the ATO's changeover guidance is a rule about which debt your money pays down first. Any contribution a fund receives on or before 28 July is applied to your June quarter first. Only the remainder counts toward payday super.
Say you pay fortnightly and haven't got round to the quarterly payment yet. You pay super for your 6 July and 20 July paydays on time, feeling organised. The ATO applies both to the June quarter. Your July paydays are now unpaid, both seven-business-day clocks have run out, and you've picked up the new SGC twice while still owing part of June. Paying both obligations in full is the only version of July that works.
"Any super payments received on or after 29 July will be applied under the new Payday Super rules, even if you intended these payments to be made for any super you owe for the June quarter." (ATO, managing the changeover to Payday Super)
What missing Tuesday actually costs
The super guarantee charge isn't a small fine bolted onto what you owed. It's a bigger, recalculated version of the whole bill. Two things make it hurt: the shortfall is worked out on salary and wages including overtime, not just ordinary time earnings, and nominal interest of 10% a year runs from 1 April, not from the day you went late.
Take a 12-person venue in Newtown that paid $150,000 in ordinary time earnings across the quarter, plus about $9,000 in overtime. Paid on time, the super bill is $18,000. Miss Tuesday and it looks like this. The wage figures are illustrative, the charges are the real ones.
| Line | Paid on time | Paid late (SGC) |
|---|---|---|
| Super shortfall | $18,000 (12% of $150,000 in OTE) | $19,080 (12% of $159,000, overtime included) |
| Nominal interest, 10% a year from 1 April | Nil | $784 (150 days to the 28 August statement date) |
| Administration fee, $20 per employee | Nil | $240 |
| Total payable | $18,000 | $20,104 |
| Tax deductible? | Yes | No |
| Real cost after tax, base rate entity at 25% | $13,500 | $20,104 |
So an $18,000 obligation becomes a $20,104 bill you can't deduct. Against the $13,500 it would have cost you after tax, that's $6,604 for being a few days slow, and that's before the additional penalty of up to 200% of the charge that the old rules allow. The money you eventually send the fund reduces none of it.
Your checklist for the next few days
- Work out the number properly. It's 12% of ordinary time earnings paid between 1 April and 30 June. Casual loading, shift penalties and public holiday penalties all count as ordinary time earnings. Overtime doesn't, at least not for this calculation. If your award levels or public holiday rates are guesswork, the super figure is guesswork too.
- Confirm where you're paying from. The SBSCH is gone. If you haven't moved to a new clearing house or set up to pay funds direct through SuperStream, that's the first job, not the last.
- Send it now, not Tuesday. Ask your clearing house how long they actually take. On the New Payments Platform it's close to instant. If they're not on it, Tuesday is already too tight.
- Check for rejections the next morning. A wrong USI, a wrong member number, an ABN mismatch or stale fund details will bounce the payment straight back, and a bounced payment is a late payment. Silence is not confirmation.
- Put cash aside for a heavy July. You have the quarterly payment plus super on every payday in the same month. It's a one-off squeeze, and it's the thing most venues will trip on.
What changes from your next payday
| Until 30 June 2026 | From 1 July 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Deadline | 28 days after the quarter ends | 7 business days after payday |
| Calculated on | Ordinary time earnings | Qualifying earnings |
| Rate | 12% | 12% |
| If you're late | You self-assess and lodge an SGC statement. Not tax deductible | The ATO assesses it. Tax deductible, plus an administrative uplift |
| Time a fund has to allocate or return your payment | 20 business days | 3 business days |
| Penalties | Up to 200% of the charge | 25% or 50% of the unpaid charge |
For a typical venue the amount doesn't move, only the timing. Qualifying earnings picks up everything ordinary time earnings did, and the single genuinely new inclusion is commissions for work done entirely outside ordinary hours, which almost no venue pays. The ATO has also published a compliance approach for the first year: pay each payday and fix errors quickly, and you won't be its focus.
Where this leaves your roster
Quarterly super quietly covered for a lot of loose wage data. You had 28 days after the quarter closed to reconcile timesheets, chase the shifts nobody approved and land on a number. From your next payday you have seven business days, every payday, forever. The wage figure has to be right the first time.
That's a rostering and timesheet problem before it's a super problem. Shiftly is free workforce management for venues: rostering, award-aware timesheets that help you estimate what a shift really costs including casual loading and penalties, and an on-demand staffing network built in so the roster fills itself instead of filling with last-minute overtime. We're a calculation tool and a facilitator, not a payroll provider, but the super number starts with the hours, and the hours start on the roster. Get started with Shiftly.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I miss 28 July 2026?
You have to lodge a super guarantee charge statement by 28 August 2026 and pay the SGC for the June quarter. The late payment offset isn't available for this quarter, so paying the fund afterwards doesn't reduce what you owe the ATO. Anything a fund receives on or after 29 July is applied under the payday super rules instead.
Do I still pay super quarterly after this one?
No. The 28 July 2026 payment is the last one under the quarterly system. From 1 July 2026, super for every payday has to reach your employees' funds within seven business days of that payday, with a longer 20 business day window for a new employee's first contribution.
Does payday super change how much super I pay casuals?
Not in practice. The rate is still 12%, and casual loading, shift penalties and public holiday penalties counted before and still count. The only new inclusion is commissions for work done entirely outside ordinary hours, which is rare in hospitality. What changes is how often you pay and how fast it has to land.
I paid on 27 July but the fund hasn't allocated it. Am I late?
The test is whether the fund received the contribution with enough information to allocate it to the member's account by the due date. A short lag before it shows in an employee's account isn't the risk. A rejection is: if the payment bounces for a wrong member number or fund detail, it was never received, and fixing it after 28 July won't save you. Go looking for error messages rather than assuming no news is good news.
Co-founder of Shiftly. Milan works with hospitality businesses across Australia to make rostering, timesheets and award-based pay radically simpler.
