Regulatory Overview – For Informational Purposes Only
Disclaimer: This guide provides a general overview of Australia's Payday Super regulations for informational purposes. It does not constitute legal, financial, or tax advice. While we strive to keep this information current as of May 13, 2026, regulations and timelines are subject to change by the Australian authorities.
Zone assumes no liability for the accuracy or completeness of this information or for any actions taken based upon it. For definitive legal requirements and the most up-to-date mandates, please consult the official Australian Taxation Office (ATO) website and your professional payroll advisors.
Summary: This article reviews the regulation changes as a result of the Payday Super legislation, which goes into effect on July 1, 2026. Learn about the corresponding updates to ZonePayroll here.
What Regulations are Changing?
The Australian government has passed the Payday Super legislation, which will come into effect on July 1, 2026. Currently, employers are required to pay superannuation into their employees' funds at least once every three months, but under the new mandate, employers must calculate and pay the superannuation guarantee on payday, the same day as salary and wages are paid. See additional information below.
- Watch this 2 min video from Wrkr (ClickSuper) to learn more about these changes here.
- Learn more from TAPs (Australian Association of Payroll Specialists) in this video series:
- Read about Payday Super from the ATO (Australian Taxation Office)
How Payday Super Will Work After 01 July, 2026
NOTE: This guide provides a general overview of Australia's Payday Super regulations for informational purposes. It does not constitute legal, financial, or tax advice. See disclaimer above.
- Data Reporting vs. Payment: Zone Payroll will function purely as a reporting enabler. It will generate the necessary data for Single Touch Payroll (STP) submissions and the compliant files or API uploads needed by clearing houses. However, Zone Payroll does not manage payment infrastructure or move money. The employer remains entirely responsible for triggering the actual payment to the clearing house.
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7-Day Compliance Window: The ATO mandate dictates that contributions must be received by the super fund within 7 business days. Because clearing houses typically require 1 to 3 days to process transactions, employers must factor this processing time into their internal schedules to remain compliant.
- Note that the window for new hires is 20 days and that out-of-cycle payments may be held until the next standard/regular pay cycle.
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STP Reporting Updates: Employers will be required to report both the year-to-date QE and the year-to-date Super Liability (SL) for each employee through Single Touch Payroll (STP) on every payday.
- Qualifying Earnings (QE) Replaces OTE: Ordinary Time Earnings (OTE) will be replaced by a new, broader earnings base called Qualifying Earnings (QE). Employers must calculate the minimum 12% super guarantee based on QE.
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It is the responsibility of the customer to review the pay component subtype codes (PCST) to verify QE.
- Review the QE and OTE comparison provided by the ATO here.
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Retiring Services: The ATO’s Small Business Super Clearing House is being decommissioned from July 1, 2026. Employers currently using this service will need to adopt a valid alternative clearing house ahead of time.
- Any customers interested in integrating with Wrkr (ClickSuper) should contact their account manager or submit a support ticket to learn more about adding this integration to their ZonePayroll contract.
- MCB (Maximum contribution base): Updated to a yearly cap.
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Member Verification Request (MVR): All companies will be expected to confirm an employee’s super fund details are valid and can accept contributions before money is sent, resulting in a reduction of errors and rejections. MVRs will be necessary for first-time contributions, when fund details change, or when a previous contribution was rejected.
- ZonePayroll will not provide MVR; your nominated clearing house should offer this functionality to Payroll administrators.
- For ZonePayroll customers using Wrkr (ClickSuper), the clearinghouse integrated directly with ZonePayroll, Wrkr will be releasing a solution as soon as possible.
ZonePayroll Updates
- To align with the new reporting base, "OTE” (Ordinary Time Earnings) will be renamed to "OTE/QE” (Ordinary Time Earnings/Qualifying Earnings) across all fields.
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A new field was added to PCST records: STP Super Entitlement Type
- To facilitate the cutover process, Zone prepopulated the STP Super Entitlement Type for all of the standard ZonePayroll PCST records. It is the responsibility of the customer to review the pay component subtype (PCST) values to verify QE and to add those values (or leave them blank) for all custom PCST records.
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Zone Payroll will introduce visual color-coded countdown banners on Pay Runs to help employers track how many days have passed since the Pay Date.
- Note that the banner will only apply to the standard seven day compliance window and not to new hires (which has a 20 day compliance window) and out-of-cycle payments (which should be paid during the next pay-cycle).
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ZonePayroll will build a Start Super Remittance button as a shortcut to Super Payday, saving customers time by auto-populating some fields based information from prior steps in the payroll process.
- More information for this will be available here on June 20.
Three Potential Data-Sharing Solutions for ZonePayroll Customers
To ensure employers can meet these regulatory requirements and tight deadlines, Zone Payroll is planning to support three data-sharing workflows for superannuation submissions:
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Wrkr (ClickSuper) Integration for Direct API: This is the supported, direct integration with the Wrkr (formerly ClickSuper) clearing house. It uses an automated API sync to send super data directly to Wrkr, which reduces the risk of manual file handling errors associated with the increased frequency of Payday Super.
- Any customers interested in integrating with Wrkr (ClickSuper) should contact their account manager or submit a support ticket to learn more about adding this integration to their contract.
- SAFF File Export (Alternate Clearing House) If an employer chooses to use a different third-party clearing house, they may utilize the SAFF Download feature to generate a file compliant with SuperStream standards.
- Manual Entry For users who prefer to type their data manually into their respective clearinghouse portals.
Review the step-by-step instructions for each data-sharing option, along with more details about ZonePayroll updates here.