Super Contribution Caps 2026-27: Concessional and Non-Concessional Limits Explained

From 1 July 2026, two of the most consequential numbers in Australian superannuation are rising. According to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the concessional contribution cap increases from $30,000 to $32,500, and the non-concessional contribution cap rises from $120,000 to $130,000. The general transfer balance cap — the ceiling on how much you can hold in a tax-free retirement pension account — also moves from $2 million to $2.1 million.

On their own those numbers might sound like minor tweaks. But inside a low-tax super environment where earnings are taxed at just 15%, even modest additional room compounds into tens of thousands of dollars over a 15-to-20-year investment horizon. Understanding exactly how these caps work, who they apply to, and how the bring-forward and carry-forward rules interact with them is essential before you make any contribution decisions for FY 2026-27.

What Are Super Contribution Caps, and Why Do They Exist?

Superannuation in Australia is one of the most tax-effective investment structures available to ordinary Australians. Contributions tax is capped at 15%, earnings inside the fund are taxed at 15%, and once you move to the pension phase after age 60, earnings on balances up to the transfer balance cap become completely tax-free. Without limits, this environment would become a tax shelter for the ultra-wealthy.

Contribution caps exist to ensure the concession stays targeted. The government sets an annual ceiling on how much of each type of contribution qualifies for concessional treatment, and breaching those ceilings triggers extra tax — sometimes significant amounts. Understanding where the caps sit, and how to stay within them, is the starting point for any serious super strategy.

There are two distinct contribution types with separate caps.

Concessional contributions are made from pre-tax income. They include your employer's mandatory Superannuation Guarantee (SG) payments, any salary sacrifice amounts, and personal contributions you later claim as a tax deduction. The word "concessional" refers to the tax concession: instead of paying income tax at your marginal rate (which can reach 47%), these contributions are taxed at a flat 15% inside the fund.

Non-concessional contributions are made from after-tax income — money you have already paid income tax on. No additional tax is charged when they enter the fund, but once inside, the money grows in the low-tax super environment rather than a personal investment account where earnings might be taxed at your marginal rate.

The 2026-27 Contribution Caps at a Glance

The concessional cap is indexed to Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings (AWOTE) in increments of $2,500. The non-concessional cap is set at four times the concessional cap. Following the December 2025 quarter AWOTE data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on 26 February 2026, the ATO confirmed the following caps apply from 1 July 2026:

Contributions made on or before 30 June 2026 are assessed against the 2025-26 caps. The new caps apply only to contributions made on or after 1 July 2026 — timing matters, particularly for personal deductible contributions where your fund must receive the funds before the financial year end.

Concessional Contributions: The $32,500 Pre-Tax Cap

What counts toward the cap?

Every before-tax contribution received by your fund is counted against your concessional cap, regardless of who made it. Your employer's 12% SG payment, any salary sacrifice arrangement you have set up, and any personal contribution you later claim as a tax deduction all flow into the same $32,500 bucket. You cannot use separate buckets for employer and personal amounts.

For a full-time employee on $120,000 per year, the 12% SG comes to $14,400, leaving $18,100 of concessional cap space for salary sacrifice or personal deductible contributions. For an employee on $180,000, the SG component alone reaches $21,600, leaving $10,900 of remaining headroom. High-income earners with salaries above the maximum super contribution base — which is $270,830 for 2026-27 per the ATO — should note that employers are not required to pay SG on earnings above that threshold, meaning the full $32,500 cap remains available for voluntary contributions on the excess earnings.

The tax saving from filling the concessional cap

For every dollar contributed concessionally, you pay 15 cents in contributions tax inside the fund rather than your marginal income tax rate. For a person in the 37% bracket (income $135,001 to $190,000), the saving is 22 cents per dollar. Topping up the full $32,500 cap through salary sacrifice saves approximately $7,150 in income tax compared to receiving that amount as ordinary pay.

For individuals with income above $250,000, Division 293 tax applies — an additional 15% surcharge on concessional contributions, bringing the effective rate inside the fund to 30%. That is still materially lower than the 47% top marginal rate, but it reduces the incentive and should be weighed in the decision.

What happens if you exceed $32,500?

The ATO issues an excess concessional contributions (ECC) assessment. The excess amount is added to your assessable income for the year and taxed at your marginal rate. A 15% tax offset is applied to prevent double taxation, since the fund has already paid 15% on entry. You can elect to release the excess from super to fund the tax bill. If you do not, the excess also counts toward your non-concessional cap — potentially triggering a second excess assessment on top of the first.

Use CalcPhi's Salary Sacrifice Calculator to model your salary sacrifice scenarios and make sure you stay within the new $32,500 limit at your income level.

Non-Concessional Contributions: The $130,000 After-Tax Cap

Eligibility and the $2.1 million balance limit

Non-concessional contributions let you park additional after-tax savings inside the super environment, where they will grow at a 15% earnings tax rate (or 0% in pension phase) rather than being taxed at your personal marginal rate year after year. The catch is that eligibility depends entirely on your total superannuation balance (TSB) at 30 June of the prior financial year.

If your TSB at 30 June 2026 is equal to or exceeds $2.1 million (the new general transfer balance cap), your non-concessional cap for 2026-27 is zero — you simply cannot make after-tax contributions. This threshold rises alongside the transfer balance cap to ensure the rule remains proportionate to the pension cap.

The bring-forward rule: contributing up to $390,000 in a single year

For individuals under age 75, the bring-forward rule is one of the most powerful tools in the super contribution toolkit. Rather than being limited to $130,000 in a single year, you can pull forward up to three years of non-concessional caps into a single financial year — effectively contributing up to $390,000 in one hit. This is particularly valuable when you receive a lump sum: an inheritance, a property settlement, a business sale, or a redundancy payout.

The amount you can bring forward depends on your TSB at 30 June 2026:

One critical caution: if you already triggered the bring-forward rule in 2024-25 or 2025-26 and are still within your bring-forward period in 2026-27, the increased cap does not expand your available room. Your bring-forward amount is locked at the cap in force when you first triggered it. The higher $390,000 maximum applies only to new bring-forward arrangements triggered on or after 1 July 2026.

To see how a lump-sum non-concessional contribution today affects your projected retirement balance, use CalcPhi's Super Balance Calculator and compare outcomes with and without the additional contribution.

Carry-Forward Concessional Contributions and the New Cap

The carry-forward (or catch-up) rule allows individuals with a total super balance under $500,000 at 30 June of the previous year to use unused concessional cap amounts from the preceding five financial years. The five-year carry-forward threshold of $500,000 is not indexed — it remains unchanged at $500,000 regardless of how the annual cap moves.

With the 2026-27 concessional cap now at $32,500, the maximum possible concessional contribution in a single year using the carry-forward rule is $175,000. That figure is made up of:

• 2026-27 current year cap: $32,500
• Unused cap from 2025-26: up to $30,000
• Unused cap from 2024-25: up to $30,000
• Unused cap from 2023-24: up to $27,500
• Unused cap from 2022-23: up to $27,500
• Unused cap from 2021-22: up to $27,500

Important deadline: Unused concessional cap amounts from 2020-21 expired permanently on 30 June 2026. There is no extension, no exception, and no way to recover them after that date. Going forward, the oldest available year in any 2026-27 carry-forward calculation is 2021-22.

For a full guide to the carry-forward mechanics and a step-by-step worked example, read CalcPhi's Catch-Up Super Contributions guide.

Worked Example: Priya Uses Both Caps Strategically

To see how the concessional and non-concessional caps work together in a real-world scenario, consider Priya — a 48-year-old senior operations manager earning $160,000 per year. Her employer pays SG at 12%, so $19,200 goes into her super fund annually without any action on her part. Her total superannuation balance on 30 June 2026 is $430,000, which puts her below both the $500,000 carry-forward threshold and well below the $1.84 million bring-forward threshold.

Step 1 — Priya maximises her concessional contributions

Priya's concessional cap for 2026-27 is $32,500. Her employer has already used $19,200 of it through SG. That leaves $13,300 of cap space available for salary sacrifice. She sets up a salary sacrifice arrangement to redirect $13,300 of her pre-tax salary into super across the financial year.

By topping up to the concessional cap, Priya saves approximately $2,926 in income tax and gets $2,926 more working inside her super fund than she would have had she simply received the salary as take-home pay.

Step 2 — Priya makes a non-concessional contribution from an inheritance

In the same financial year, Priya receives a $100,000 inheritance. Because her TSB of $430,000 is well below $1.84 million, she is eligible for the full three-year bring-forward: up to $390,000 in a single year. She contributes the full $100,000 as an NCC. No tax is payable on entry — the money is already after-tax — and it now sits inside a structure where future earnings are taxed at 15% rather than at her personal marginal rate of 37%.

Over 17 years to age 65, at a conservative net return of 7% per annum, that $100,000 inside super grows to approximately $319,000 inside super versus approximately $265,000 in a personal investment account (assuming a 37% tax drag on annual earnings). The difference — roughly $54,000 — comes entirely from the tax treatment.

The combined result for Priya in 2026-27

Priya moves $132,500 into super across the year ($32,500 concessional + $100,000 NCC), saves $2,926 in income tax through salary sacrifice, keeps her full concessional cap intact for future carry-forward use, and puts her inheritance to work in the most tax-efficient structure available to her.

Want to run your own version of this calculation? Use CalcPhi's Salary Sacrifice Calculator to find your exact tax saving, and the Super Balance Calculator to project how any additional contributions affect your retirement balance.

The Superannuation Guarantee Rate and Payday Super in 2026-27

Two additional super changes take effect from 1 July 2026 that affect every employed Australian.

First, the SG rate remains at 12% of ordinary time earnings. This has been the rate since 1 July 2025 and is not scheduled to increase further under current legislation. For high-income earners, the maximum super contribution base rises to $270,830 per year — employers are not obligated to pay SG on earnings above this level, though employees can make personal contributions on the excess.

Second, from 1 July 2026, employers are required to pay SG contributions at the same time as wages, within seven business days of each payday. This replaces the quarterly payment model that has been in place for decades. For employees this means your super begins compounding from the moment you are paid rather than sitting with your employer for up to three months. For employers, it means payroll systems and clearing house arrangements must be updated before 1 July, and the ATO will have real-time visibility of late or unpaid contributions from day one.

Age Rules: Who Can Contribute What

There is no longer a work test for individuals aged 67 to 74 making voluntary contributions — concessional or non-concessional. This was abolished from 1 July 2022 and remains the position in 2026-27.

Once you turn 75, you can only accept mandated employer contributions. No salary sacrifice, personal deductible, or non-concessional contributions are permitted after age 75 — with one important exception.

Downsizer contributions allow eligible Australians aged 55 or over to contribute up to $300,000 per person (or $600,000 per couple) from the proceeds of selling their principal residence, provided they have owned the property for at least 10 years. Downsizer contributions are not subject to the standard NCC cap and do not count toward your total super balance for the purpose of NCC eligibility. They can be made regardless of your TSB.

For a full breakdown of how super interacts with tax at every income level, use CalcPhi's Income Tax Calculator, updated for the 2026-27 ATO rates and including Medicare levy and LITO calculations.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the concessional contribution cap for 2026-27?

  The concessional contribution cap for the 2026-27 financial year is $32,500, up from $30,000 in 2025-26. This applies to all before-tax contributions — employer SG payments, salary sacrifice, and personal contributions claimed as a tax deduction — which all count toward the same combined limit. The increase reflects AWOTE indexation and took effect on 1 July 2026, confirmed by the ATO following the December 2025 quarter data release.

• What is the non-concessional contribution cap for 2026-27?

  The non-concessional contribution cap is $130,000 per year from 1 July 2026, up from $120,000. If you are under age 75 and your total super balance on 30 June 2026 was below $1.84 million, you can also trigger the three-year bring-forward rule to contribute up to $390,000 in a single financial year. Eligibility reduces in tiers as your TSB approaches the $2.1 million transfer balance cap, at which point your NCC cap drops to zero.

• Can I still contribute to super if my balance exceeds $2.1 million?

  Once your total superannuation balance equals or exceeds the general transfer balance cap — $2.1 million from 1 July 2026 — your non-concessional contribution cap is zero and you cannot make any after-tax contributions. You can still receive mandatory employer SG contributions and make concessional contributions up to $32,500, subject to Division 293 tax if your income exceeds $250,000. The transfer balance cap itself limits how much you can move into the tax-free pension phase, not how much you hold in accumulation.

• What happens if I accidentally exceed the super contribution caps?

  Exceeding the concessional cap triggers an excess concessional contributions assessment from the ATO. The excess is included in your assessable income and taxed at your marginal rate, with a 15% offset to avoid double taxation. You may elect to release the excess from super to cover the tax. Exceeding the non-concessional cap is more serious — the ATO will issue an excess NCC determination, and you must choose between withdrawing the excess (plus 85% of associated earnings) or leaving it in the fund and paying a 47% penalty tax on the excess amount. Both situations are avoidable with monitoring through ATO online services.

• Does the increased bring-forward cap apply if I already triggered the rule in a previous year?

  No. If you triggered the bring-forward rule in 2024-25 or 2025-26 and are still within that bring-forward period in 2026-27, the higher $390,000 cap does not expand your available room. Your entitlement remains locked at the cap that applied when you first triggered the rule. The increased limit of $390,000 only applies to new bring-forward arrangements first triggered on or after 1 July 2026.

• How do carry-forward contributions work under the new $32,500 concessional cap?

  If your total super balance on 30 June 2026 was below $500,000, you can use unused concessional cap amounts from the past five financial years on top of your 2026-27 current-year cap of $32,500. The maximum possible concessional contribution in 2026-27 using carry-forward is $175,000 — that is $32,500 for the current year plus up to $142,500 in accumulated unused caps from 2021-22 through 2025-26. Note that unused amounts from 2020-21 expired permanently on 30 June 2026 with no exceptions, as confirmed by the ATO's five-year rolling window for carry-forward eligibility.

Summary: Key 2026-27 Super Contribution Numbers

Conclusion

The 2026-27 super contribution cap increases are a genuine opportunity to move more money into one of Australia's most tax-effective structures. An extra $2,500 of concessional room and $10,000 of non-concessional room might not sound transformative, but compounded over 15 to 20 years inside a 15% tax environment, the difference is significant. The key is knowing your TSB, understanding which rules apply to your situation, and acting before the contribution deadlines.

Before making any changes, take a few minutes to run your numbers. Explore CalcPhi's full suite of Australian financial calculators — including the Salary Sacrifice Calculator, Super Balance Calculator, and Income Tax Calculator — all updated for FY 2026-27 and free to use with no sign-up required.

Written by

Sarah Mitchell CFA

Investment Analyst & CFA Charterholder

Sarah is a CFA charterholder based in Sydney with 11 years of experience in superannuation, managed funds, and investment portfolio analysis across Australian equity and fixed-income markets.

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