Australian Super Calculator
Your employer pays 12% of your salary into super whether you think about it or not. Add a voluntary top-up, give it decades, and watch compounding do the heavy lifting.
Your inputs
Balance growth over time
Year-by-year breakdown
| Year | Contributed | Growth | End balance |
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How Australian superannuation works
Super is compulsory retirement saving: your employer must pay the Super Guarantee — 12% of your ordinary time earnings for 2025–26 — into a super fund on top of your salary. It rose from 11.5% on 1 July 2025, the final scheduled increase. The money is locked away until you reach preservation age (60 if you were born on or after 1 July 1964) and retire — that's the price of the tax breaks.
Concessional vs non-concessional contributions
Concessional contributions come from before-tax money — your employer's SG, salary sacrifice, and personal contributions you claim as a tax deduction. They're taxed at just 15% inside the fund (instead of your marginal rate), but capped at $30,000 a year for 2025–26 across all your funds. Non-concessional contributions come from after-tax money you don't claim a deduction for — no entry tax, with a separate $120,000 annual cap. This calculator models concessional contributions only.
The math behind this calculator
Each year's contribution is your SG plus any voluntary top-up, clamped at the $30,000 concessional cap. Contributions are assumed to land at the start of each year and compound annually at the expected return. (Contributions tax of 15% and earnings tax are not modelled — see caveats.)
Each year: balance = (balance + yearly in) × (1 + r)
Worked example
Salary A$100,000, SG at 12%, no voluntary top-up, 7% return, 25 years. Your employer puts in A$12,000 a year — A$300,000 total. The balance reaches roughly A$812,000, so growth (A$512,000) is nearly two-thirds of the final balance. Add just A$2,776 a year voluntarily and the same 25 years build roughly A$1,000,000 — small top-ups, decades early, punch far above their weight.
Caveats worth knowing
- Concessional cap: $30,000 for 2025–26 (rising to $32,500 in 2026–27). SG + salary sacrifice + deductible contributions all count toward the one cap. Excess is taxed at your marginal rate plus interest.
- Division 293: if your income plus concessional contributions exceed $250,000, an extra 15% tax applies to the concessional contributions (30% total). The threshold hasn't moved since 2017.
- Taxes not modelled: concessional contributions are taxed 15% on entry and fund earnings are taxed up to 15% — the real balance will be lower than shown here.
- SG has a ceiling too: employers can stop SG at the maximum contribution base ($250,000 of earnings for 2025–26). Very high earners won't actually receive 12% on their full salary.
- Locked until 60. Super is genuinely inaccessible before preservation age (with narrow hardship exceptions) — don't count on it for anything earlier.
Sources: ATO — Super Guarantee entitlements; ATO — preservation age; CPA Australia — super rates and thresholds 2025–26; Nanak Accountants — contribution caps 2025–26.