Before-tax salary sacrifice contributions

Benefits

Salary sacrifice is where you agree for your employer to pay part of your before-tax salary into your super. The main benefits to this contribution type are:

Save on tax

Contributing from your before-tax salary reduces your taxable income, and potentially how much tax you pay.

Grow your super

Making regular contributions to your super over time can make a difference to your super balance.  

Set and forget

Start automatic regular contributions and let your super grow in the background without having to think about it.

How it works

• You nominate how much you want to contribute each pay cycle and your employer will usually pay this on top of the legislated 11%.
• Instead of paying tax at your marginal rate, you’ll only pay up to 15% tax on your money as it goes into super (if you earn under $250,000 per year).

See for yourself

Try our retirement income calculator to see how making contributions could boost your super.

Launch calculator

Limits and caps

You can make before-tax (concessional) contributions to your super of up to $27,500 each financial year. Employer contributions, including salary sacrifice, are included in this cap. This also includes any insurance fees or administration fees your employer might pay for you on your behalf.

It’s important you understand the finer details of making this type of contribution:

• The cap applies per person, not per account. That means if you have multiple accounts you can contribute up to $27,500 in total across all your accounts (not $27,500 for each account).
• If you’re a high-income earner and your income and before-tax contributions during the financial year exceeds $250,000 (the threshold for 2022/23 financial year), you could pay an additional 15% tax (up to 30% in total) on some or all the contributions made to your super in the financial year.
• If you find you can contribute more than in a previous financial year, you can use what's called the bring forward rule. As long as your total super balance is less than $500,000 on 30 June of the previous financial year, the carry-forward rule lets you add the previous year’s unused cap limit to your current cap (over rolling five-year periods). Read the super contributions limit page for more information.

Start contributing

Have contributions deducted from your salary by completing the Contribution authorisation form and returning it to your employer.

Get started using this contribution form