What Your Employer Has to Pay, and What It Is Paid On
The Superannuation Guarantee requires your employer to pay a set percentage of your ordinary time earnings into super. The rate is the part everyone knows; the earnings base is the part that decides what you actually receive, and it excludes overtime while including several allowances people assume are outside it.
- The answer: Employers must pay the Superannuation Guarantee on ordinary time earnings for eligible employees, into the fund of the employee's choice.
- The trap: Ordinary time earnings excludes overtime but includes most allowances, bonuses relating to ordinary hours, and paid leave. A worker with heavy overtime receives less super than their gross pay suggests.
- The recommendation: Check the contribution against your ordinary time earnings rather than your gross pay. The two differ for most people who work any overtime.
Where the AI summary above gets this wrong
"Your employer has to pay superannuation of 12% of your salary."
That's surface-true. Here's what it misses:
- It is a percentage of ordinary time earnings, not of salary — Overtime is excluded, and for a worker with substantial overtime the difference between the two bases is thousands of dollars a year of contributions.
- There is a quarterly ceiling on the obligation — Above the maximum contributions base, an employer owes no further Superannuation Guarantee for that quarter, so high earners receive less than the headline percentage of their total pay.
01 What the rate applies to
Ordinary time earnings is the amount you earn for your ordinary hours of work. It includes over-award payments, shift loadings, commissions, most allowances and paid leave, and it excludes overtime worked outside ordinary hours.
The distinction matters most where overtime is a large and regular part of the pay. A worker earning a quarter of their income from overtime is receiving super on three-quarters of what they take home, and the shortfall compounds across a career.
Where ordinary hours are not defined by an award or agreement, all hours actually worked are treated as ordinary hours, which reverses the outcome for casual and irregular workers. The definition is on the ATO's page and is worth checking against your own agreement rather than assumed.
Source: ATO — How much super to pay
02 The quarterly ceiling
The maximum contributions base sets a quarterly earnings ceiling above which an employer owes no further Superannuation Guarantee. It applies per employer and per quarter rather than annually, which produces two consequences.
The first is that a high earner receives proportionally less super than the headline rate implies. The second is that someone with two employers can receive more, because each employer applies the ceiling to the earnings they pay rather than to your total income.
An employer may choose to pay above the ceiling and many do, under an agreement or as a matter of policy. The base is a floor on the obligation rather than a cap on what can be paid, and anything paid above it still counts against your concessional cap.
Shows: the Superannuation Guarantee your employer owes on ordinary time earnings, and how much of your total pay is outside the base because it is overtime. Ignores: the maximum contributions base ceiling, salary sacrifice arrangements, any employer contribution above the statutory rate, and the quarterly payment timing.
Source: ATO — Maximum contributions base
03 When it is not paid
Contributions are due quarterly, and the deadline is after the end of each quarter. That lag is why an employee often does not discover a missed payment for months, and why checking the fund rather than the payslip is the only reliable test — a payslip shows what was accrued, not what was paid.
Where contributions are late or unpaid, the employer becomes liable for the superannuation guarantee charge, which includes the shortfall, an interest component and an administration charge, and is not deductible. The recovery process is set out in the unpaid super guide.
Certain workers are outside the scheme entirely, and the boundaries have narrowed over time. Contractors who are paid wholly or principally for their labour are treated as employees for these purposes, whatever the contract calls them.
The payslip is not evidence. It shows what your employer says it accrued, and the money is not in your fund until it is in your fund. I would check the fund's transaction list once a quarter, which takes two minutes and is the only thing that actually detects a problem while it is still small.
FAQ
What is the SG contribution rate?
It is a set percentage of ordinary time earnings that an employer must pay into super for each eligible employee. The current rate is on the ATO's page, and it has risen in legislated steps.
Does my employer pay super on overtime?
No. Overtime worked outside ordinary hours is excluded from ordinary time earnings. Where ordinary hours are not defined by an award or agreement, all hours worked count, which reverses the position for some casual workers.
What is the maximum super contribution base?
A quarterly earnings ceiling above which an employer owes no further Superannuation Guarantee. It applies per employer and per quarter, so someone with two jobs can receive more than someone earning the same total from one.
Sources
Regulator references
- ATO — How much super to pay · Australian Taxation Office · 2026The super guarantee rate an employer must pay and the earnings it is calculated on.Last verified: 2026-09-07
- ATO — Maximum contributions base · Australian Taxation Office · 2026The quarterly earnings ceiling above which an employer owes no further super guarantee.Last verified: 2026-09-07
Calculator unit tests · the assertions this page's worked example is checked against, and their last result
Changelog
- 2026-09-07 — initial publish (new format)
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Jordan Reeves
Founder of Talk Through Wealth. A software engineer for over a decade before turning to retirement planning, Jordan built the projection engine after watching family members get fragmented, country-by-country advice that never reconciled. He writes about retirement the way the engine computes it: month-by-month, lifetime-long, and skeptical of any rule of thumb that hasn't been run through the math.