Salary Sacrifice Super Calculator

How salary sacrifice actually works

Salary sacrifice is an agreement with your employer to redirect part of your pre-tax pay straight into super, before income tax gets anywhere near it. Once it lands in your fund, it's taxed at a flat 15%, not your marginal rate. For most working Australians that's a genuinely big gap: 30% at $80,000, 37% at $120,000. The difference between that rate and 15% is the saving, and it's real money, not a rounding error.

Here's the maths in practice. Sacrifice $10,000 on an $80,000 salary (30% marginal rate) and you'd otherwise have paid $3,000 tax on it, leaving $7,000 in your pocket. Salary sacrificed instead, it's taxed at 15% in the fund, so $8,500 lands in super. Annual tax saving: $1,500. Bump the salary to $120,000 (37% marginal rate) and the same $10,000 sacrifice saves you $2,200 a year, because the gap between 37% and 15% is even wider.

The catch, and it's a fair one: that money is locked away until you reach preservation age (60 for most people born after 30 June 1964). You can't raid it for a deposit or a rainy day. Use the calculator above to plug in your own numbers and see exactly what your take-home pay gives up versus what actually lands in super.

The 2026-27 concessional contributions cap: $32,500

Every before-tax dollar going into your super, from every source, shares one combined ceiling: the concessional contributions cap, which is $32,500 for 2026-27. That covers your employer's Super Guarantee (now 12%, the final legislated step), any salary sacrifice, and any personal contributions you claim as a tax deduction, all added together.

This is the single most common mistake people make: setting up a salary sacrifice amount without first checking what their employer is already tipping in. Here's how much room is actually left at a few common salaries.

Before you set anything up, log into myGov and check your actual concessional contributions year to date rather than estimating. Go over the cap and the excess gets added to your assessable income and taxed at your marginal rate, with a 15% offset for the contributions tax already paid, not catastrophic, but avoidable admin you don't need.

Carry-forward contributions: catching up on unused cap space

If you haven't maxed out your cap in previous years, the ATO doesn't just let that space vanish. The carry-forward rule lets you roll unused concessional cap forward for up to five financial years, provided your total super balance was under $500,000 at the most recent 30 June. The oldest unused amounts are used first, and they expire after five years if you don't use them.

This is a genuinely big deal for anyone who took time off to raise kids, worked part-time for a stretch, or just had a few leaner income years and wants to catch up now that things have picked up. Say you left $12,500 of cap unused a few years back. If your balance is under $500,000, that $12,500 stacks on top of your standard $32,500 cap this year, no form required, the ATO applies it automatically.

Division 293 tax: the catch for high earners

Once your income plus concessional contributions passes $250,000, the ATO adds an extra 15% on top of contributions tax, called Division 293 tax. That pushes your effective contributions tax rate from 15% to 30%, roughly what a $45,001-$135,000 earner already pays on their income.

Does salary sacrifice still stack up above $250,000? Yes, the saving just narrows. At a $300,000 salary (45% marginal rate), sacrificing $10,000 means $3,000 contributions tax at the 30% effective rate versus $4,500 income tax, still a $1,500 saving. The $250,000 threshold hasn't moved since 2017-18 and isn't indexed, so more people get caught by it every year.

Who should (and shouldn't) salary sacrifice

It makes the most sense if:

• Your marginal tax rate is 30% or higher, taxable income above $45,000.
• You've got cap room left after your employer's 12% super.
• You're fine locking the money away until preservation age.
• You've got unused carry-forward cap space sitting there from leaner years.
• You're in your 40s or 50s and want to accelerate super before retirement.

It's probably not worth it if:

• You earn under $37,000, the Low Income Super Tax Offset already refunds your contributions tax, so there's no marginal-rate gap to capture.
• You need the cash now, super is locked away and that's non-negotiable.
• You're already close to the $32,500 cap from employer super alone.
• You're carrying high-interest debt, a guaranteed 20%+ return from clearing a credit card beats a 15% tax saving every time.
• You're saving for a house deposit or another big purchase in the next few years.

Salary sacrifice vs after-tax super contributions

These are two different levers, not competing versions of the same thing. Salary sacrifice comes from pre-tax pay, gets taxed at 15% on the way in, and counts toward the $32,500 concessional cap. After-tax (non-concessional) contributions come from money you've already paid tax on, aren't taxed again inside the fund, and count toward a separate, much bigger cap. Both grow inside super's concessionally taxed environment either way.

Rule of thumb: salary sacrifice while you've got concessional cap room and want to trim tax now. Switch to after-tax contributions once you've used up that cap, or if you've had a windfall (inheritance, property sale) you want to tip into super as a lump sum without the cap getting in the way. If retirement timing is on your mind too, our transition to retirement guide covers a related strategy for your final working years.