Super

Payday Super and STP Phase 2: What Changes in Your Payroll Reporting From 1 July 2026

From 1 July 2026, your Single Touch Payroll reports change: each payday you report year-to-date qualifying earnings and year-to-date super liability per employee. Here's exactly what's new on top of STP Phase 2, the transition rules, and how the ATO uses STP to check you paid super on time — written for employers who must act before 1 July 2026.

If you run payroll, the part of payday super that quietly trips people up isn't the payment — it's the reporting. From 1 July 2026, your Single Touch Payroll (STP) report changes: every payday you start reporting two new amounts per employee. This page explains exactly what's new on top of STP Phase 2, the transition rules (including what you can and can't report before 1 July 2026), and — the bit that matters most — how the ATO uses your STP data to check you paid super on time. Written for an employer who has to get this working before 1 July 2026, not after.

General information only — not financial, tax, superannuation, or legal advice. This page is based on ATO published guidance for the reform commencing 1 July 2026; confirm your obligations against the ATO and a registered tax or BAS agent before acting.

To see the dollar side of the change before the reporting detail, run the free calculator right here:

STP Phase 2 vs payday super: two different things

First, clear up the confusion, because it's everywhere. STP Phase 2 and payday super are not the same reform.

• STP Phase 2 is the existing reporting framework. Its headline change is the disaggregation of gross pay — instead of reporting one lump "gross", you break pay into components: ordinary pay, paid leave, overtime, bonuses and commissions, directors' fees, allowances, salary sacrifice and more, each reported separately. You should already be on STP Phase 2.
• Payday super is the new reform starting 1 July 2026. It changes when you pay super (every payday instead of quarterly, with the fund receiving it within 7 business days of payday) and it adds two new fields to your STP report.

So payday super doesn't replace STP Phase 2 — it builds on it. The disaggregated income data you already report under Phase 2 is the foundation the new payday-super fields and the ATO's on-time checks sit on top of. If you're not cleanly on STP Phase 2 yet, fixing that is step zero.

The two new amounts you report each payday

Here's the concrete change. From 1 July 2026, through your normal STP reporting, each payday, you report per employee:

1. Year-to-date qualifying earnings (QE) — the running total of the new Qualifying Earnings base that super is now calculated on.
2. Year-to-date super liability — the running total of the super guarantee you owe on that QE.

Both are year-to-date figures (the cumulative total for the financial year), reported on every pay event, for every employee. They're how the ATO knows, payday by payday, what super you should have paid — which it then compares against what the funds actually received.

A quick note on qualifying earnings, because it's the base these new numbers are built on: from 1 July 2026 super is calculated on QE rather than OTE-per-quarter. QE is OTE plus all commissions (including those solely for work outside ordinary hours) plus salary-sacrificed amounts that would have been QE — while overtime stays out where ordinary hours are clearly identified, and the underlying definition of OTE itself hasn't changed. If your year-to-date QE is wrong, your year-to-date super liability is wrong too, so mapping your pay codes correctly is the first domino. The full breakdown is in the qualifying earnings vs OTE guide.

The transition rules: what you can (and can't) report, and when

This is the part to read twice, because the dates are specific and the ATO has set hard cut-offs.

Before 1 July 2026: you can't report QE yet

Until 1 July 2026, you report either OTE or super liability in STP to be compliant — and you can't report qualifying earnings before then. QE is a payday-super concept; it doesn't exist in STP until the reform starts. So there's nothing to "switch on" early; the work before 1 July is making sure your software and process are ready to report the new fields the moment the reform begins.

From 1 July 2026: start reporting both new amounts

From 1 July 2026, you begin reporting year-to-date qualifying earnings and year-to-date super liability each payday. The ATO's practical concession: if your software or setup can't report these from day one, you should begin reporting them as soon as possible after 1 July 2026 — start as soon as you can, don't sit on it.

From 1 July 2027: it becomes mandatory, with rejection

From 1 July 2027, if your STP reports don't include both amounts, the ATO will reject your reporting and penalties may apply. In other words, the new fields are effectively mandatory from 1 July 2027 — you get a one-year runway from the start of the reform to get them flowing.

The simple read: be ready to report both fields from 1 July 2026; have them definitely working by 1 July 2027. Don't treat the 2027 date as your deadline to start — treat it as the date by which any excuse runs out.

The one-line timeline. Before 1 July 2026: report OTE or super liability (no QE). From 1 July 2026: report YTD qualifying earnings + YTD super liability each payday — start ASAP if not ready day one. From 1 July 2027: both are mandatory or STP reports are rejected.

How the ATO uses your STP data to check you paid on time

This is the "why it matters" — and it's the reason accurate STP reporting is no longer just paperwork. Under quarterly super, late payment was usually surfaced after the fact. Under payday super, the ATO gets near-real-time visibility, and STP is the mechanism.

Here's the loop:

1. You report your year-to-date super liability per employee, each payday, via STP.
2. The fund confirms the contributions it actually received, through SuperStream.
3. The ATO matches the two. Because the rule is that the fund must receive super within 7 business days of payday, the ATO can see whether the super you reported as owing actually arrived, in full, in time.

Any gap between reported liability and received contribution can be flagged automatically. That's a structural shift: a slow clearing house, a bounced contribution from stale fund details, or an under-calculated QE base no longer hides until a quarterly true-up — it shows up against your own STP numbers. It also means your STP accuracy and your payment turnaround are now joined at the hip: reporting the right liability doesn't help if the money doesn't reach the fund in time, and paying on time doesn't help if your reported figure is wrong. You need both right.

This is exactly why the 7-business-day deadline is "received, not sent" and why knowing your clearing house's turnaround in business days is non-negotiable.

What this means you actually have to do before 1 July 2026

Turning the above into a short, do-it-now list:

1. Confirm you're cleanly on STP Phase 2. Disaggregated income is the foundation; gaps here undermine everything else.
2. Confirm your payroll software will report the new fields. Specifically year-to-date qualifying earnings and year-to-date super liability, per employee, each payday. Check this with your provider — being on the updated version of Xero or MYOB, or QuickBooks or Reckon, is the practical step.
3. Map your pay codes to qualifying earnings. Your YTD QE figure — and therefore your YTD super liability figure — is only as accurate as your pay-code mapping. Use the qualifying earnings vs OTE lookup.
4. Verify your clearing-house turnaround in business days. Because the ATO matches reported liability against received contributions, a slow turnaround makes you late even when your STP is perfect.
5. Clean every employee's fund details. A contribution the fund can't allocate isn't "received" in the way the rule requires — and the mismatch shows in the data match.
6. Run a dummy pay run before 1 July 2026. Confirm the new STP fields populate correctly and that the super reaches the fund comfortably inside 7 business days. This single test catches most problems while you still have time to fix them.

Steps 4, 5 and 6 are the same backbone as the full 12-point readiness check — the reporting change on this page slots straight into it.

Where the reporting change connects to the rest

Getting STP right is one face of payday super; the cash and the penalties are the others, and they're linked:

• If your YTD QE is under-counted, your YTD super liability is under-reported, you under-pay super, and you can land in the new Super Guarantee Charge even if you paid "on time".
• If your reporting is right but the money is late to the fund, the data match flags it — again, the new SGC regime, with notional earnings compounded daily and an initial 60% administrative uplift. (There's a first-year education-first approach under PCG 2026/1 for qualifying-earnings days from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, but that's breathing room to get your process right, not a reason to delay.)
• And the timing of money leaving your account every payday is a genuine cashflow shift you should model now.

If you used the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House, note its separate hard date: it closes 11:59pm AEST 30 June 2026, so your replacement payment path must be live and tested before then — and that replacement is also what feeds the SuperStream receipts the ATO matches your STP against.

Get the done-for-you version

This page is the free explainer for the reporting change. If you'd rather not assemble the supporting process from scratch, the Payday Super Compliance Pack turns it into done-for-you, editable templates — the payday super policy, the per-payday payroll SOP (which includes the STP-reporting and confirm-received steps), employee comms templates, and a cashflow plan with a 7-business-day deadline calculator. It's built to get a small employer or bookkeeper operational in an afternoon instead of a fortnight. Grab the free readiness checklist first, then the pack:

Where to go next

• Map your pay items → Qualifying earnings vs OTE: every pay item that changed
• Understand the deadline → The 7-business-day rule: received, not sent
• Check you're ready → Am I ready for payday super? The 12-point check
• Know the penalties → The new SG charge, 60% uplift and penalties
• Read the full guide → Payday Super: the complete employer guide

General information only, current as at 9 June 2026, based on ATO published guidance — not financial, tax, superannuation, or legal advice. The STP reporting requirements, transition dates and data-matching described here are based on published ATO guidance which can be updated before 1 July 2026; confirm the current position on the ATO's payday super and how to manage super during the changeover pages and with a registered tax or BAS agent before acting.

Next steps: run your numbers in the free payday super cashflow calculator, then get the Payday Super Readiness Checklist & Pack → to turn this reporting change into a tickable plan before 1 July 2026. For the full picture, start at the Payday Super pillar guide.

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