30 June 2026: the last year end before payday super

30 June 2026 is the last year end that finishes with a quarterly superannuation payment. From 1 July 2026 you must pay super at the same time as wages, so the April to June quarter is the final contribution on the old timetable. It is due in your employees' funds by 28 July 2026, which is the same month your first payday super payments fall due. If you have been paying quarterly in arrears, more super leaves your account in July 2026 than in any month before it. Everything else on the year-end list is unchanged, so work through that part first.

The 30 June actions that have not changed

None of these are affected by payday super. All of them turn on a date, and they are the same list we set out for the 2025 year end.

Instant asset write-off. A small business with aggregated turnover under $10 million that uses the simplified depreciation rules can immediately deduct an asset costing less than $20,000. The ATO's guidance on the instant asset write-off for eligible businesses is specific about the test: the asset must be first used or installed ready for use by 30 June 2026. Ordering it does not count. Paying for it does not count. A machine sitting on a pallet in the yard on 30 June does not count. That is the whole rule, and there is no discretion in it.

Assets costing $20,000 or more go into the small business pool and depreciate at 15% in the first year and 30% each year after. A pool balance under $20,000 at 30 June can be written off in full.

The limit after 30 June 2026 is not settled. On 12 May 2026, as part of the 2026–27 Budget, the Government announced it would make the $20,000 limit permanent from 1 July 2026. The ATO's page on the $20,000 instant asset write-off measure still records it as not yet law, sitting in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 2) Bill 2026. This is announced, not legislated. Do not plan your 2026–27 capital purchases around it yet.

Prepayments. A small business entity can deduct a prepayment in full under the 12-month rule. The ATO's guide to deductions for prepaid expenses for small business entities sets two conditions: the eligible service period must be 12 months or less, and it must end no later than the last day of the following income year. Rent, insurance, subscriptions and interest are the usual candidates. A 13-month service period fails the rule outright, and the deduction is then apportioned.

Bad debts. Three things must be true. The amount must already have been included in your assessable income. You must have determined the debt is genuinely bad rather than merely doubtful. And you must record the decision to write it off in writing before the end of the income year. A resolution dated 3 July does not save a 2025–26 deduction. If you account for GST on a non-cash basis, a decreasing adjustment may also be available.

Trading stock. Count it as close as possible to 30 June. Each item can be valued at cost, market selling value or replacement value, and you can use a different method for a different item each year. Obsolete stock written down to its market selling value reduces closing stock, and a lower closing stock reduces taxable income. Under the ATO's simplified trading stock rules, a small business that reasonably estimates its stock value moved by $5,000 or less over the year does not have to conduct a formal stocktake.

Trust resolutions and director bonuses. A trustee resolution must make one or more beneficiaries presently entitled to trust income by 30 June, or earlier if the deed requires it. We have covered the resolution requirements in detail separately. A bonus to a director is deductible in 2025–26 only if the company is definitively committed to it by 30 June. Taxation Ruling TR 97/7 sets that test: a presently existing liability, not an intention and not a contingency. Write the resolution, state the amount, and date it. From 1 July 2026 a bonus is qualifying earnings for the payday it is paid on, and the super on it follows within 7 business days.

If any of that is uncertain against your own figures, it belongs in a taxation and compliance conversation rather than a last-week guess.

What changes on 1 July 2026

From 1 July 2026 your super guarantee contribution is on time only if it is received by the employee's fund within 7 business days after you pay them. The ATO's guidance on how Payday Super works sets out the rest. The rate stays at 12%, but it applies to qualifying earnings, a new term that brings together ordinary time earnings, all commissions, salary sacrifice contributions and other amounts previously counted as salary or wages for super guarantee. You report both qualifying earnings and the super liability through Single Touch Payroll.

One detail catches people out. A business day excludes any day that is a public holiday for the whole of any Australian state or territory. A holiday that applies across all of Victoria removes a business day for a Robina employer too.

The super guarantee charge changes as well. From 1 July 2026 the ATO assesses it, you do not lodge a statement, interest compounds daily at the general interest charge rate, and the charge is tax deductible. Under the quarterly rules that still govern the June quarter, the charge is not deductible.

The clearing house is going. business.gov.au's summary of the changes for businesses from 1 July 2026 states that the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closes permanently on that date. It closed to new users on 1 October 2025, and existing users have access only until 30 June 2026. After that you cannot reach your records at all. Download your payment reports, then move to a SuperStream-compliant alternative. Many payroll systems already include one. That is a bookkeeping job, and it is far easier done in June than in the last week of July.

The June quarter is the last one on the old timetable

Calculate the June quarter exactly as you always have: 12% of the ordinary time earnings you paid between 1 April and 30 June 2026, received by the funds on or before 28 July 2026.

Miss that date and the consequences are worse than a normal quarter. You must lodge a super guarantee charge statement by 28 August 2026 and pay the charge to the ATO. The ATO's guidance on managing super during the changeover confirms the late payment offset is not available for the final June quarterly payment. Contributions received on or after 29 July 2026 cannot be applied to the June quarter at all. They are applied to payday super obligations from 1 July onwards instead.

There is also an allocation rule worth understanding. A contribution received by a fund between 1 and 28 July 2026 is applied to your June quarter obligation first, and any remainder carries forward to the first available payday. That is not a problem if you fund both amounts in full and on time, because both obligations are then met. It becomes a problem if you send one lump sum and assume it covers both.

The overlap, with numbers

An example. A Robina business pays eight employees fortnightly. Ordinary time earnings across the team come to $28,000 a fortnight, and six paydays fall inside the June 2026 quarter.

• June quarter super guarantee: $168,000 × 12% = $20,160, due in the funds by 28 July 2026.
• Payday Monday 6 July 2026: $28,000 × 12% = $3,360. The ATO's changeover guidance puts the deadline for a Monday 6 July payday at Wednesday 15 July 2026, seven business days later.
• Payday Monday 20 July 2026: a further $3,360, with its own seven-business-day deadline.

Total super leaving the account in July 2026: $26,880. In an ordinary quarter-end month it would have been $20,160. The overlap is $6,720, and it sits on top of the wages themselves and, for a self-lodger, the June quarter activity statement.

That gap is a timing problem, not a tax problem. It is one month of doubling up, and it never repeats. But it is a third again on a line most owners treat as fixed, and it is much better sitting in a cash-flow forecast in June than discovered on 28 July.

What to do before 30 June

• If you use the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House, move to an alternative now and download your reports. Access ends 30 June 2026.
• Confirm your payroll software calculates qualifying earnings and reports them through STP from the first July pay run. We set out the full payroll readiness list when the legislation passed last November.
• Diarise 28 July 2026 as a hard date. Fund the June quarter well before it, because the money must be received by the fund, not merely sent.
• Work out what July actually costs. Add the June quarter contribution to the super payable on every July payday, and check the bank balance against that total.
• Finish the 30 June items: assets installed and ready for use, prepayments made, bad debts written off in writing, stock counted, resolutions signed and dated.

Three of those are compliance and two are cash flow. The cash-flow pair is the one that catches employers, and it is the pair a business advisory conversation is genuinely for.