Superannuation Calculator – Project Your Super Balance at Retirement

How the balance is built, layer by layer

Three things make a super balance: the money already there, the contributions that keep landing, and the growth those dollars earn while they sit invested. Fees and insurance are the quiet fourth force, shaving a little off every single year. Here is the default projection above, taken apart.

Keep going with your money numbers

How it works, in 3 steps

How each figure is worked out

Deep dives

Twenty-five years, three ingredients — and what extra contributions buy

The default projection on this page runs for 25 years, from age 40 to 65, and its final balance is built from exactly three ingredients plus the starting balance. Starting from A$50,000.00 today, on a salary of A$100,000.00 growing at 3% a year, with the super guarantee at 12%, an investment return of 6%, and fees and insurance of A$800.00 a year, the projected balance at 65 is A$918,053.48. The page’s own breakdown shows where it comes from: the balance you start with, A$50,000.00; contributions added after the 15% tax, A$371,884.50; investment growth along the way, A$516,168.98; and fees and insurance taken out, A$20,000.00. Add the first three and subtract the fourth — A$50,000.00 plus A$371,884.50 plus A$516,168.98 minus A$20,000.00 — and you get A$918,053.48 to the cent. Growth is the largest ingredient, larger than all the contributions combined, which is the whole argument for starting early: time in the fund does more work than money put in, because growth compounds on growth.

The year-by-year table on the page shows how the balance is built, and its first rows are worth checking by hand. At age 41, on a salary of A$100,000.00, A$12,000.00 is paid in before tax — the 12% guarantee on A$100,000.00 — and after the 15% entry tax that is A$10,200.00, plus growth of A$3,000.00, minus fees and insurance of A$800.00, taking the balance from A$50,000.00 to A$62,400.00. At age 42 the salary has grown 3% to A$103,000.00, the amount paid in rises to A$12,360.00, growth is A$3,744.00, and the balance reaches A$75,850.00. By age 50 the balance is A$230,954.40, and by age 65 it is A$918,053.48. The pattern to notice is that growth overtakes contributions early and then pulls away: in the first year growth is A$3,000.00 against A$10,200.00 of after-tax contributions, but by the final year growth is A$50,836.92 against A$24,393.53 paid in before tax. A projection that only counted contributions would miss more than half the final balance.

The two variant rows show what moves the total, and by how much. Raising the salary to A$120,000, with everything else at default, lifts the balance to A$1,067,523.78 — A$149,470.30 more than the default — through contributions of A$446,261.40 and growth of A$591,262.39. Adding A$5,000.00 a year of extra contributions on the default salary lifts it further, to A$1,151,227.65 — A$233,174.17 more than the default — through contributions of A$478,134.50 and growth of A$643,093.15. Note what the extra contributions actually cost and return: A$5,000.00 a year for 25 years is A$125,000.00 of gross extras, A$106,250.00 after the 15% entry tax, yet the balance rises by A$233,174.17 — more than double the after-tax amount put in — because every extra dollar also earns 6% growth for the years remaining after it goes in. That multiplier is why extra contributions early in the 25 years are worth more than the same dollars late: an extra dollar at 40 has 25 years of growth ahead of it, and an extra dollar at 64 has one. The page’s model makes no claim about investment risk — the 6% return is an assumption you enter, not a promise the fund makes — but within that assumption, the arithmetic of early extras is unambiguous.

Caps, the 15% entry tax and its doubling, and the true cost of fees

The figures that bound this projection are all on the page’s own table, and they are worth stating together because each one is a different kind of limit. The super guarantee rate is 12% of ordinary time earnings, from 1 July 2025. Tax on concessional contributions is 15% inside the fund. The concessional contributions cap is A$32,500 per year for 2026–27, including employer SG — so a worker whose SG alone approaches A$32,500 has little room left for salary sacrifice inside the cap, and a worker on A$100,000 with SG of A$12,000 has A$20,500 of cap room before extras hit the limit. The maximum SG earnings base is A$270,830 for 2026–27 (annual), meaning SG is not required above it: a very high salary does not keep generating SG on the whole amount. Preservation age is 60 for anyone born after 30 June 1964 — the balance projected here cannot simply be taken at 50. And the non-concessional contributions cap is A$130,000 per year for 2026–27, from after-tax money, under its own rules. A projection that ignored the caps would overstate what can be put in; this page’s defaults sit comfortably inside them, but an extra-contributions plan should always be checked against the A$32,500 concessional cap for 2026–27 first.

The 15% entry tax deserves its own explanation, because it is the reason concessional contributions are worth making at all. Before-tax contributions — the employer’s SG and anything salary-sacrificed — are taxed at a flat 15% inside the fund, as the page’s deep dive states. For most workers that is a bargain: someone whose marginal tax rate is 30% hands over 30 cents of every extra salary dollar to the tax office, but only 15 cents of every dollar routed into super instead. That gap, repeated across a career, is the entire logic of salary sacrifice, and it is why this calculator takes the 15% off before a contribution ever touches the balance. Two refinements sit outside the calculator’s model, and the deep dive states both. High earners pay Division 293 tax: if income plus concessional contributions pass A$250,000, an extra 15% applies to those contributions, taking the total to 30% — still below the top marginal rate, but a real difference at that level. And after-tax (non-concessional) contributions, made from money already taxed, skip the 15% entry tax entirely, under their own cap of A$130,000 a year for 2026–27. If you are modelling after-tax extras, the page’s extra-contributions field — which the model taxes at 15% — will understate them, and the difference should be kept in mind rather than papered over.

Fees are the smallest line in the breakdown and the most misleading one if read alone. The default projection takes A$800.00 a year — A$300.00 of admin fees plus A$500.00 of insurance premiums, the page’s own defaults — which is A$20,000.00 across 25 years. But the page’s own results text states their true cost as A$43,891.61, because every dollar taken out also loses the growth it would have earned: A$800.00 a year invested at 6% for 25 years grows to about A$43,891.61, so the fees cost more than double their face value in final-balance terms. The same A$20,000.00 of fees therefore means A$43,891.61 less at 65, not A$20,000.00 less — and a fund charging twice the fees does not cost twice A$20,000.00 at retirement, it costs twice A$43,891.61. That is why the page’s deep dive is titled “fees: the small number with the long shadow”, and why comparing funds on their fee line alone, without compounding it, understates the difference. Check the real balance with your fund and the official projection tools the page’s FAQ points to, and treat this page’s 6% return, 3% salary growth and fee assumptions as the scenario they are — change any of them and the A$918,053.48 moves, because it is a projection, not a promise.

What changed on 1 July 2026

The 2026–27 caps and limits, from the ATO — the figures elsewhere on this page were the 2025–26 figures and are updated here.

The Super Guarantee rate stays at 12% — it reached 12% on 1 July 2025 and no further rise is scheduled. The caps, however, moved on 1 July 2026. The concessional cap rose to A$32,500 (from A$30,000), the non-concessional cap to A$130,000 (from A$120,000), the maximum SG contribution base to A$270,830 a year (from A$62,500 a quarter), and the general transfer balance cap to A$2.1 million (from A$2.0 million). Fund tax stays at 15%, and the Division 293 threshold stays at A$250,000.

Source: ATO, contribution caps and rates pages for 2026–27, checked 31 October 2026. The calculator's warning threshold now uses the 2026–27 A$32,500 cap — the projection itself is unaffected.

Getting money into super

Four doors in, one shared cap.

Money enters super four ways. The Super Guarantee: your employer must pay 12% of ordinary time earnings, up to the A$270,830 maximum base. Salary sacrifice: you agree to a lower cash salary and the difference goes to super before tax — and the SG is calculated on your pre-sacrifice salary, so sacrificing does not cut your employer's SG. Personal deductible contributions: you contribute from after-tax money and claim the deduction, but you must lodge a notice of intent with your fund before you lodge your tax return or roll over. And non-concessional contributions: after-tax money with no deduction, under its own cap.

The first three share the A$32,500 concessional cap, so they must be added together. Unused concessional cap can be carried forward for up to five years if your total super balance is under A$500,000. For non-concessional contributions, the bring-forward rule lets you contribute up to A$390,000 over three years (three times the cap) if your total super balance is under A$1.84 million, or A$260,000 if it is between A$1.84 million and A$1.97 million. Full mechanics, including the notice of intent and the SG-on-pre-sacrifice-salary rule, are in Superannuation Explained: Contributions, Tax, and How Super Works.

Getting money out of super

Preservation age 60, tax-free at 60 from a taxed fund, and a separate Age Pension.

You cannot generally access super until preservation age — 60 for anyone born after 30 June 1964 — plus a condition of release, such as retiring or reaching 65. Withdrawals from a taxed fund at 60 or over are tax-free. A transition-to-retirement pension lets you draw an income stream while still working, between 4% and 10% of the balance a year, but it does not let you take a lump sum before preservation age. The Age Pension is separate: it starts at 67, is income- and assets-tested, and is paid by Services Australia, not from your fund. How much you withdraw, and the proportioning rule that splits every withdrawal into taxable and tax-free parts, is covered in Superannuation Explained.

How much super is enough?

The ASFA Retirement Standard, June quarter 2026 — and why the lump sum alone misleads.

The ASFA Retirement Standard puts a comfortable retirement at A$56,166 a year for a single homeowner and A$78,998 for a couple (June quarter 2026), with lump sums at retirement of A$630,000 single and A$730,000 couple, assuming home ownership, a part Age Pension, and retiring at 67. The lump sum is not years of spending divided out: A$630,000 divided by A$56,166 is about 11 years, but the pension keeps paying, the balance keeps earning, and drawdowns are staged. Whether you are on track, what the average balance is at your age, and what changes the number — rent, retiring early, longevity — is worked through in How Much Super Do You Need to Retire?

Australian super questions, answered

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