Carry forward concessional contributions: the catch-up the ATO actually allows

The super system rarely gives second chances. Carry forward concessional contributions are the exception: any concessional cap you didn't use in the past five years is still sitting there, claimable, in an ATO ledger most people have never opened. There is a catch, and it has a date on it. Whatever is left of your 2020-21 cap expires on 30 June 2026, and today that deadline is 19 days away.

How the carry-forward rule works

First, the jargon. Concessional contributions are the before-tax kind: your employer's super guarantee, anything you salary sacrifice, and personal contributions you claim a tax deduction for. Together they're capped at $30,000 for 2025-26, counted across all your funds combined. The full set of current caps lives on our numbers page.

Since 1 July 2018, any cap space you don't use in a year rolls forward for up to five financial years. Contribute past this year's $30,000 and the ATO automatically applies your oldest unused amounts to the excess. No election, no extra form for the carry-forward itself. The payoff is the tax treatment: a concessional contribution is taxed at 15% inside the fund rather than at your marginal rate outside it.

There's one gate. To use carried-forward amounts in 2025-26, your total super balance had to be under $500,000 at 30 June 2025. The test applies in the year you use the space, not the years you accrued it, so failing it once doesn't end the strategy. You can be ineligible one year and eligible the next.

How much can you carry forward?

In 2025-26 you can reach back into five earlier years. Each had its own cap, and your unused amount is that year's cap minus what actually went in, employer contributions included.

Someone who never had a dollar contributed across all six years, with a balance under $500,000, could in theory put in $167,500 this financial year. Almost nobody is in that position. For most people, employer contributions ate a chunk of each cap, and the real catch-up figure is in the thousands or tens of thousands.

One more date for the calendar: the annual cap rises to $32,500 on 1 July 2026. Handy for next year, but indexation does nothing for the 2020-21 amount. Once it expires, no future cap rise brings it back.

Who has unused cap without knowing it?

The rule was built for interrupted careers. In practice that means parents, carers, part-timers, and anyone who spent a few years working for themselves and not paying themselves super.

Run the numbers on a part-time year and you can see how the space piles up. On a $60,000 salary, employer contributions at the 12% super guarantee come to $7,200, leaving $22,800 of this year's $30,000 cap unused. String a few years like that together and there's a five-figure catch-up balance on the books.

The detail that surprises people: unused amounts accrue even in years you weren't a member of any super fund at all. A sole trader who paid no super between 2021 and 2024 still accrued those caps, in full.

How do you check your unused cap?

Don't estimate it. The ATO has already done the maths. Log in to myGov, open ATO online services, then go to Super, then Information, then Carry forward concessional contributions. You'll see your unused cap year by year, alongside your total super balance, which tells you whether you pass the $500,000 test. One screen, and you'll know whether the rest of this article applies to you.

Why 30 June 2026 matters

Unused amounts last five years, then expire, oldest first. The 2020-21 cap year, the $25,000 one, hits its five-year limit at the end of this financial year. Whatever 2020-21 space shows in your myGov record today is gone on 1 July.

To be clear about who this affects: the deadline matters if you have 2020-21 space showing, your balance was under $500,000 at 30 June 2025, you have spare cash you're genuinely comfortable locking away until at least age 60, and your marginal tax rate is high enough that swapping it for 15% is worth that lock-up. An expiring cap is only worth chasing when the tax saving is real; in a low income year the gap over 15% can be tiny.

For anyone who does act, the mechanics have teeth. A contribution generally counts for the financial year in which your fund receives it, not the day you hit pay in your banking app. Transfers can take days, and funds get flooded in the last week of June. Leaving it until 29 June is how people miss the year entirely.

The ATO has kept a running tab of your unused cap since 2018-19. On 1 July, the 2020-21 column goes to zero.

What it looks like in practice: Priya's catch-up

Priya is 44, a project manager on $128,000. She took parental leave through 2020-21, then worked three days a week until mid-2023. Her total super balance at 30 June 2025 was $214,000, comfortably under the $500,000 line.

Her myGov record shows unused concessional cap of $14,700 from 2020-21, $11,300 from 2021-22, $6,200 from 2022-23, $4,900 from 2023-24 and $3,600 from 2024-25. That's $40,700 of catch-up space, and the first slice is about to lapse.

In March she sold an investment unit, and the gain added $58,000 to her taxable income, taking her to roughly $186,000 for the year and a marginal rate of 39 cents in the dollar (37% plus the 2% Medicare levy). Her employer will pay $15,360 in super guarantee this year (12% of her salary), which leaves $14,640 of the annual $30,000 cap.

So before 30 June she makes a personal deductible contribution of $29,340: her $14,640 of current-year room plus the entire expiring $14,700 from 2020-21. The deduction cuts her personal tax by about $11,443. The fund takes 15% contributions tax, $4,401, on the way in. Net result: she's roughly $7,042 better off, $24,939 lands in her super, and the cap space that was about to expire gets used instead of torched.

Two admin points she can't skip: the contribution must reach her fund by 30 June 2026, and she must lodge a notice of intent with the fund, and receive its acknowledgement, before claiming the deduction. One caveat that didn't bite her but bites higher earners: had her income plus concessional contributions topped $250,000, Division 293 tax would have entered the picture. More on that below.

The fine print that catches people

Four traps, all learned the expensive way by somebody else:

• The notice of intent. To claim a deduction for a personal contribution, the rules require a valid notice of intent lodged with your fund, and the fund's written acknowledgement, before you lodge your tax return (and before any withdrawal, rollover or pension start). Skip it and the deduction doesn't exist.
• Division 293. Where income plus concessional contributions exceeds $250,000, the ATO levies an extra 15% on the lesser of the excess over $250,000 and the contributions themselves. The sums can still work, but the saving shrinks.
• Going over. Exceed your cap plus available carry-forward and the excess is taxed at your marginal rate less a 15% offset, and if left in the fund it counts toward your non-concessional cap as well. Check the myGov figure before contributing, not after.
• Preservation. This is super. The money is locked away until a condition of release, generally not before age 60. A tax saving now doesn't help anyone who needs that cash at 48.

If a one-off catch-up feels too lumpy, the steadier alternative is salary sacrifice spread across the year, which draws down the same caps. The salary sacrifice calculator shows what the gap between 15% and your marginal rate is worth at your income.

Either way, the starting point is the same: the myGov check takes five minutes, and the 2020-21 column closes on 30 June 2026.