Tax and super
Five years of unused super cap, priced in the year you actually need it
Unused concessional cap accumulates for five years and then expires, oldest year first. Most people who could use it have never checked the balance, and the ones who need it most usually need it in a single year.
The cap you did not use is still there. For five years, then it is not.
Since 2021-22, unused concessional contributions cap has carried forward on a rolling five year window. Someone who contributed nothing beyond employer super over that period can be carrying up to $175,000 of unused cap — deductible contributions available in a single year, on top of the $32,500 annual cap.
Two conditions attach to it, and both are easy to miss. Your total superannuation balance at the previous 30 June has to be under $500,000 — $499,999 qualifies, $500,000 does not, and there is nothing in between. And the oldest unused year expires at the end of the fifth year: cap from 2021-22 is gone after 30 June 2027, whether or not anybody told you it was there.
The value is not the contribution. It is the gap between your marginal rate and the fund's 15% — 32 cents in the dollar at the top rate of 47%, 24 cents at 39%.
Which is why this matters most in the one year your income spikes.
What it works out
- Your unused cap, year by year. What accrued in each of the five years, at $30,000 and then $32,500, and which year expires next.
- Whether you are eligible at all. The $500,000 total super balance test, applied at the right date — the previous 30 June, not today.
- What a contribution is actually worth this year. Your marginal rate against the fund's 15%, on the specific amount, in the specific year.
- Where Division 293 takes some of it back. Above $250,000 the effective contributions tax becomes 30%, which halves the benefit and is frequently overlooked.
- Every contribution amount, side by side. Ranked on tax kept after the fund's own tax, so the point of diminishing returns is visible rather than assumed.
What the full report adds
- The year you sell, modelled properly. A capital gain, a redundancy or a large bonus lands in one income year, and a catch-up contribution is one of the few levers that works against it after the fact.
- The expiry schedule. Which year's cap goes when, so a plan can be built across two or three years instead of used all at once.
- Concessional against non-concessional. The $130,000 cap and the bring forward rules, compared on the same measure.
- Access and the work test. Preservation at 60 and the work test from 67 — the money is going somewhere you cannot reach for a while, and the report says how long.
What it will not do
It is not financial or tax advice, and it does not recommend a contribution. Whether money should go into superannuation at all depends on what else it would have to come out of, when you need it and what your total position looks like — none of which is arithmetic. Your actual unused cap is held by the Australian Taxation Office and shown in myGov, and that record is the authority. Everything here runs on the caps and rates for 2026-27, effective 1 July 2026 caps and rates.
What people ask before they run it
What are carry-forward concessional contributions?
If you do not use your whole concessional contributions cap in a year, the unused part is carried forward and added to a later year's cap. The window is five years, so in 2026-27 the unused amounts from 2021-22 onwards are still there. Somebody who has only ever had employer contributions going in can have a cap of up to $175,000 in one year instead of $32,500.
Who can actually use unused concessional cap?
Only somebody whose total superannuation balance was under $500,000 at 30 June immediately before the year they contribute in. It is a hard line rather than a sliding scale: at $499,999 the whole carry-forward amount is available and at $500,000 none of it is. The balance on any other date makes no difference at all.
How much tax does a catch-up super contribution save?
The deduction comes off your taxable income at your top rate and the fund pays 15% on the way in, so what you keep is the difference between the two. At the 47% rate that is 32 cents in every dollar contributed and at the 39% rate it is 24 cents. Once income plus contributions passes $250,000 the fund's rate doubles to 30% under Division 293 and the saving roughly halves.
Does unused concessional cap expire?
Yes, and silently. Each year's unused amount lasts five years and is then gone for good. The 2021-22 amount is the oldest one still usable and it expires on 30 June 2027. Nothing warns you, nothing rolls it over, and the ATO does not write to tell you it has happened.
Do you give financial advice?
No. This is an information service: it applies the published rules to the figures you enter and shows what they produce, with every working visible. It ranks contribution amounts on one stated arithmetic measure — the tax kept after the fund's own 15% — and does not recommend one. Whether you can afford to lock the money away until you can get at your super is not in that measure.
Everything on Catch-Up Super
The estimate is free, and it is a real one.
Works out how much unused concessional contributions cap an Australian has built up over the rolling five year window, whether their total superannuation balance at the previous 30 June was under $500,000, and what a catch-up contribution is worth in tax in a specific year — then prices every contribution amount side by side and ranks them on the tax kept after the fund's own 15%.
Start the Catch-Up Super calculator
