A lot changed on 1 July 2026. Most of it doesn’t touch your pay run.
These are the figures that do: the tax tables, study and training loan repayment thresholds, the minimum wage and award rates, the maximum contribution base for super, and the caps that apply when someone’s employment ends.
Most compliant payroll software will have updated the ATO figures on its own. That doesn’t move the obligation. If your system withheld the wrong amount, it’s still your withholding, and the correction still comes back to you.
The minimum wage is different. Your system should apply the new rates to whatever classifications you’ve given it. Whether those classifications still match what people actually do is not something it can check.
Here’s each figure, where it comes from, and what’s worth checking before your next pay run.
What changed, and what to check
Change | What’s worth checking |
Tax tables | That your system is running the 2026-27 schedules, not last year’s |
Study loan thresholds | Employees between $67,000 and $69,528 who should stop repaying |
Minimum wage and award rates | Every rate against every classification |
Maximum contribution base | That super is calculating on an annual base, not a quarterly one |
ETP and redundancy figures | The current caps, at the time you process a termination |
Tax tables
The ATO has updated its withholding schedules for the 2026-27 income year. The main change is a cut to the second marginal rate, from 16c to 15c for each dollar between $18,201 and $45,000.
The thing that catches people out is a system still calculating on last year’s schedules in July. So it’s worth checking before your pay run rather than after.
Study and training support loans
The repayment thresholds are indexed each year against average weekly earnings, and every band moved up for 2026-27.
Repayment income | Compulsory repayment |
$0 – $69,528 | Nil |
$69,529 – $129,717 | 15c for each $1 over $69,528 |
$129,718 – $186,050 | $9,028 plus 17c for each $1 over $129,717 |
$186,051 and over | 10% of total repayment income |
There’s a practical consequence worth catching here. Anyone earning between the old $67,000 threshold and the new $69,528 was making compulsory repayments last year and now sits under the threshold. Withholding should stop for those employees once the 2026-27 tables are applied. If you’re still deducting from them in August, they’ll notice.
You report study loan withholding through Single Touch Payroll (STP) Phase 2 as a separate line item from PAYG.
Minimum wage and award rates
This is the one your software won’t do for you.
The National Minimum Wage is now $26.44 per hour, or $1,004.90 per week. It applies to employees who aren’t covered by an award or registered agreement.
Award minimum wages increase by 4.75%. It’s likely a lot of your people sit here, since for most employees the minimum wage is set by the award covering their industry or occupation.
Both changes apply from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, not from 1 July itself. If your fortnight started on 29 June, the old rates run to the end of it.
Two things worth knowing. If you’re covered by an enterprise agreement, check the agreement for the minimum pay rates rather than assuming the increase flows through. And some award minimum wages may now sit below the National Minimum Wage, usually introductory rates for new entrants to an industry. Where an award covers someone, the award rate applies instead of the National Minimum Wage.
Fair Work’s Pay and Conditions Tool gives you the current rates, penalties and allowances for your award.
The work here isn’t reading the new number. It’s checking every employee’s classification still maps to the right rate, and that annualised salaries still absorb what they’re meant to absorb.
Maximum contribution base
This one changed shape, not just size.
For 2026-27, the maximum contribution base is $270,830 for the year. Once you’ve paid that much in qualifying earnings to an employee, you don’t need to make Super Guarantee (SG) contributions on any additional qualifying earnings for the rest of the financial year.
Previously the base was a quarterly figure and each quarter stood on its own. From 1 July 2026 it’s an annual cap, calculated from the concessional contributions cap of $32,500 and the 12% SG rate. If your team has been reasoning about the contribution base one quarter at a time, that model no longer holds.
The base doesn’t affect additional super you’re required to pay under an award or enterprise agreement. Those obligations sit outside it.
The SG rate stays at 12% of qualifying earnings.
What has changed is when you pay it. Payday Super is now live, so super has to be paid with every pay run and reach the employee’s fund within seven business days of payday. The rate hasn’t moved. The timing has, and that’s the change that shows up in your compliance position.
Read our full breakdown of what Payday Super means for your pay cycle.
When someone leaves
An Employment Termination Payment (ETP) is the lump sum you pay when a job ends, on top of normal final pay. Redundancy payouts, payments in lieu of notice, gratuities. It’s taxed concessionally up to a cap, and above that you withhold at the top rate.
Most payroll teams process terminations rarely enough that nobody has these figures memorised. That’s exactly why they’re worth checking rather than recalling.
Figure | 2026-27 amount |
ETP cap (life benefit and death benefit) | |
Genuine redundancy tax-free base | |
Plus, per completed year of service |
The ETP cap is indexed against average weekly ordinary time earnings in $5,000 increments, and the new figure is generally published each February. The genuine redundancy amounts are generally reported as Lump Sum D.
Where an ETP is large enough that the cap is in play, it’s worth checking the figure against the ATO rather than the last termination you processed. A stale cap on a redundancy payment means a wrong payment to someone who has just lost their job.
What this means for your first pay run
Three things calculate on every pay event now. PAYG withholding, study loan withholding where it applies, and SG on qualifying earnings. All three flow through STP, and all three are visible to the ATO within days rather than months.
If your payroll is fully managed, the tables, caps and limits are applied for you. If you self-manage, the checks worth doing are your tax table version, your employees’ study loan flags, whether your super calculation is running on an annual contribution base rather than a quarterly one, and every pay rate against the new award minimums.
Getting the figures right is the easy part. Getting them right on the first pay run of July, across every employee, in a system that also has to report within seven business days, is where the work actually sits.
Getting this right every July is a job. Alltech does it for businesses across manufacturing, healthcare, aged care and not-for-profit, in payroll setups where the awards are anything but simple.
See how managed payroll works.
Disclaimer: Figures current at 9 July 2026. Rates and thresholds change each financial year, and some are indexed mid-year. Always check the ATO and Fair Work Ombudsman before processing.