Project your super balance to retirement, model salary sacrifice and aged pension, and see how long your money lasts. Updated July 2025.
Source: ASFA Retirement Standard → · Full guide: how much super do I need? →
Australian superannuation is a tax-advantaged retirement savings system that compounds three different types of money: employer contributions (the Super Guarantee, currently 12% of ordinary time earnings from 1 July 2025), employee contributions (voluntary salary sacrifice or after-tax contributions), and investment earnings on the accumulating balance. Each piece compounds independently inside the fund, and the combination is what produces the dramatic balance growth over a 30–40 year working career.
The tax treatment is what makes super work. Concessional contributions (employer + salary sacrifice) are taxed at 15% inside the fund instead of your marginal rate, which can save 15–30 percentage points of tax per dollar contributed for higher-income earners. Investment earnings inside super are taxed at 15% (10% on long-held capital gains), versus marginal rates on equivalent investments held in your own name. Withdrawals from a taxed fund after age 60 are tax-free.
The concessional contributions cap for 2025–26 is $30,000 per year, including the 12% Super Guarantee from your employer. Contributions above the cap are taxed at your marginal rate plus an interest charge — the cap is a hard ceiling worth respecting. Non-concessional (after-tax) contributions have a separate $120,000 annual cap, with a bring-forward rule that lets you contribute up to $360,000 in a single year if you're under 75.
A common misconception is that adding personal contributions only helps if you "match" what your employer is putting in. In fact, the Super Guarantee from your employer is mandatory and capped by law — it has nothing to do with how much you choose to add. What matters is your total annual contribution sitting under the $30,000 concessional cap.
For someone earning $90,000 a year, the employer SG is roughly $10,800 (12% of $90k). The remaining capacity to the cap is $19,200 of salary sacrifice if desired. The decision to use that capacity isn't about "matching" — it's about whether you have free cash flow, whether the 15% in-fund tax rate is materially below your marginal rate (it almost always is for taxable income above $45,000), and how long the contribution will compound before you draw it out.
The ATO's super hub covers the technical contribution rules. The First Home Super Saver Scheme (FHSS) allows up to $15,000 per year and $50,000 in total of voluntary contributions to be withdrawn for a first home deposit — useful for younger savers, but the calculator's FHSS toggle handles the modelling.
The headline figure is your projected balance at retirement. The breakdown shows year-by-year growth across the three components: employer contributions, your additional contributions, and investment earnings on the compounding balance.
The investment return assumption is the lever with the largest impact on the result. The calculator default sits in a reasonable balanced-fund range, but moving the return by even 1 percentage point produces dramatically different end-balances over 30 years. APRA's Your Future Your Super performance test publishes long-run return data for MySuper products; that's a reasonable cross-check.
The real (inflation-adjusted) result is more useful for planning than the nominal one. A $1.5m balance in 30 years' time, at 2.5% annual inflation, has the spending power of roughly $715,000 today. The calculator presents both views; the real number is what you'll actually live on.
This calc projects a base accumulation journey. It does not capture:
Is it better to salary sacrifice or make after-tax contributions and claim them?
For most people, the answer is functionally the same. Salary sacrifice diverts pre-tax salary directly into super (taxed at 15% in the fund); after-tax personal contributions can be claimed as a tax deduction in your return, with the same end result. The practical difference: salary sacrifice locks the strategy in via your payroll and reduces ongoing PAYG withholding; after-tax-then-claim gives you flexibility to decide at year-end but requires you to file the right paperwork (Notice of Intent to Claim) before lodging your return.
When can I actually access my super?
From age 60, if you've retired, you can access super under standard conditions of release. From age 65, you can access whether retired or not. Between preservation age (60 for everyone born after 1 July 1964) and 65, transition-to-retirement (TtR) rules let you start drawing while still working. Early access is available under very limited hardship grounds. Withdrawals from a taxed fund after 60 are tax-free.
How does the government co-contribution work?
For lower-income earners (below $47,488 in 2025–26), the government matches non-concessional contributions at 50¢ per dollar, up to a maximum of $500. The full match applies to incomes under $47,488 and phases out at $62,488. It's an attractive boost for low-income earners with capacity for $1,000 of after-tax contributions, but requires actual contribution to trigger — the government doesn't add it automatically.
To explore how much super you'll need to fund the retirement you want, the how much super do I need guide walks through target balances at different lifestyle levels. For modelling the drawdown phase once you've retired, the retirement income calculator models super withdrawal alongside Age Pension. And for the tax-planning side, the salary sacrifice tax benefit guide shows the marginal-rate saving by income band.