Carry forward contributions: how to boost your super cap

Yes, you can use carry forward contributions this year if your total super balance sat below $500,000 at 30 June last financial year and you’ve got unused concessional cap space from any of the previous five years. For 2026–27, the standard concessional contributions cap sits at $32,500, and eligible carry forward amounts stack on top of that figure. If you took parental leave, ran your own business through a lean patch, or simply never got around to maxing out your concessional contributions, this rule exists specifically for you.

Three things to do right now:

Check your total super balance as it stood at 30 June of the previous financial year.
Log into myGov and pull up your ATO carry forward concessional contributions record.
Decide whether salary sacrifice or a personal deductible contribution suits your cash flow better this year.

Quick fact: unused concessional cap amounts expire on a rolling five year basis, so amounts from 2019–20 have already dropped off for most people using this in 2026–27.

Key Takeaways

Using carry forward concessional contributions correctly requires checking your total super balance, confirming unused cap space through myGov, and timing contributions before the five year window closes.

Point	Details
Check your TSB first	Your total super balance must be under $500,000 at 30 June of the prior year to use carry forward at all.
Cap sits at $32,500 for 2026–27	Unused amounts from the past five years stack on top of the standard concessional cap for this year.
Oldest unused amounts apply first	The ATO applies carry forward automatically once contributions exceed the standard cap, no separate form needed.
Watch Division 293	Income plus concessional contributions above $250,000 triggers an extra 15% tax on top of the standard 15%.
Get advice for complex cases	Amber Wealth helps coordinate carry forward with SMSF, Age Pension planning and Division 293 exposure.

What are carry forward concessional contributions?
Who is eligible to carry forward unused concessional caps?
How does the carry forward calculation actually work?
Where do you check your available carry forward amount?
How do you actually make a carry forward contribution?
What tax applies, and what happens if you go over the cap?
How does carry forward interact with other contribution caps?
What mistakes cause people to lose carry forward space or get taxed unexpectedly?
When does it make sense to get personalised advice?
Sources

What are carry forward concessional contributions?

Carry forward concessional contributions are unused concessional cap space from previous financial years, added to your current year’s cap so you can make a larger before tax contribution than the standard $32,500 alone would allow. It’s not a separate contribution type or a bonus the ATO hands out. It’s simply cap space you didn’t use, sitting there for up to five years, waiting to be claimed.

People often confuse this with the bring forward rule, but they’re entirely different mechanisms. The bring forward rule applies to non-concessional (after tax) contributions and lets you bring forward up to three years of the non-concessional cap in one go. Carry forward applies only to concessional (before tax) contributions, and it works backward, drawing on unused space from earlier years rather than pulling future entitlements forward.

Here’s a simple version of how it plays out. Say you only contributed $15,000 in concessional contributions in 2022–23, against a cap of $27,500 that year. That leaves $12,500 unused. Provided you meet the total super balance test, that $12,500 sits available to add to a later year’s cap, right up until the five year window closes on it.

Carry forward: unused before tax cap space, rolled forward up to five years.
Bring forward: unused after tax cap space, pulled forward up to three years in advance.
Both require you to track your history carefully, because the ATO applies rules automatically but the underlying numbers depend on your own contribution record.

Who is eligible to carry forward unused concessional caps?

You’re eligible if your total super balance (TSB) was under $500,000 at 30 June of the previous financial year, and you have unused concessional cap amounts from any of the five preceding financial years starting from 2018–19. That $500,000 threshold is the gatekeeper. Miss it by even a dollar and you lose access to carry forward entirely for that year, even if you’ve got tens of thousands in unused cap sitting on the books.

A few details matter more than people expect:

The TSB snapshot is taken at a single point in time, 30 June of the prior year, and locks in your eligibility regardless of what your balance does afterwards.
Unused amounts only started accruing from 1 July 2018, so nothing before that date counts.
There’s no separate age test for carry forward itself, though the standard super contribution work test and age rules still apply to whether you can contribute at all.
SMSF members need to check their fund’s reporting accuracy, since delays or coding errors can distort what shows up against their TSB.

New arrivals to Australia and people who’ve had long gaps without a super account often assume they have no carry forward space, when in fact they may simply have no recorded history to carry forward from. Worth checking directly through myGov rather than assuming either way.

How does the carry forward calculation actually work?

The short answer: the ATO applies your oldest unused concessional cap amounts first, and it does this automatically once your contributions in a given year exceed the standard cap. You don’t need to lodge a special form to activate it. You do need to know your numbers, because the ATO’s own portal can lag or show incomplete data, particularly if you’ve had irregular contribution history.

Here’s the calculation framework:

List your concessional cap for each of the past five financial years.
List your actual concessional contributions (employer Super Guarantee plus salary sacrifice plus any personal deductible amounts) for each of those years.
Subtract contributions from the cap each year to find your unused amount.
Add up the unused amounts still within the five year window. That total is your available carry forward space this year.

A worked example makes this concrete. Say your history looks like this:

That’s $33,000 in unused concessional cap sitting available, on top of the $32,500 standard cap for 2026–27. That means you could contribute up to $65,500 in concessional contributions this year and stay within the rules, provided your TSB test is met. If you still exceed whatever your total available cap turns out to be, even after carry forward is applied, the excess gets taxed as ordinary income at your marginal rate, plus an interest charge.

Diagram of carry forward concessional cap calculation

Where do you check your available carry forward amount?

The ATO displays your carry forward concessional contributions record inside myGov, under the super section, usually labelled Information then Carry forward concessional contributions. That’s the fastest way to confirm your numbers rather than reconstructing five years of contribution history by hand.

Log into myGov and link your ATO online services if you haven’t already.
Navigate to the Super menu, then Information, then look for the carry forward concessional contributions summary.
Cross check the figures against your own payslips and super statements, since the ATO’s system only updates once contributions have been reported by your fund, which can lag by weeks or months.
If you run an SMSF, contact your fund administrator directly, because in-specie contributions or coding delays can mean the myGov figure doesn’t reflect reality yet.

If the page shows blank or zero, that’s not necessarily bad news. It often just means the ATO hasn’t finished processing recent contributions, or you’re a new contributor without enough history for the system to calculate against.

How do you actually make a carry forward contribution?

You use the same two channels as any concessional contribution: employer salary sacrifice or a personal contribution you later claim as a tax deduction. Carry forward doesn’t change how you contribute, only how much cap space you’ve got to work with.

Salary sacrifice: arrange this through your employer’s payroll before the financial year, since sacrificed amounts only count in the year they’re actually paid to your fund, not the year you asked for the arrangement.
Personal deductible contribution: transfer the money into your super fund yourself, then lodge a valid Notice of intent to claim a deduction with your fund before you lodge your tax return, or before the fund pays out any part of that balance, whichever comes first.
Watch your age. If you’re between 67 and 74, you generally need to meet the work test (or a limited exemption) to contribute. Approaching 75, the 28 day rule means contributions must land in your fund by the 28th day of the month after you turn 75.
Confirm timing with payroll. A salary sacrifice request lodged late in June can easily land in the following financial year, throwing out your carry forward calculation entirely.

What tax applies, and what happens if you go over the cap?

Concessional contributions, including anything using carry forward space, are taxed at 15% when they enter your super fund. That’s usually a solid deal against your marginal tax rate, which is the entire point of using this cap deliberately.

Higher income earners need to factor in Division 293 tax, an additional 15% that applies when your income plus concessional contributions together exceed $250,000. This catches plenty of professionals mid career who assume carry forward is a free kick, when actually a large lump sum contribution can tip them over that threshold in one hit.

If you exceed your available cap, including carry forward:

The ATO applies unused amounts automatically first, so genuine excess only occurs once all carry forward space is used up.
Any true excess gets added to your assessable income and taxed at your marginal rate, with an interest charge applied.
You may be offered the option to release the excess amount from super to help cover the extra tax.
Contact your fund immediately if you suspect you’ve gone over, and get personal advice before deciding whether to release funds.

How does carry forward interact with other contribution caps?

Carry forward only ever touches concessional (before tax) contributions. It has no effect on your non-concessional (after tax) cap, and it’s not the same mechanism as the bring forward rule, which operates entirely on the non-concessional side.

Carry forward and bring forward can technically both apply to you in the same year, but they’re calculated and applied completely separately.
Your total super balance affects both: it gates carry forward eligibility, and it also affects how much bring forward non-concessional cap you can access.
If you’re coordinating salary sacrifice with a personal deductible contribution in the same year, make sure the combined total doesn’t accidentally exceed your available concessional space, carry forward included.
SMSF trustees should double check contribution coding, particularly for in-specie transfers, since a miscoded contribution can throw out your cap calculations for the year.

What mistakes cause people to lose carry forward space or get taxed unexpectedly?

The most common error is simply not checking the 30 June total super balance snapshot before assuming eligibility, then discovering after the contribution’s gone in that the TSB test wasn’t met. That’s an expensive way to find out.

Other frequent slip ups worth checking against before you contribute:

Forgetting to lodge a Notice of intent to claim a deduction before the fund pays out any benefit, which can invalidate the deduction entirely.
Double counting: assuming your employer’s Super Guarantee and your own salary sacrifice sit in separate buckets, when they both count toward the same concessional cap.
Trusting an incomplete or lagging myGov record as the final word, rather than cross checking against payslips and fund statements.
Making a large lump sum contribution without first checking whether it pushes you over the Division 293 income threshold.

If you’re planning a large employer contribution, nearing a retirement trigger age, or running an SMSF with any reporting anomalies, pause before contributing and get advice tailored to your numbers.

When does it make sense to get personalised advice?

Personalised advice earns its keep once your situation gets genuinely complicated: overlapping employer and salary sacrifice contributions, an SMSF with its own reporting quirks, looming Division 293 exposure, or an eye on how extra super contributions might affect future Age Pension eligibility.

Amber Wealth’s superannuation advice work covers exactly this kind of coordination, alongside broader retirement planning and Age Pension strategy planning for people weighing up how much to contribute now against what they’ll need later.

Before a review meeting, bring your recent payslips, super fund statements, your ATO contribution history from myGov, and a rough timeline of what you’re hoping to contribute and when.

Pro Tip: Run your numbers through the superannuation calculator before your first meeting. It gives you a starting estimate so the conversation can focus on strategy, not just data gathering.

Practical tips we’ve seen help clients use carry forward well

A few patterns show up repeatedly in client work. Staggering salary sacrifice increases to match employer payroll reporting cycles avoids nasty surprises when contributions land in the wrong financial year. Confirming contribution type codes with your fund before a large SMSF contribution saves a lot of after the fact cleanup. And the years carry forward helps most aren’t necessarily the years you have the most spare cash.

Clients who plan this a year or two ahead, rather than scrambling in June, tend to end up with a cleaner result and fewer conversations about excess contributions charges.

How Amber Wealth helps you use carry forward contributions with confidence

Working out your exact unused cap, coordinating it with an SMSF or employer contributions, and checking whether a big year of contributions tips you into Division 293 territory isn’t something you want to get wrong. It’s the kind of decision where a wrong assumption costs you real money, either through excess contributions tax or a missed opportunity to use cap space before it expires.

Amberwealth

Amber Wealth’s advisers work through the full picture with you: your carry forward eligibility, your Age Pension implications, and how contributions fit against your broader retirement timeline, not just this year’s tax return. If you’d like a second set of eyes on your numbers before making a contribution, book a retirement planning review and bring your ATO contribution history along.

Sources

Amber Wealth Pty Ltd (ABN 16 653 279 013) is a Corporate Authorised Representative (No. 1310815) of Lifespan Financial Planning Pty Ltd (ABN 23 065 921 735), holder of Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) No. 229892. Financial advice is provided by Adam Sobczak, ASIC Authorised Representative No. 1234769.

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