Happy New Financial Year: What Actually Changed on 1 July 2026
Every 1 July, a batch of numbers most people never check gets updated in the background: tax brackets, super rules, parental leave, minimum wages. None of it makes headlines, but it all shifts what lands in your account. Here’s the whole thing in one scan, with detail underneath for anyone who wants it.
The rundown
Seven changes, one line each. Skip straight to “What to do” if this is all you need.
More detail, if you want it
Tax and take-home pay. The rate cut is the second stage of a legislated two-step plan, with a further drop to 14% from 1 July 2027. The ATO has the full breakdown here. A common habit is comparing a July payslip against a June one to confirm the lower withholding has actually flowed through.
Superannuation. A common mix-up is assuming the 12% super rate is new this year. It isn’t, that happened on 1 July 2025 and isn’t scheduled to rise again. What’s actually new is Payday Super, which should get contributions into your account within days rather than up to three months late, plus the indexed increases to the concessional and transfer balance caps. The ATO explains the transfer balance cap indexation here. Anyone nearing retirement or running a self-managed super fund often finds it worth a conversation with a financial adviser, since these caps interact in ways that aren’t always obvious.
HELP debt: two separate changes, easy to conflate. The repayment threshold ($69,528) is about how much you earn before compulsory repayments kick in. Indexation (2.8% this year) is a completely separate process that grows the size of an existing debt, applied automatically each 1 June regardless of income. A higher threshold doesn’t offset the indexation, they move independently.
Family and household settings. Paid Parental Leave, the Child Care Subsidy threshold, and the minimum wage increase all land on family budgets at once this year. The Services Australia site has current Child Care Subsidy and Parental Leave Pay details. A useful habit is re-checking your income estimate with Services Australia whenever a threshold moves, since an outdated estimate is one of the most common causes of a balancing debt at tax time.
What you can do this week
- 1A common first step is comparing your most recent payslip to one from June, to confirm the updated tax withholding and any minimum wage or award increase has actually flowed through.
- 2Many people use myGov to check that super contributions are landing on the new Payday Super schedule rather than assuming the old quarterly timing still applies.
- 3For anyone with a HELP debt, a free action this week is running the numbers through the ATO’s study and training loan repayment calculator to see how the new $69,528 threshold affects this year’s repayment.
- 4Families using childcare often review their income estimate on the Child Care Subsidy portal after a threshold change, since an outdated estimate can lead to a bigger bill or a smaller subsidy than expected at balancing time.
- 5A common habit heading into a new financial year is setting a single calendar reminder each July to review payslip, super and government threshold changes together, rather than discovering them one at a time.
Small checks, real money
None of these changes require a big decision. They just reward people who check their numbers instead of running on last year’s settings.
Join MSH free →The cost of skipping this check isn’t dramatic, it’s just quiet: a slightly smaller tax cut than you were entitled to, a childcare subsidy calculated on old numbers, super sitting unpaid for longer than it should. None of that shows up as an emergency. It just adds up. If you want to build the habit of reviewing changes like these alongside others working through the same questions, MSH is a free community built around exactly that. Join free here.