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Who has to pay a contractor the super guarantee, including when it is your own client rather than an agency, and how much to set aside yourself when no one does.
Under the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992, a person working under a contract that's wholly or principally for their own labour is deemed an employee for super purposes, even where they're engaged as a contractor rather than under an ordinary employment contract. A labour-hire firm or an umbrella company that contracts with you directly is the employer for super, and it must pay the 12% guarantee on your wage, up to the annual maximum contribution base of $270,830.
The end client you're actually working alongside is not the super guarantee employer in this arrangement: the labour-hire firm or umbrella company is, because it's the party you contract with.
Invoicing a client directly under your own ABN does not put you outside the deemed-employee rule above: it is the paradigm case that rule is aimed at. Where a contract is wholly or mainly for your own labour, the client is your employer for super purposes whether or not you hold an ABN and whatever the contract calls the arrangement. The end client owes you the 12% guarantee on the labour component of what you invoice, the same way a labour-hire firm does. Materials or equipment you supply are not part of that labour component and are excluded, whether or not your invoice itemises them separately: an un-itemised invoice is valued at a reasonable market split between labour and the rest, not treated as entirely labour. This is easy to miss because nothing about invoicing under an ABN looks like an employment relationship.
The rule turns on a single question: is the contract wholly or principally for your own labour, meaning more than half its value is for your personal effort and skill rather than for a result, materials, other people's work or equipment you supply. If it is, you are a deemed employee for super regardless of what the contract is called or whether you have an ABN. If it genuinely is not, because a real share of what you are paid is for a result you could subcontract, for materials or equipment, or because you invoice through your own company or trust rather than personally (see below), the rule does not reach it. This is a question of fact about your actual contract, not a checklist you can tick off, so do not assume a bare ABN or a single favourable factor settles it either way. Whether or not the rule applies to you, personal contributions to a complying super fund are available to claim as a tax deduction, subject to your eligibility, a notice of intent your fund acknowledges in writing and the annual concessional contributions cap of $32,500, which both builds your super and lowers your taxable income. Confirm your own arrangement with a registered tax agent rather than relying on this guide for anything with money riding on it.
Where you invoice through your own company and it pays you a salary as its director, the company must pay the super guarantee on that salary (the same 12% rate, up to the same $270,830 cap) exactly as it would for any other employee. This is a straightforward employer obligation rather than a personal choice, which is why our day rate calculator never lets the company column's super rate fall below the guarantee.
The deemed-employee rule above applies to a person, and a contract with your company as the contracting party is generally outside it for that reason. It is not an absolute shield: the detail of when a company genuinely takes you outside the rule is fact-specific and turns on how the contract and the working relationship are actually structured, so confirm your own arrangement with a registered tax agent rather than assuming a company is always enough on its own.
Whichever structure pays it, super contributions counted as concessional (the guarantee, salary sacrifice, or a sole trader's own deductible contribution) are capped at $32,500 a year. Contributions above the cap can trigger extra tax. Division 293 tax is separate and does not need a breach of that cap: once your income plus your concessional contributions together exceed $250,000 a year, an extra 15% applies to whichever is smaller: your concessional contributions, or the amount you are over the threshold by. Just crossing the threshold costs 15% of the small excess, not 15% of everything you contributed, and the tax can apply even where every contribution is fully within the concessional cap.
This is general information only, not tax or financial advice. For your own super obligations see the ATO or a registered tax agent.