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On $120,000 at 60, sacrificing $18,100 a year and replacing the take-home pay with TTR payments leaves $15,831 more super at 65 in today’s dollars, with the same money in the hand along the way. Whether that trade suits you is your call — this page shows the two positions and the arithmetic between them.
A transition to retirement income stream lets you draw between the legislated minimum and 10% of a super account each year once you reach preservation age, while you keep working. The thing most descriptions get wrong: a TTR account still pays 15% tax on its earnings. It is not in the retirement phase, so the tax-free earnings people associate with a pension do not apply until you fully retire or turn 65.
A TTR pension converts to an ordinary retirement-phase pension automatically at 65.
Only used to work out your preservation age. Left blank it is taken as 60, which is correct for everyone born from 1 July 1964.
The 10% ceiling is a percentage of this account, so moving more raises what you can draw.
Trimmed automatically if it would take you past the concessional cap, with your employer’s contributions counted.
Assumptions you can change
| No TTR | Salary sacrifice + TTR | |
|---|---|---|
| Super at 65, in today’s dollars | $509,359 | $525,190 |
| Net income over the period, in today’s dollars | $453,458 | $453,458 |
| Income tax and Medicare levy paid | $157,937 | $126,560 |
| Contributions tax paid by the fund | $11,629 | $26,247 |
| Tax paid by the fund on earnings | $26,102 | $26,559 |
Net income is the same on both sides. The TTR payments replace the take-home pay the salary sacrifice gave up, to the dollar, which is what makes the super figures above comparable. The difference in super at 65 is +$15,831 in today’s dollars.
Where the difference comes from
These are the tax differences. They will not add up exactly to the figure above, because that figure is a balance — it also includes the investment growth earned on the super you kept in the fund earlier, which no tax line can show.
A TTR pension does not get tax-free earnings
The account is not in the retirement phase, so the fund still pays 15% on its earnings — the same as accumulation. If it did get the exemption, the super figure at 65 would be $535,071 instead of $525,190, a difference of $9,882 in today’s dollars from $10,276 of fund tax. The exemption was available on a TTR until 1 July 2017, which is why a lot of material still describes it.
Shown in future dollars. At 3.7% inflation, $629,811 in 5 years buys about $525,190 of today's goods.
This calculator compares two positions over the years a transition to retirement income stream can run: your current salary and super arrangement, and the same salary with extra salary sacrifice and a TTR pension replacing the take-home pay you gave up. It applies the 10% TTR drawdown ceiling, the legislated minimum, the 15% tax a TTR account still pays on its earnings, and the concessional contributions cap. It shows the difference in your super and in your net income, in today's dollars. It does not recommend either position and it is not advice.
This is a generic calculator, not advice about any particular superannuation fund, pension or income stream product, and it is not tailored to your circumstances. Do not use it to decide about a specific product. If you want advice on your own situation, speak to someone licensed to give it. We rely on ASIC Corporations (Superannuation Calculators and Retirement Estimates) Instrument 2022/603 for this calculator. You can print or save these results using the buttons above.
This is the single most misunderstood fact about a TTR, and it was true the other way round once, which is why the mistake is so durable. Until 1 July 2017 a transition to retirement income stream did receive the retirement-phase earnings exemption, so a great deal of surviving material — including advice written in good faith at the time — describes tax-free earnings. It changed. A TTR account is only treated as exempt current pension income once the holder meets a condition of release with no cashing restriction, which for most people means fully retiring or turning 65.
So the fund pays 15% on the earnings of a TTR account, exactly as it does on an accumulation account. On the case above, if the exemption did apply the super figure at 65 would be $535,071 rather than $525,190 — a gap of $9,882 in today’s dollars over just 5 years.
What a TTR does still give someone over 60 is tax-free payments. That is a different rule, and it is the one doing the work in the salary-sacrifice pairing below: the payments come out with no tax on them, so they can replace take-home pay dollar for dollar. Confusing the two is what produces the belief that a TTR is tax-free all round.
Drawing a TTR on its own takes money out of super and stops it compounding. The arrangement people actually run is a pair: sacrifice more salary into super, where it is taxed at 15% instead of your marginal rate, and replace the take-home pay you gave up with TTR payments, which from 60 are not assessable income. Same money in the hand, a different amount of tax paid on the way.
Three things constrain it, and all three are in the calculator above. The concessional cap is $32,500 for 2026–27 and your employer’s contributions count towards it — on $120,000 that leaves $18,100 of room, which is why the default case trims a $20,000 sacrifice to $18,100. The 10% ceiling limits what the TTR account can pay you back, so a large sacrifice against a small pension account cannot be replaced. And the 15% earnings tax keeps applying to both accounts throughout.
The tax saved is worked out by running your full tax computation twice and differencing it, not by multiplying by a bracket rate. That matters more than it sounds: at $60,000 a $10,000 sacrifice escapes a higher effective rate than it does at $100,000, because the low income tax offset is still tapering at the lower salary. A bracket lookup cannot produce that.
You cannot start a TTR before your preservation age. It phased up from 55 to 60 over five birth cohorts and the phase-in has finished, so everyone born from 1 July 1964 has a preservation age of 60. One consequence worth stating plainly: the youngest person with a preservation age below 60 was born on 30 June 1964 and is now in their sixties, so nobody can now reach preservation age before turning 60. Every TTR started from here on is being paid to someone 60 or over, which is why the payments are tax-free in practice.
| Date of birth | Preservation age | Still ahead of anyone? |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1 July 1960 | 55 | No — this cohort has all passed it |
| 1 July 1960 – 30 June 1961 | 56 | No — this cohort has all passed it |
| 1 July 1961 – 30 June 1962 | 57 | No — this cohort has all passed it |
| 1 July 1962 – 30 June 1963 | 58 | No — this cohort has all passed it |
| 1 July 1963 – 30 June 1964 | 59 | No — this cohort has all passed it |
| From 1 July 1964 | 60 | Yes |
Preservation age is not Age Pension age, which is 67 and a separate question entirely. And it is not the age super becomes tax-free either: that is 60. The three used to be different for different people, which is most of why this area is confusing.
A TTR pension has a floor and a ceiling, and an ordinary account-based pension only has the floor. The floor is the same legislated minimum an allocated pension uses — 4% under 65, from your balance at the start of the financial year. The ceiling is 10% of that same balance, and it is the restriction that defines a TTR: you cannot simply take the account, which is what “non-commutable” means in practice.
Because the ceiling is a percentage of the TTR account rather than of your total super, how much you move across sets how much you can draw. On $200,000 the range is $8,000 to $20,000 a year. Both limits disappear at 65, when a TTR converts to a retirement-phase pension automatically: the ceiling goes, the earnings exemption starts, and the balance begins counting against your transfer balance cap.
This calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of making a decision in relation to a financial product. Before you make a financial decision, consider obtaining advice from someone who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence. We do not, and we cannot advise you.
A transition to retirement income stream — a TRIS, or TTR pension — is an income stream you can start from your super once you reach preservation age, while you are still working. You must draw at least the legislated minimum for your age and no more than 10% of the account balance each financial year.
It is non-commutable: you cannot take it as a lump sum until you meet a condition of release with no cashing restriction. And it is not in the retirement phase, so the fund keeps paying 15% tax on the account's earnings.
Two things people use it for. Cutting back hours and topping the income up from super. Or staying full-time, salary sacrificing heavily, and replacing the lost take-home pay with TTR payments, which from 60 are tax-free.
At 65 it converts to an ordinary account-based pension by itself: no ceiling, no tax on earnings, and it starts counting against your transfer balance cap.
No. A transition to retirement income stream is not in the retirement phase, so the fund pays 15% tax on the account's investment earnings — the same as an accumulation account. The earnings exemption only starts when you meet a condition of release with no cashing restriction, which usually means fully retiring or turning 65. A TTR did get the exemption until 1 July 2017, which is why a lot of material still says otherwise. On the default case above, the exemption would be worth $9,882 in today's dollars over 5 years.
10% of the account balance each financial year, worked out at the start of the year. The minimum is the same Schedule 7 percentage an account-based pension uses — 4% under 65. So on $200,000 the range is $8,000 to $20,000. An ordinary account-based pension has no maximum at all — that is one of the differences between them.
From age 60, no — the taxed element of a super income stream is non-assessable non-exempt income. It is not in your tax return and it does not push your salary into a higher bracket, which is exactly what makes it able to replace take-home pay dollar for dollar. Between preservation age and 60 the taxable component is assessable at your marginal rate with a 15% tax offset. In practice that case has run out: preservation age reached 60 for everyone born from 1 July 1964, so nobody can now reach preservation age before 60.
It depends on when you were born: before 1 july 1960 is 55; 1 july 1960 – 30 june 1961 is 56; 1 july 1961 – 30 june 1962 is 57; 1 july 1962 – 30 june 1963 is 58; 1 july 1963 – 30 june 1964 is 59; from 1 july 1964 is 60. The phase-in has finished, so anyone whose preservation age is still ahead of them has 60. Preservation age is not Age Pension age, which is 67, and it is not the age super payments become tax-free, which is 60.
The pairing is the point. You sacrifice more salary into super, where it is taxed at 15% rather than your marginal rate, and you replace the take-home pay you gave up with TTR payments, which from 60 are tax-free. Your net income stays the same and less tax is paid along the way. The constraints are the $32,500 concessional cap for 2026–27 (which counts your employer's contributions first, and is usually what binds), the 10% ceiling on what the TTR account can pay you back, and the 15% tax the fund keeps paying on both accounts' earnings.
That depends on things a calculator cannot see, and this page does not answer it. What it does is show both positions on the same assumptions and at the same net income, so the difference in super is a like-for-like figure you can weigh yourself. The things it cannot weigh: whether you need the flexibility, what happens to insurance attached to the account the money comes from, whether you might stop work sooner than planned, and whether your fund charges more for a pension account. If you want a recommendation for your own circumstances, that has to come from someone licensed to give it.
It converts to an ordinary retirement-phase account-based pension automatically — you do not have to do anything. Three things change at once: the 10% ceiling lapses, the fund stops paying tax on the account's earnings, and the balance starts counting against your transfer balance cap. From that point there is nothing a TTR offers that an ordinary pension does not, which is why this calculator runs the comparison to 65 by default.
Yes, but not into the TTR account. Once an income stream starts you cannot add to it, so your employer contributions and any salary sacrifice go into a separate accumulation account. That is why a TTR arrangement necessarily means holding two accounts, and why the dollar administration fee gets paid twice — a real cost this calculator includes and most descriptions of the arrangement leave out.
Rates checked against the ATO, verified 8 September 2026
Estimates only. Not financial or tax advice. Full disclaimer for your rights and our limitations of liability.
Rates and thresholds last updated for the 2026–27 financial year.
This calculator exists to show you the arithmetic. It applies published Australian rates, thresholds and formulas to the numbers you enter and shows the working, so you can check it. That is all it does — it produces a number and describes what the number is. It does not recommend anything and it holds no opinion about any financial product.
What can move this result
This calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of making a decision in relation to a financial product. Before you make a financial decision, consider obtaining advice from someone who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence. We do not, and we cannot advise you.