Contribution splitting

Calories don’t count when you split a dessert, but splitting your super with your partner can really bulk up their nest egg

When you ‘split’ your contributions, you transfer some of your eligible contributions from your super account into your partner’s super account.

You can split up to 85% of your before-tax super contributions, up to the cap of $30,000 in 2024-25. Splitting your contributions with a partner can be done once a year after the end of the financial year. You can do it in the same financial year if you’re planning to withdraw or transfer your super out of your account before the end of the financial year.

Benefits

By splitting your super you can:

Maximise your partner’s super

Retiring with similar super balances not only makes things more equal, it can help make estate planning easier.

Access more of the age pension

If one of you has a higher super balance than the other, it may impact how much of the government Age Pension you can access.

Earlier access to super

If your spouse retires before you, they may be able to access their super which may be earlier than if you waited for your own retirement.

How it works

Only before-tax (concessional) contributions made during the previous financial year can be split with your partner, subject to the maximum amount. These include any before-tax contributions your employer made (including salary sacrifice contributions) and any personal contributions you’ve successfully claimed a tax deduction for.
After-tax contributions including spouse contributions, funds rolled over from other super funds and government co-contributions are some of the contributions that cannot be split.
Your spouse must be less than 60 or aged between 60 and 65 years of age and not permanently retired from the workforce.
Once your contributions are split, they belong to your spouse and are subject to preservation rules.

Example

Rob, 57 works full time and had $10,000 contributed to his super by his employer this financial year. His partner Jade, who’s 55, works casually. He wants to boost her super balance by doing a one-off split of his employer contributions into her account. Rob contacts CareSuper who confirm he’s eligible to make the split from 1 July in the new financial year.

In July, Rob completes the ATO’s Superannuation contributions splitting application form, indicating he’d like to split $6,000 of his employer contributions into Jade’s account, and lodges it with us.

Rob’s application is approved because $6,000 is less than 85% of the total $10,000 contributed by his employer and the before-tax (concessional) contributions cap. CareSuper transfers $6,000 to Jade’s super fund in September.

Mind the cap

The maximum amount you can be split into your spouse’s super account is the lesser of 85% of before-tax contributions and your before-tax (concessional) contribution cap. The before-tax cap for 2024-25 is $30,000. However, you may be able to carry forward unused cap amounts from previous years if you meet eligibility criteria. See our Contributions cap page for more information.

Split contributions will count towards your before-tax (concessional) cap, even after they’ve been transferred to your spouse’s account. The transferred contributions don’t count towards your spouse’s before-tax (concessional) cap.
Visit the ATO for more information.

Next steps

To split contributions with your spouse, complete the Super contributions splitting form.

Get started using this form

If your partner isn’t a member of CareSuper they can also join and enjoy the benefits of being with a strong-performing profit to member industry fund.

Join CareSuper

For more details, read our Boost your spouse’s super fact sheet.