Carry-Forward Concessional Contributions: How Unused Cap Space Works

The concessional contribution cap for 2025–26 is $30,000 per year. That covers your employer's SG contributions plus any salary sacrifice and personal deductible contributions. If you don't use the full cap in a given year, the unused amount rolls forward for up to five financial years — provided your total super balance at 30 June of the prior year was under $500,000.

The cap history matters because you can stack multiple years of unused space:

Year	Cap	Unused space rolls for
2020–21	$25,000	Expired 30 June 2026
2021–22	$27,500	Until 30 June 2027
2022–23	$27,500	Until 30 June 2028
2023–24	$27,500	Until 30 June 2029
2024–25	$30,000	Until 30 June 2030
2025–26	$30,000	Current year

Unused space from 2020–21 expires at the end of this financial year, so anyone with cap room from that year has until 30 June 2026 to use it.

Meet Jess. She's 41, earns $140,000, has a super balance of $310,000, and has been working part-time raising kids. Over the past five years, her concessional contributions have only been her employer SG — roughly $15,000 a year average. Her unused cap space has been building up.

Jess checks her ATO myGov carry-forward balance and sees $85,000 of unused concessional cap available. She sells an investment property, triggering a $95,000 capital gain, and wants to reduce the tax hit.

Here's the play. In 2025–26, she can contribute $30,000 (current cap) + $85,000 (carried-forward) = $115,000 as a personal deductible contribution, minus her employer SG of around $16,100. That gives her $98,900 of personal deductible room.

Tax outcome at 39% marginal rate (including Medicare):

• Personal deduction: $98,900 × 39% = $38,571 tax saved
• Contributions tax in super: $98,900 × 15% = $14,835
• Net saving: $23,736 — plus the full $84,065 stays working inside super

Without the carry-forward, Jess would have been capped at $13,900 of personal deductible space and would've paid roughly $33,000 more tax on the capital gain.

You can only use carry-forward if your total super balance (TSB) at 30 June of the prior financial year was under $500,000. For contributions made in 2025–26, that means your TSB at 30 June 2025 matters — not what your balance is today.

The TSB includes every super account in your name: accumulation, pension, SMSF — the lot. Defined benefit interests are counted using a special formula.

Three important points:

• You only need to pass the test once per year. If your 30 June 2025 TSB was $485,000, you can use all $85,000 of carry-forward in 2025–26 even if your balance grows to $600,000 during the year.
• If you fail the test, you lose that year only. If your TSB at 30 June 2026 is $510,000, you can't use carry-forward in 2026–27 — but the unused space from earlier years is still sitting there and you can use it in a future year if your balance drops back below $500K.
• Spouses are tested separately. Couples can split strategies — the lower-balance partner can use carry-forward while the higher-balance partner uses standard caps.

Carry-forward contributions look identical to normal concessional contributions from the super fund's perspective — it's the ATO that tracks your unused cap and reconciles it at tax time. Here's the process:

1. Check your carry-forward balance. Log into myGov → Super → Information → Carry-forward concessional contributions. This shows exactly how much unused cap you have from each year.
2. Make the contribution to your super fund by BPAY or direct debit. Specify it as a personal contribution, not employer.
3. Lodge a Notice of Intent to Claim a Deduction with your fund before you lodge your tax return. This is the critical step — without the Notice of Intent, the contribution stays as non-concessional and you can't claim the deduction.
4. Wait for the fund's acknowledgement letter, then claim the deduction on your tax return.

Time it before 30 June so the contribution is received by your fund in the right financial year. Don't BPAY on 29 June and hope — leave at least a week for processing.

Carry-forward is gold for specific situations:

• Parents returning to work after time off — big unused cap space built up during lower-income years
• People selling investment properties or shares with a big capital gain they want to offset
• Bonus earners who get a lumpy payout in one year and want to reduce the tax hit
• Late-career savers who didn't focus on super until 50+ and need to catch up
• Self-employed people with variable income — use carry-forward in high-income years, skip it in lean years

It's less useful if you're a steady-income earner already maxing your cap every year — you have nothing to carry forward. It's also not worth chasing if you're young and have decades of cap room ahead; you'll build plenty of balance using standard caps.

Use our super contributions calculator to see the tax saving on your specific situation, and double-check your ATO carry-forward balance before making any contribution over the annual cap.