SMSFs will not have the same three-day period in which to allocate a superannuation contribution under the Payday Super regime that applies to Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA)-regulated funds as regulations governing them are different, a specialist SMSF lawyer has highlighted.
DBA Lawyers principal Dan Butler said changes to the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) (SIS) Regulations that will take effect from 1 July have been laid out in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Regulations 2026, including the timeframe in which a fund must receive and allocate a contribution.
“You will see for a non-SMSF [revised SIS regulation] 7.07G states if a fund receives a contribution other than for a defined benefit member, then the fund must allocate that contribution as soon as practicable and within three business days,” Butler stated during a recent online briefing.
“If the trustee is unable to allocate within that period, they must reject the contribution, refund the contribution as soon as practicable or in three business days.
“So for large funds, if an employer contributes and there’s a problem, say the fund doesn’t have the details, it must reject that [contribution], but now the employer’s got the hot potato. They now have the responsibility to get that rectified and back into the proper fund within a seven-day period.”
He noted the changed regulations also extended to SMSFs, which are addressed in revised SIS Regulation 7.07H.
“That says for an SMSF, if it receives a contribution in a month and it is not a defined benefit interest, you have got 28 days [after the end of the month] to allocate or for a longer period if that is reasonable,” he pointed out.
“A lot of material I have been reading says that SMSFs are governed by the three-day rejection rule. I am yet to be convinced of that and I am still trying to find whether there is something that would suggest there is a three-day period to refund for an SMSF.
“I can clearly confirm there’s a 28-day period to allocate as it’s quite a different provision to the provision that applies to large APRA-regulated funds.”
