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New Staff: Understanding Super Stapling and Employer Obligations

Super stapling - understanding your obligations as an employer

Employees have the right to choose the fund their superannuation contributions are paid to. 

To prevent having accounts in multiple super funds, the federal government introduced 'super stapling' legislation applied from 1 November 2021 as part of the Your Future, Your Super measures. 

This means employers are required to pay super contributions into employees' existing super accounts.

The following diagram outlines the super stapling process for employers to follow when onboarding new staff:

Incorporating super stapling into your onboarding process

Your checklist – onboarding new staff

  1. Provide new employees with a superannuation standard choice form within 28 days from their start date. Encourage them to consider which fund may be right for them. If your employee makes a super choice, ask them to provide you with their details.
    2. REI Super Standard choice form

    ATO Standard choice form 

  2. If your new employee does not choose a super fund when they start employment, you will need to check if they have a ‘stapled’ fund with the ATO ato.gov.au/stapledsuperfund
  3. If they have a stapled fund, pay their super into it. If they don’t, pay super into your business’s default super fund.

Consider using REI Super as your default fund. 

Contractors

The same steps apply as with new employees, you need to provide contractors with an ATO Superannuation standard choice form the first time they work for you and refer to it whenever they work for you again. 

If they do not make a choice, you will need to check with the ATO if they have a ‘stapled’ fund. 

ATO Audits

For ATO auditing purposes, you need to keep a copy of your employees’ completed ATO Superannuation standard choice form for up to 5 years.

For more information on super stapling

For more information regarding super stapling and other Your Future, Your Super measures, visit treasury.gov.au or ato.gov.au/stapledsuperfund 

Frequently asked questions 

  • If an employee provides a choice of fund to their employer, including a choice to use the employer default fund, the employer should make contributions in accordance with the choice form from their employee. An employer only needs to request a stapled fund for employees who commence on or after 1 November 2021 in circumstances where no choice of fund is received.

    If the ATO advises that there is no stapled super fund for an employee, the employer will be able to make contributions to their default fund.

  • It is expected that employer’s should have a result within minutes when using the ATO’s online services.

  • Where an employee wants their super paid into an existing fund or an employer’s default fund and they’re eligible for choice, they can complete a choice of super fund form and nominate the fund for their contributions.

    If an employee doesn’t choose a super fund, employers will be required to request a stapled fund. An employee is unable to say that they don’t want this process to occur, or to nominate which of their existing super accounts becomes the stapled super fund. If the ATO provides you with a stapled super fund response, your employee will be notified by the ATO by SMS and/or in writing.

  • The ATO recognises that completing multiple stapled super fund requests may be difficult for some employers who onboard large numbers of employees at a time. The ATO are developing a bulk upload solution to assist employers and their agents in making large volume stapled super fund requests. This is expected to be available from 1 November 2021.

    The ATO are also working with Digital Service Providers in relation to a solution that can be integrated into payroll software by July 2022.

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