Selecting your super fund: Can I make the choice?

Life is full of choices and the super system is no different.

But there is one area where not everybody has a choice and that’s when it comes to selecting the super fund into which your employer will make Superannuation Guarantee (SG) contributions on your behalf.

If you’re uncertain whether you can choose your own super fund, here’s a simple guide to the fund choice rules.

Are you eligible to choose your own super fund?

Most Australians have the right to select their own super fund for the SG contributions their employers pay.

If you can choose your super fund, your employer will pay the SG contributions they make on your behalf into the super fund you select providing it’s a complying super fund under the super regulations. Any personal super contributions you choose to make as a deduction from your salary – known as salary sacrifice – will also go to your chosen fund.

Although most of us have the right to choose our own super fund, there are still a limited number of Australians without this right. There are four categories of employees in this situation:

1. Those whose super fund is selected as part of the industrial award or enterprise agreement (EA) under which they are employed.
2. People working in the public sector where the law requires super to be paid into a specific fund.
3. Members of defined benefit funds where the employer is required to contribute. Not all defined benefit funds fall into this category – some do permit the employer to stop contributing if the employee chooses an alternative fund.
4. People working on a temporary resident visa.

Enterprise agreements made since 1 January 2021 are not permitted to restrict choice of super fund. Most enterprise agreements have been updated since 2021, providing choice to more Australians.