There is no single figure that answers how much you can salary sacrifice. For contributions into superannuation, the ceiling is the concessional contributions cap: $30,000 for the 2025–26 financial year, rising to $32,500 from 1 July 2026, and your employer’s compulsory Super Guarantee payments count toward that same cap. For non-super benefits like a car or a laptop, there is no legislated dollar cap at all, but your cash pay cannot fall below the minimum wage or award rate, your employer sets its own policy, and fringe benefits tax creates its own practical limits. Several government calculations also treat packaged benefits as income, which can quietly narrow how much is worth sacrificing in the first place.
The Super Cap and Why Your Real Room Is Smaller
The concessional contributions cap is the annual limit on pre-tax money going into your super at the concessional 15% tax rate. For 2025–26 (July 2025 through June 2026), the cap is $30,000. From 1 July 2026, indexation lifts it to $32,500.1Australian Taxation Office. Contributions Caps Age does not change the cap.
Here is the part that catches people out. The cap covers all pre-tax contributions, not just what you choose to sacrifice. Your employer’s compulsory Super Guarantee (currently 12% of ordinary earnings) is counted first.2Australian Taxation Office. Concessional Contributions Cap So the amount you can voluntarily sacrifice into super is always less than the headline cap.
A rough sense of what that looks like at different salaries in 2025–26:
- On $100,000, SG is $12,000, leaving about $18,000 of room to sacrifice.
- On $150,000, SG is $18,000, leaving about $12,000.
- Above roughly $250,000, SG alone can consume most or all of the cap, leaving little or no voluntary room.
If you have more than one job, contributions from every employer and into every fund are added together against the one cap.2Australian Taxation Office. Concessional Contributions Cap Two part-time roles with separate SG payments can bring you toward the cap faster than a single payslip suggests.
Carry-Forward from Earlier Years
If you did not use your full concessional cap in a previous year, you may be able to contribute more than the standard cap now. Unused amounts can be carried forward for up to five financial years, counting from 2018–19. Oldest amounts are used first, and any that go unused after five years expire.2Australian Taxation Office. Concessional Contributions Cap
One eligibility condition applies: your total super balance must be under $500,000 at 30 June of the previous financial year.2Australian Taxation Office. Concessional Contributions Cap When you meet that condition, the carry-forward applies automatically once your contributions exceed the standard cap. It is genuinely useful after a career break or a jump in income.
If You Go Over the Cap
Anything above the cap loses the concessional treatment. The excess is added to your assessable income and taxed at your marginal rate, and the ATO applies an excess concessional contributions charge to account for the deferred tax collection.1Australian Taxation Office. Contributions Caps You get an offset for the 15% the fund already paid, but for anyone on a marginal rate of 32.5% or higher, the net result is still a real extra bill.
Non-Super Benefits: No Legal Cap, Several Real Ones
There is no legal restriction on the types of benefits that can be salary packaged.3Moneysmart. Salary Packaging What limits you in practice is fringe benefits tax and what your employer is willing to offer, because the employer bears the FBT on most non-super items and the FBT rate is 47%.4Australian Taxation Office. Salary Sacrificing
Common benefits sort into three groups:
- Salary-sacrificed super, which is not a fringe benefit and is taxed inside the fund at 15% up to the concessional cap.4Australian Taxation Office. Salary Sacrificing
- FBT-exempt work items: portable electronic devices, computer software, protective clothing, and tools of trade used primarily for work. The exemption generally covers one item with a similar function per FBT year, so a second laptop in the same year would not qualify unless you work for a small business.4Australian Taxation Office. Salary Sacrificing
- Taxable fringe benefits like cars through novated leases, goods, and shares, which attract FBT the employer must pay or pass on.4Australian Taxation Office. Salary Sacrificing
Cars are the most common non-super item. A novated lease has no dollar cap on the lease value, but FBT rises with the car’s value, so the tax benefit narrows for more expensive vehicles. The arrangement must meet ATO conditions, including arm’s-length terms and a residual value based on the car’s cost.5Australian Taxation Office. Car Leasing and FBT
Salary sacrifice is a contractual arrangement, not an entitlement. Your employer is not legally required to offer it.6Australian Taxation Office. Salary Sacrificing for Employees Most offer super sacrifice to everyone, but many restrict other benefits or apply an internal cap on total sacrifice, often around 50% of gross salary.3Moneysmart. Salary Packaging The written policy sets your practical ceiling for anything other than super.
Higher Limits for Charity, Hospital, and Ambulance Workers
If your employer is a registered public benevolent institution or a health promotion charity, it can provide up to $30,000 in grossed-up fringe benefits per employee per FBT year with no FBT. Public and not-for-profit hospitals and public ambulance services have a $17,000 grossed-up cap. On top of either cap, meal entertainment and entertainment facility leasing benefits carry a separate $5,000 grossed-up allowance per employee.7Australian Taxation Office. Fringe Benefits Tax – A Guide for Employers
These are among the most valuable packaging entitlements in the system. The full cap applies even if you worked for the organisation for only part of the FBT year. Where an employer is both a public benevolent institution and a hospital, the $17,000 hospital cap applies, not the $30,000 figure.7Australian Taxation Office. Fringe Benefits Tax – A Guide for Employers
The Minimum Wage Floor
Whatever you sacrifice, the cash pay you still receive cannot fall below the national minimum wage or the base rate in your applicable modern award or enterprise agreement. The Fair Work Act requires employers to pay employees their full entitlements, and salary sacrifice is treated as a permitted deduction that must not undercut those minimums.8Fair Work Ombudsman. Deducting Pay
For most full-time employees on comfortable salaries, this floor is not the binding limit. It matters most for lower-paid workers, part-time employees, and anyone whose total pay sits close to the award rate. If you are on an enterprise agreement, allowances and loadings the agreement mandates have to be included in the calculation. Your employer carries the legal risk if the floor is breached, which is why payroll systems tend to block sacrifice amounts that would come near it.
The Hidden Ceiling: Reportable Fringe Benefits
Even when you have room under the caps above, packaging non-super benefits can quietly cost you elsewhere. The FBT year runs 1 April to 31 March. When the grossed-up taxable value of the fringe benefits your employer provides you exceeds $2,000 in an FBT year, the total is reported on your income statement as a reportable fringe benefits amount.9Australian Taxation Office. Fringe Benefits Tax – Rates and Thresholds You do not pay income tax on it directly, but it feeds into your adjusted taxable income for several other calculations.
A reportable amount can affect the Medicare Levy Surcharge, HELP and VET Student Loan repayments, the private health insurance rebate, family assistance payments such as Family Tax Benefit and Child Care Subsidy, and child support obligations. For employees of FBT-exempt organisations (public benevolent institutions, hospitals, public ambulance services), only 53% of the reportable amount counts toward family assistance and youth income support tests, though the full amount still applies elsewhere.10Australian Taxation Office. Consequences of Having a Reportable Fringe Benefits Amount
HELP Repayments
From the 2025–26 income year, compulsory HELP repayments apply only when your repayment income exceeds $67,000, and the repayment is calculated only on the portion above that threshold.11Australian Taxation Office. Compulsory Repayments Your reportable fringe benefits amount is included in repayment income. If packaging pushes your adjusted income across $67,000 or into a higher repayment band, the extra loan repayment can easily wipe out the tax savings from the sacrifice.
Medicare Levy Surcharge
Without private hospital cover, the MLS applies at 1% to 1.5% when your income for MLS purposes (which includes reportable fringe benefits) exceeds $101,000 for a single or $202,000 for a family, depending on tier. If you are sitting just below the threshold, a large reportable amount can push you over. Private hospital cover removes the surcharge entirely and is often the cheaper move for anyone close to the line.
Working Out Your Own Ceiling
Put the pieces together in this order. For super, start with the concessional cap for the year, subtract your employer’s SG across all jobs, and add any carry-forward you qualify for. For non-super benefits, check your employer’s policy first, then whether the benefit is FBT-exempt or FBT-liable, then whether your remaining cash pay clears the award floor. Finally, look at what a reportable fringe benefits amount would do to your HELP repayments, MLS position, and any family payments you receive. The number that emerges from all of those, not the headline caps, is how much you can actually sacrifice without losing more than you gain.