The Australian Financial Year: Key Dates for 2026-27 and How to Plan Around Them

Updated 26 July 2026

Why 1 July to 30 June?

Australia inherited a mid-year cycle for practical reasons: it separates tax time from the calendar year end and the summer holidays, and it has been fixed since Federation-era practice standardised it. For individuals and most businesses, the "income year", "tax year" and "financial year" are the same thing. Some corporate groups with foreign parents adopt a substituted accounting period, but unless the ATO has approved one for you, 30 June is your year end.

Key dates for 2026-27

Two structural changes to plan around this year:

• Payday super starts 1 July 2026. Super is now payable with each pay run and must reach the fund within 7 business days of payday, under the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Act 2025. The ATO's Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed on 30 June 2026; employers who used it need a SuperStream-compliant alternative. Cash flow that relied on holding a quarter of super needs rebuilding now, not in June.
• GIC and SIC are non-deductible from 1 July 2025. Carrying an ATO debt got materially more expensive on an after-tax basis. Paying down tax debt, or refinancing it with deductible commercial finance, ranks higher on the planning list than it used to.

EOFY checklist: individuals

Before 30 June:

• Bring forward deductible expenses: work-related purchases, income protection premiums, professional subscriptions; the full list of levers is in our maximising your return guide
• Top up concessional super within the cap, within the $30,000 concessional cap for 2025-26 (indexed from 1 July 2026), plus unused carry-forward amounts from the previous five years if your total super balance was under $500,000; the contribution must reach the fund by 30 June
• Review your work from home records; the fixed rate method needs a full-year log of hours, not a June estimate
• Harvest capital losses where an asset genuinely no longer fits, to offset realised gains; wash sales (selling and immediately rebuying to manufacture a loss) are on the ATO's named-schemes list
• Prepay interest on investment loans if it suits your bracket this year
• Log odometer readings at 30 June if you claim car expenses

After 1 July: wait for your income statement to show "tax ready" (mid-July) before lodging; early lodgers top the amendment statistics every year.

EOFY checklist: businesses

• Trust distribution resolutions signed by 30 June. Not drafted, signed. A missing resolution taxes the trustee at 45%. The beneficiary split is a decision to make with current-year numbers in front of you, not a rollover of last year's minute
• Division 7A minimum yearly repayments made by 30 June at the current benchmark rate
• Pay June-quarter super before 30 June (not 28 July) if you want the deduction this year; it is deductible when received by the fund
• Write off genuinely bad debts and document the decision before year end
• Review debtors, WIP and stock: obsolete stock written down, WIP assessed
• Instant asset write-off: $20,000 per asset, turnover under $10 million, installed ready for use by year end. Legislated to 30 June 2026 only; the Bill extending it is before Parliament and not yet law, so confirm before committing to a purchase
• Reconcile wages to STP before finalising on 14 July; mismatches between W1/W2, STP and the GL are the most common post-year-end cleanup
• Dividend and franking planning: check the franking account can support any planned dividend
• Stocktake at 30 June where required

The same 30 June, four different to-do lists

The deadline is universal; the work is not. What each entity type must have done by 30 June:

Sole traders: records complete, personal super contributions received by the fund with a notice of intent to claim planned, PAYG instalments reviewed against actual profit, logbooks and home office hours closed out. The simplest list, and the most commonly ignored until October.

Companies: franking account reconciled before any final dividend, Division 7A loan accounts addressed, shareholder and director loans documented, base rate entity status checked if passive income has grown (the 80% passive income test moves companies between 25% and 30% without anyone noticing until the return).

Trusts: the distribution resolution above, plus streaming decisions if the deed permits (capital gains and franked dividends can be directed to specific beneficiaries, but only with a compliant deed and a resolution that actually streams them), and TFN reports for any new beneficiaries lodged in advance.

SMSFs: minimum pension payments physically paid by 30 June (a shortfall of one dollar can void the pension's tax exemption for the whole year), contributions received and within caps, and the asset valuation evidence file started so the audit does not stall in March. Our SMSF new-financial-year guide covers the fund-specific list in full.

Lodgment dates depend on who lodges

The 31 October date dominates the headlines but applies mainly to self-lodgers. The real due-date map:

The pattern worth exploiting: engaging an agent before 31 October preserves the extended program dates, which defers both lodgment and payment, an interest-free timing benefit that costs nothing. The pattern that catches people: one overdue prior year collapses your due date back to 31 October, which is how taxpayers with a straggling old return end up late on two years at once.

PAYG instalments: the quarterly bill you can control

PAYG instalments prepay this year's tax based on last year's result. Two things trip people every year:

• The system lags reality. Instalments after a bumper year keep charging bumper-year rates through a quiet year. You can vary instalments down when income has genuinely fallen, but a variation that undershoots the eventual liability by more than 15% attracts general interest charge on the shortfall. Since GIC became non-deductible from 1 July 2025, aggressive variations cost real after-tax money. Vary with a defensible estimate, and revisit each quarter.
• New instalment entrants get a shock. Your first year of business or investment income carries no instalments; then the first return lodges, and the ATO bills the new year's instalments on top of the old year's tax, sometimes in the same quarter. If your income stepped up this year, model that double-hit now and set cash aside for it.

Companies: franking, dividends and the loop to close

Company year-end has its own loop that must reconcile: profits, tax paid, franking credits, dividends. Before 30 June, check that any dividend you plan to pay is supportable by the franking account; over-franking triggers franking deficit tax, and an unfranked dividend to a shareholder on the top rate wastes the credits sitting in the account. If shareholders have drawn money during the year, the Division 7A decision (repay, dividend, or complying loan) has to be made against those same franking numbers. This is a single integrated decision, and it is much cheaper made in May than discovered in October.

Behind on lodgments? The order of operations

If you are reading a key-dates table with several years outstanding, dates matter less than sequence: register with an agent (which pauses some pressure and restores extended due dates going forward), lodge oldest first, and deal with the debt through a payment plan once the liabilities are actual rather than estimated. Failure-to-lodge penalties and GIC accrue, but the ATO's remission practice is consistently more generous to taxpayers who came forward than to those it found. The worst position is unlodged returns plus an ATO-initiated review; the difference in penalty outcomes is severe.

Tax planning is a year-round game with a June deadline

The difference between tax planning and tax scrambling is when it starts:

July-September: set the structure for the year. Review whether last year's entity mix still fits, lock in PAYG instalment variations if income has genuinely changed, rebuild payroll for payday super, set the bookkeeping cadence so June is not archaeology.

October-March: run the business, keep the file clean, quarterly check-ins against a live profit estimate. Decisions like equipment purchases and hiring change the tax answer more than anything done in June.

April-June: the pointy end. Profit estimate finalised, distribution strategy modelled across family members and any bucket company, super top-ups scheduled, capital gains and losses matched, prepayments considered, Division 7A repayments confirmed. Everything above must be executed, not planned, by 30 June.

Starting the new year properly: the July setup

The cheapest planning of the whole cycle happens in the first fortnight of July:

• Reset payroll: new SG settings confirmed in the software, payday super remittance mechanics tested on the first pay run, award rate changes applied (national wage decisions take effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July)
• Open the year's records: a folder (or myDeductions file) for receipts started now beats a reconstruction next June; five-year retention runs from lodgment
• Log opening odometer readings for anyone claiming car expenses
• Check registrations still fit: GST turnover trending toward $75,000, fuel tax credits if eligible, and whether a growing side income now needs an ABN
• Diarise the year: BAS dates, super dates, the FBT year end at 31 March, and a planning meeting pencilled for May

Thirty minutes in July routinely saves the messiest ten hours of the following June.

Common financial year mistakes

1. Confusing the deduction year. An expense is deductible when incurred, and super when received by the fund. Timing a payment on 30 June by a transfer that lands 2 July puts it in next year.
2. Lodging too early. Pre-fill data (interest, dividends, health insurance) arrives through July and August; lodging before it does invites amendments.
3. Treating 31 October as everyone's deadline. Agent lodgment programs extend most clients well into the following calendar year, which also defers payment.
4. Missing the FBT year. It runs 1 April to 31 March, not July to June; car benefits and entertainment need reviewing on that cycle.
5. Leaving trust resolutions to the accountant in September. They are void for the year by then. 30 June, signed.

This article provides general information only, current at the date of publication, and does not constitute personal tax, legal or financial advice. Consider your circumstances or speak with us before acting. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.