The First Home Super Saver Scheme
The First Home Super Saver Scheme lets you put extra voluntary contributions into your super and later withdraw them, with their earnings, toward your first home. You can count up to $15,000 of contributions a year and $50,000 in total. Before-tax contributions are taxed at 15% inside super, which the ATO notes is usually less than your income tax rate.
Who can use it
18 or older
when you ask the ATO for a determination.
Never owned property in Australia,
including an investment property or vacant land. If you've had a financial hardship, such as bankruptcy, divorce, losing your job or a serious illness, you may still qualify.
Buying a home to live in.
You must intend to live in it, and occupy it for at least 6 of the first 12 months from when it is practicable to occupy it.
Your name on the title
of the home you buy.
It's assessed person by person. A couple can each use their own contributions toward the same home.
What counts, and what you get back
What counts.
Voluntary contributions you make yourself, before tax (concessional) or after tax (non-concessional), from 1 July 2017. Up to $15,000 counts in any one financial year, and $50,000 across all years. Your employer's compulsory super doesn't count.
What comes back.
100% of your after-tax contributions and 85% of the before-tax ones you've claimed a deduction for, plus earnings the ATO works out at a set rate, not what your fund actually earned.
Tax applies on the way out. The before-tax part and the earnings are added to your taxable income in the year they're released, with a 30% tax offset against them. How that works out for you depends on your income: it's a question for your accountant.
How it works, step by step
Make the contributions. Through your super fund, within the yearly and total limits.
Ask the ATO for a determination. It tells you how much you can release. You must ask before you own the home: before any property transfers to you.
Ask for the release. You can do it before you sign a contract, or up to 90 days after signing one.
Sign within the time allowed. If you ask for the release first, you have 12 months to sign a contract to buy or build, and the ATO can allow up to 12 more.
Tell the ATO within 90 days of signing the contract, or any other period it allows.
Fitting it into your loan
The released money goes toward your deposit, but it arrives on the ATO's timetable, not yours: the ATO says it may take between 15 and 20 business days after you ask for the release. That matters most if you're buying at auction or on a short settlement: plan the determination and release before you're bidding, not after.
Tell your lender at the start that part of your deposit is coming from the scheme, so the application shows where every dollar will come from.
If you don't end up buying
If the money is released and you don't sign a contract in time, you have two choices: put the amount back into super, or pay an extra tax of 20% of the assessable amount released, on top of the income tax already due.
First Home Super Saver questions
Contributions count up to $15,000 a year and $50,000 in total. You get back 100% of after-tax contributions and 85% of before-tax ones you've claimed a deduction for, plus deemed earnings (ATO, pages published 8 July 2026).
Using super for your deposit?
Tell me roughly what you'll release, what else you've saved and where you're looking. I'll show how it fits with your loan and what timing to plan for.
You'll hear back within the hour in business hours, and by 9am the next business day after hours.
Sources
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ATO, First home super saver scheme (whole section), pages published 8 July 2026. Read 2 October 2026.
Updated 3 October 2026