1 July is the day a swag of new rules kick in. Here’s what will hit your portfolio, your tax and your hip pocket on 1 July, and what won’t.
Every 1 July brings a reset: new tax settings, new super caps, new payment rates.
This year, the list of what genuinely changes is shorter than the headlines suggest, because the marquee Budget 2026 measures, the capital gains shake-up chief among them, don’t land until 2027, and some aren’t even law yet. We’ll get to those.
First, here’s what’s locked in for 1 July 2026.
Your tax
The change that touches almost everyone is a tax cut.
From 1 July, the lowest marginal rate drops from 16 per cent to 15 per cent, on the slice of income between $18,201 and $45,000.
It’s modest, worth up to about $268 a year, and it’s already law.
A second step, down to 14 per cent, is locked in for 1 July 2027.
A few other personal-tax settings, the Medicare levy thresholds, the low-income tax offset and the work-from-home deduction rate, carry over without a confirmed change, and the Tax Office had not posted its updated 2026-27 figures at the time of writing.
The 2.9 per cent rise in the Medicare levy low-income thresholds from the May Budget applied to 2025-26, backdated to last July, not this one.
One genuinely new shortcut is on the way, though it isn’t law yet. The government has proposed a standard $1,000 deduction for work-related expenses, claimable without receipts, from the 2026-27 income year. It would let about 6.2 million people skip itemising small work costs, well above the $300 you can already claim without receipts today. The draft was released for consultation in April and had not yet been introduced as a bill, so treat it as proposed, not locked in.
Your super
If you run a self-managed fund or you’re building a balance, this is where the action is.
The contribution caps step up for the first time in two years.
| Super setting | 2025-26 | From 1 July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Concessional (pre-tax) cap | $30,000 | $32,500 |
| Non-concessional (after-tax) cap | $120,000 | $130,000 |
| Three-year bring-forward | $360,000 | $390,000 |
| General transfer balance cap | $2.0 million | $2.1 million |
The bigger story is a brand-new tax. From 1 July, Division 296 finally takes effect: an extra 15 per cent on the earnings attributable to the part of a super balance above $3 million, and a further 10 per cent on top of that on the part above $10 million, so 25 per cent extra over $10 million. Both thresholds are indexed to inflation.
It has been one of the most fought-over measures in years, redesigned and delayed before it passed in March. It will hit a small group, the government estimates fewer than one in 100 super members at the start, but for those it touches it’s a material change. The first assessments will follow the end of the 2026-27 year.
One more for bosses and workers: from 1 July, “payday super” begins, which means super must be paid at the same time as wages rather than quarterly. The Super Guarantee rate itself stays at 12 per cent.
Your hip pocket
For workers, award minimum wages rise 4.75 per cent, from the first full pay period on or after 1 July, covering about 2.8 million people. The National Minimum Wage itself rises by a bit more, about 6 per cent, to $1,004.90 a week, or $26.44 an hour, up from $24.95, because it picks up an extra lift as an older pay classification is phased out.
Families on Family Tax Benefit get an indexation rise. The top rate for a child under 13, for instance, climbs from $227.36 to $235.48 a fortnight, and Paid Parental Leave extends to a full 26 weeks, paid at $1,004.90 a week in line with the minimum wage.
Pensioners are a trap worth clearing up. The pension rate does not rise on 1 July, it’s indexed in March and September. What changes on 1 July is the means test: the income and asset thresholds loosen, so more people qualify and some part-pensioners get more. The single income-free area rises from $218 to $226 a fortnight, and the assets test lifts with it.
And electricity, for once, is heading the right way for most. The regulator’s new default offer, the benchmark price in New South Wales, south-east Queensland and South Australia, falls from 1 July for most households, with cuts across New South Wales and bigger ones in south-east Queensland. South Australian flat-rate customers are the exception, with a small rise. A new “Solar Sharer” offer also gives households with a smart meter around three hours of free power in the middle of the day.
For businesses and shoppers
A few 1 July changes sit outside the tax-and-super core but are worth knowing.
The money-laundering net widens. From 1 July, the anti-money-laundering rules extend to a new group of businesses known as tranche two: real estate agents, lawyers, conveyancers, accountants and dealers in precious metals and stones. They have to enrol with AUSTRAC, run customer identity checks and report suspicious transactions, the same obligations banks and casinos already carry. If you buy or sell property or use those professionals, expect more identity paperwork.
A price-gouging ban for the big supermarkets. A new rule under the now-mandatory Food and Grocery Code bars the very largest retailers, in practice only Coles and Woolworths today, from charging prices that are excessive against their costs plus a reasonable margin. The ACCC enforces it, with penalties for breaches.
Verified text senders. From 1 July, brands that put their name at the top of a text message have to register that sender ID. Messages from unregistered senders are tagged as unverified, a move designed to make it harder for scammers to impersonate a bank or a delivery service.
What you might think is coming, but isn’t (yet)
Here’s the part that separates this rundown from the rest. Several of the changes you’ve read about are not 1 July 2026 events at all.
The capital gains overhaul. The big one for investors, replacing the 50 per cent CGT discount with inflation indexing and adding a 30 per cent minimum tax on real gains, does not start until 1 July 2027, and it isn’t law yet. It passed the House of Representatives in early June and is now before the Senate. Contrary to some reports, that 30 per cent minimum is a rate floor, not a tax that applies only above a dollar threshold.
Negative gearing changes. The plan to limit negative gearing to new builds is also a 1 July 2027 measure, in the same unpassed bill, and anything you already own is grandfathered.
The electric-car FBT break. The wind-back of the fringe-benefits-tax exemption on EVs doesn’t begin until 1 April 2027, and steps down again on 1 April 2029. Nothing changes for novated-lease buyers on 1 July 2026.
The $20,000 instant asset write-off. The government has said it will make the $20,000 threshold permanent from 1 July, but that hasn’t been legislated and isn’t yet before parliament. If it doesn’t pass, the threshold legally reverts to $1,000.
Energy rebates. The federal energy bill rebates ended on 31 December 2025 and were not renewed, so there’s no new household rebate this year. The cheaper default offer is doing that work instead.
This article is general in nature and does not take into account your personal circumstances. It is not financial, tax or investment advice. Figures are as at 25 June 2026, and some 2026-27 thresholds were yet to be finalised; confirm the current figures and seek professional advice before acting.
