How to find lost super in Australia

Most of us have had a few jobs by our mid-twenties. A casual job through uni, something over a summer, then the job you’re in now. Every one of those probably came with a super account, and unless you said otherwise, each one was set up with whatever fund that employer used.

9% of young Australians didn’t know whether they had a super account at all, and another 17% knew they had one but couldn’t name the fund it was with.

Source: ASIC Young People and Money Survey, 2021

That’s how super gets lost. Not because you did anything wrong, but because your super followed your job instead of following you.

What does lost super actually mean?

There are two kinds and the difference is worth knowing.

Lost super is money still sitting with a super fund that can’t get hold of you, either because you’ve moved and never updated your details, or because the account has gone quiet for long enough that the fund has flagged it.

ATO-held super is money that’s been handed over to the Tax Office to look after, usually from small or inactive accounts. It’s still yours. It’s just parked somewhere safe until you come and get it.

Either way, it’s your money and nobody is keeping it from you. It just needs you to put your hand up.

So how do you actually find it?

The quickest way is through myGov, and it takes about five minutes.

• Sign in to myGov and link your account to the Australian Taxation Office if you haven’t already
• Select Super, then Fund details
• You’ll see every account in your name, including any ATO-held super
• Write down the fund names and the balances before you close the tab

If you’d rather not use myGov, you can call the ATO’s automated super search line on 13 28 65, or speak to someone on 13 10 20. The ATO app does the same job.

One thing worth saying plainly. You don’t need to pay anyone to do this for you. If a business offers to find your lost super for a fee, they’re charging you for something you can do yourself in the time it takes to make a coffee.

Why do multiple accounts quietly cost you?

Because each one charges its own fees, and most of them come with insurance you’re paying for whether you know about it or not. Two or three accounts means two or three sets of fees eating into a balance that’s meant to be growing.

Here’s the part people don’t expect though. Rolling accounts together isn’t automatically the right move. If one of them has insurance attached that you’d struggle to get again, closing it can leave you worse off, particularly if your health has changed since you took it out.

So find your accounts first. Understand what’s in them. Then decide. And if the insurance question applies to you, that’s a conversation for a licensed adviser rather than a guide like this one.

What about the super coming out of your pay right now?

It isn’t coming out of your pay at all, and this one trips up a lot of people.

Your employer pays super on top of your wages, not out of them. Since 1 July 2025 that contribution has been 12% of your ordinary earnings. So if your payslip says you earned $1,000 and the super line says $120, that $120 is extra. It was never yours to spend.

Which is worth knowing, because it means the amount going into your super rises every time your pay does. Growing your income and growing your super turn out to be the same lever.

How much super should you have by now?

Careful with this question, because it can send you straight into comparing yourself with people whose circumstances have nothing to do with yours.

For what it’s worth, the median balance sits somewhere around $21,000 for Australians aged 25 to 29. Medians are the more honest number here, because averages get dragged upward by a small number of very high earners. So if you’re in your 20s and the figure in your head was much higher than that, relax.

However, the number that actually matters is whether you know where your super is, whether it’s all in one place on purpose, and whether it’s growing. Someone with $15,000 in one account they check twice a year is in better shape than someone with $30,000 spread across four accounts they’ve never looked at.

What can you do this week?

• Log in to myGov and check how many super accounts are in your name
• Write down the balances, so you’ve got a starting number
• Check your last payslip and confirm the super line is actually there
• If you’ve got more than one account, look at the insurance on each before you touch anything

Finding your super is one of the quickest wins there is, and we take it further in the course, along with reading your payslip properly and asking for more money without it feeling awkward. Once you know where it all is, super stops being that vague thing you’ll deal with later and starts being an account you actually own.

A few common questions