How to find your lost super

Australians have $16 billion stashed away in lost superannuation accounts and billions more sitting in inactive accounts that they are no longer contributing money to.

If any of this is your money you should find and consolidate it into your current 'active' superannuation account.

What is lost super?

Your super fund will report you as a lost member if either:
• it has lost contact with you; or
• it has not received any contributions from you in the past five years.

Super funds are required to report to the ATO twice each year how much lost inactive super they estimate is held in lost member accounts and they must transfer the unclaimed super money to the ATO.

This money is held in the ATO's Superannuation Holding Account until the fund member reclaims it. Money in this account receives interest equivalent to the inflation rate.

Are you inactive?

You are inactive if you have less than $6000 in your account and you haven't made a contribution in 16 months, you are not signed up for your super fund's insurance offer, haven't changed your investment options or if your fund considers you to be inactive.

If you are inactive, your fund is required to transfer your super account balance to the ATO, in the same way that it handles lost super.

Under new laws that came into effect in July 2019, the ATO will try to contact you, and if you have other active superannuation accounts, it will transfer this money into the super account that you currently use (your active account).

Note that these rules about inactive accounts do not apply to members of defined benefit or self-managed super funds.