How to find lost super

What is lost superannuation?

If you’ve ever switched jobs, lived overseas, or changed your name or address during your working life, you may have lost track of some of your superannuation along the way. According to the Australian Tax Office (ATO), your super fund will report you as a ‘lost member’ if any of the following situations apply:

• You’re uncontactable and your account hasn’t received a contribution or rollover for a year.

• They have not received any contributions or rollover amounts for you in the past five years.

• Your account was transferred from another fund as a lost member account and no new address has been found.

Under Australia’s super laws, your account and the money in it can’t technically be ‘lost’. Any money in a lost member’s account will either be held by the super fund or handed over to the ATO and considered ‘unclaimed’. In both cases, you should be able to find and claim your lost super by verifying your identity, typically with your Tax File Number.

What is unclaimed superannuation?

In some cases, your super will be considered unclaimed and transferred to the ATO to hold in their Unclaimed Super Money (USM) register. The ATO will attempt to find the account’s owner, and if they can’t, will hold the money until it’s claimed. According to the ATO, super funds must report and transfer all unclaimed funds twice a year in the following circumstances:

• Lost or inactive accounts with a balance under $6,000

• Lost member accounts that have been inactive for a year and the owner can’t be contacted.

• Account owners aged 65 or over who haven’t made a contribution in two years, and haven’t been contactable for five.

• Deceased account owners, where the super fund has been unable to pay the new rightful owner.

• Super belonging to a former temporary resident.

• Money owed to an uncontactable ex-spouse following a divorce.

How do I find lost or unclaimed superannuation?

There are four main ways you can find lost or unclaimed superannuation. Whichever method you go with, you can choose to consolidate it into another active account, or withdraw it if you have met a condition of release.

1. Ask your super fund to search for you

If you have a preferred super fund, you can request that it searches for lost super on your behalf. Typically, this is done through your super fund’s online portal. You may need to verify your identity and provide consent to use your Tax File Number to find your lost super.

It’s important to find out if your fund automatically puts the super they find into your active account (i.e. consolidates your super). You may also want to compare super funds on their performance, fees and other features to see if there’s a more suitable fund before you decide to consolidate.

2. Search online via myGov

If you have a myGov account linked to the ATO, you can log in and click ‘Manage my super’ to search for unclaimed and lost super money with your Tax File Number.. The ATO provides more details on how myGov’s online services work, along with instructions on setting up a myGov account if you don’t have one already.

3. Call the lost super search line

Another option to track down your lost or unclaimed super is to call the ATO’s automated ‘lost super search line’ on 13 28 65. If you do so, you will need to be ready to provide some or all of the following personal information on request:

• Your personal details: tax file number (TFN), name, date of birth.

• Your contact details: current postal address, phone number, email address.

• Your super fund details: (any super fund where contributions may have been made on your behalf) super fund name, account number, beneficiaries, period of contributions.

• Your previous details: name, address, employment.

4. Fill out a paper form

You can download, print and fill out a paper form from the ATO, then mail it back to the tax office. The ATO provides a link to this form on its website, and you can either fill it out on your computer or print it out and use a pen. The ATO’s postal address to send the form to is listed at the base of the form itself.

Compare Superannuation Funds

How does super get lost or go unclaimed?

Some examples of why super becomes ‘lost’ and goes unclaimed, include:

You’ve changed jobs before 2021: Rules introduced in 2021 mean that your active super fund is ‘stapled’ to you, and a new employer must pay super into that account. However, if you changed jobs before 2021, you needed to tell your employer what super fund you wanted to be in, or if you wanted to go with the employer’s default fund. The ‘stapled super‘ rules are designed to prevent people from having multiple super accounts, thereby decreasing the risk of losing track of super.

Your super fund can’t find you: You may not have updated your contact details with your super fund (or funds) when you moved house or changed your name.

Choosing a superannuation account

Want to consolidate all your lost super but are unsure which fund to choose? You can get an idea of some of the factors to consider by comparing superannuation accounts on our database. It’s worth noting that consolidating super funds is beneficial for many people but isn’t right for everyone, so the pros and cons should be carefully weighed up.

When looking for a suitable fund, there are many factors to consider, such as the fees charged, whether the insurance offering is suitable for you and past performance.

However, investments can go up and down, so while past performance can be useful, it’s not a reliable indicator of future performance.