Average Super Balance by Age in Australia (2026 APRA and ATO Figures)

By Mitchell Shad  ·  21 September 2026  ·  11 min read

Super is the quietest part of most people's wealth. It compounds in the background for decades, you rarely look at it, and then one day it becomes the thing that funds your life. So two questions come up: what does a normal balance look like for someone my age, and is mine enough?

Those are different questions with different answers, and most articles blur them together. This one keeps them apart.

The short answer: the average Australian super balance runs from about $8,800 under 25 to roughly $263,000 at 60 to 64, though the median is far lower, around $203,000 at 60 to 64 and about $63,000 across all ages. As for how much you should have: the two most respected benchmarks disagree sharply. ASFA says a single homeowner needs about $630,000 at 67 for a comfortable retirement. Super Consumers Australia puts a typical single homeowner at about $322,000. Both tables, and why the gap is so wide, are below.

What is the average super balance by age in Australia?

Average balances run from about $8,800 for under-25s to about $308,600 at ages 70 to 74, with 40 to 44-year-olds averaging $118,700, on APRA's December 2025 figures.

Balances roughly double each decade from your 20s through your 50s, then the growth slows as retirement approaches and compounding has less time left to work.

Why you'll see different numbers on different sites

If you have been searching this, you have probably seen wildly different figures quoted, and it is not because someone is wrong. It is because two bodies measure two different things.

• APRA reports on APRA-regulated funds: the big industry and retail funds most people are in. That is the table above.
• The ATO reports from tax data and includes self-managed super funds, which hold much larger average balances. On ATO data for 2023-24, released in June 2026, the average balance at 60 to 64 is about $371,000, against APRA's $263,400 for the same ages.

Neither is misleading. If you are in an ordinary industry fund, the APRA figure is the closer comparison. If you want the whole population including SMSFs, the ATO number is the one.

The median matters more than the average

Here is the part most articles skip. Super balances are heavily skewed: a relatively small number of very large accounts, many of them SMSFs, drag every average upward. The median, the person exactly in the middle, is the fairer mirror.

On ATO figures for 2023-24:

• The median balance across all ages is about $63,339.
• At 40 to 44, the median is about $100,330, against an average of roughly $134,000 on the same data.
• At 60 to 64, the median is about $203,326, against an average of about $371,000.

So at the point people actually retire, the typical Australian holds roughly half what the average implies. If your balance is below the average, you are not unusual. You are probably closer to normal than the average is.

How much super should you have at 30?

The average 30 to 34-year-old holds about $52,700. ASFA's benchmark for staying on track toward a comfortable retirement at 67 is about $66,500 at 30.

At this age the number itself barely matters. What matters is that the money is invested in a growth-weighted option, that you are not paying for multiple accounts and duplicate insurance, and that the fees are low. A dollar added at 30 has more than three decades to compound. A dollar added at 55 has barely one.

How much super should you have at 40?

The average 40 to 44-year-old holds about $118,700, and the median about $100,330. ASFA's on-track benchmark at 40 is about $168,000.

Forty is where most people first look properly, often after a stretch of years where income rose and super was ignored. It is also the last age at which small, boring changes (an extra 2% salary sacrifice, switching out of a high-fee product) still have twenty-five years to work on them.

How much super should you have at 50?

The average 50 to 54-year-old holds about $190,500. ASFA's benchmark at 50 is about $296,000.

That gap between average and benchmark is the widest on the table, and it is where the carry-forward contribution rules below become genuinely useful, particularly for anyone whose income rose after a period of part-time work or parenting.

How much super should you have at 60?

The average 60 to 64-year-old holds about $263,400 on APRA data, with a median nearer $203,000. ASFA's benchmark at 60 is about $469,000.

This is also the age where the question changes from "how much do I have" to "how long will it last", which depends on your spending, whether you own your home outright, and how much Age Pension you will receive.

How much super is actually enough?

Now the genuinely contested part. Two respected Australian bodies publish targets, and they are a long way apart.

Why such a gap? Because they are answering different questions.

ASFA's Retirement Standard describes a defined lifestyle: private health insurance, a reasonable car, regular leisure, domestic holidays. It then works out the lump sum that funds it from 67, alongside a part Age Pension.

Super Consumers Australia starts from the other end. It looks at what retirees actually spend, using ABS data, and sets targets at the 30th, 50th and 70th percentiles of real retiree spending, assuming you own your home and claim the Age Pension you are entitled to, with the money lasting to 90. Its medium target is what a typical retiree's real spending requires, which is considerably less than ASFA's comfortable lifestyle costs.

Both are legitimate. ASFA answers "what does a comfortable retirement cost?" and SCA answers "what do people like me actually spend?". If ASFA's number feels impossible, it is worth knowing that a large share of Australians retire on far less and report being fine, largely because the Age Pension does more of the work at lower spending levels, and because most retirees own their home.

The honest caveat on both: they assume you own your home outright. If you expect to rent in retirement, every figure above is too low, and by a lot.

The gender gap is real and it persists

The difference shows up at every age and does not close before retirement. On ATO data for 2023-24, at 60 to 64 the average balance was about $413,700 for men and $327,440 for women, with medians around $236,000 and $175,000.

The cause is not investment choice. It is career breaks, part-time years and lower lifetime contributions, compounded over decades. If that describes you, the carry-forward rule below exists more or less for exactly this situation.

What to do if you are behind

Being behind a benchmark is information, not a verdict. The levers that actually move a super balance:

1. Salary sacrifice, or claim a personal deduction. Concessional contributions are taxed at 15% going in, which is lower than most people's marginal rate. The cap for 2026-27 is $32,500 a year, including what your employer puts in.
2. Use carry-forward contributions. If your total super balance was under $500,000 at 30 June last year, you can use up unused concessional cap from the previous five years in one hit. This is the single most useful rule for anyone who took time out of work, and almost nobody knows about it.
3. Consolidate your accounts. Multiple accounts mean multiple sets of fees and often duplicate insurance premiums quietly eating the balance. You can find lost super through myGov.
4. Check the investment option. Many people sit in a default or conservative option for decades without choosing it. Over thirty years the difference between a balanced and a growth option is not small.
5. Check what you are paying. Fees compound exactly the way returns do, just against you.

Super is also one of the most heavily rule-bound parts of Australian finance, and the right answer genuinely depends on your income, age and situation, so this is general information rather than advice. The Moneysmart superannuation calculator is a good free place to model your own numbers, and a licensed adviser is worth it for anything consequential.

Super is one line of a bigger number

The thing no super table can tell you is whether you are on track, because super is only one part of your position. Two people with identical balances are in completely different situations if one owns a home outright and the other is renting with an investment portfolio.

The number that actually answers the question is your whole net worth: super, property, shares and ETFs, cash, and what you owe against all of it, projected forward with the awkward Australian detail that super is locked away until 60 and taxed on the way out. That is the job Compound was built for. It tracks your super alongside everything else you own and projects the year your investments could fund your life, rather than a balance to chase.

For the wider picture, average net worth by age in Australia covers household wealth, average savings by age covers the cash slice, and how to calculate your FIRE number works through the target itself.

Benchmarks show where the path runs. Your own trend line, checked over years rather than days, tells you whether you are walking it.

Sources: APRA, Quarterly Superannuation Statistics, December 2025 (average balances by age group, APRA-regulated funds). Australian Taxation Office, Taxation Statistics 2023-24, released June 2026 (averages and medians including SMSFs, and balances by gender). ASFA Retirement Standard, 2026 (comfortable and modest lump sums and on-track benchmarks by age). Super Consumers Australia Retirement Savings Targets, 2026 (homeowner targets at low, medium and high spending). ATO, key superannuation rates and thresholds (concessional cap and carry-forward eligibility, 2026-27). Figures are averages, medians and benchmarks, not guarantees, and every target above assumes home ownership. General information only, not financial advice.