Your First Graduate Salary: Take-Home Pay, HELP and Salary Sacrifice

Enter the salary in your offer, how many months you expect to be paid before 30 June and whether the number includes employer super. The estimate keeps the payroll calculation separate from the final annual assessment.

The default $77,000 cash salary matches the 2025 median full-time salary reported for domestic undergraduates in the Graduate Outcomes Survey. It is a useful worked example, not a forecast of what every graduate should earn.

The most important line in a first contract can be the few words after the salary. A salary of $77,000 plus super means $77,000 of cash salary and about $9,240 of compulsory employer super for a full year.

A $77,000 package including super is different. At a 12% Super Guarantee rate, the calculator separates it into about $68,750 of cash salary and $8,250 of employer super. In this simple 2026–27 example, the package-inclusive cash salary is below the HELP repayment threshold after the automatic work-related deduction.

Payroll does not wait until 30 June to discover your annual income. It takes each regular pay, applies the withholding schedule and assumes that pay rate continues. If you tell payroll about a study loan, the pay can also include STSL withholding.

The compulsory HELP repayment is not finalised on each payslip. The ATO works it out after the income year from your repayment income. Amounts withheld for STSL are part of your withholding credits; they are not applied to the loan balance as each pay arrives.

The six-month worker is still paid at the $77,000 annual rate, so regular payslips can contain STSL withholding. But only $38,500 is earned in that income year, assuming no earlier income. That leaves the annual HELP repayment at $0. Excess withholding may increase a tax refund, although the ATO can apply it to another tax or government debt.

The 2026–27 HELP schedule starts at repayment income of $69,528. The first band is marginal: the repayment is 15 cents for each dollar above the threshold, not 15% of your whole income.

Repayment income is not always the salary in your contract. It begins with taxable income and adds adjustments including reportable employer super contributions, reportable fringe benefits and net investment losses. For a resident with salary only and the automatic $1,000 work-related deduction, repayment income reaches the threshold at a gross cash salary of $70,528.

At $77,000, taxable and HELP repayment income are both $76,000 before salary sacrifice. The compulsory repayment is $971. If the remaining study-loan balance is smaller, the repayment is capped at that balance. An omitted balance in the reference table means the balance is unknown, not zero.

Salary sacrifice redirects part of your future cash salary into super before personal income tax. It can reduce taxable income, income tax and Medicare. It usually does not reduce HELP repayment income because the reportable super contribution is added back.

A $100-a-fortnight example

On a full-year $77,000 cash salary, sacrificing $100 a fortnight sends $2,600 to super. Under the simple 2026–27 assumptions:

• annual take-home falls by $1,768, or $68 a fortnight;
• the fund deducts $390 of contributions tax from the sacrificed amount, leaving $2,210, or $85 a fortnight, in super; and
• the compulsory HELP repayment remains $971.

The gap between $100 sacrificed and $68 of lost take-home is the estimated $32 reduction in income tax and Medicare. That is a computed outcome, not a recommendation: cash is available now, while super is preserved for retirement and subject to super rules.

• Tell payroll about your study loan. This controls STSL withholding. It does not change the compulsory repayment calculated at assessment.
• Put salary sacrifice in place before earning the income. Ask payroll to confirm the amount, start date and whether the displayed salary is before or after the sacrifice.
• Count all concessional contributions. Employer super, salary sacrifice and personal deductible contributions share the $32,500 general 2026–27 cap. Carry-forward rules can change an individual cap.

If you salary sacrifice while repaying HELP, compare the new payroll withholding with the annual estimate. Payroll may withhold on the reduced cash pay while the reportable super is added back to repayment income, so the withholding gap can move.