Boosting Underfunded Super Accounts for Returning Australian Expats
Returning to Australia after spending time abroad as an expat can be an exciting journey. However, it often brings an array of new financial decisions, particularly when it comes to superannuation. Many Australian expats find themselves with underfunded super accounts due to various reasons. Most commonly, the focus has been on other investment assets. Investments such as, shares or property or, the simple fact that their employer has not been contributing to super. Using the right strategy, a couple could potentially squish a combined amount of AUD$1.645m into super, in just one-year financial year. In this article, we’ll explore how returning expats can boost their underfunded super accounts by leveraging key contribution strategies.
Retirement Planning
For expats, superannuation accounts can sometimes take a back seat, as they focus on building their lives overseas. When super is in the pension phase, it is completely tax-exempt. This means income, investment growth, and distributions from the account are all tax-free. These benefits make superannuation one of the best—if not the best—retirement vehicles in the world. Naturally, given this, it’s not uncommon for a returning expat to switch their focus to building super in preparation for retirement. Unfortunately, there are limitations with how much you are able to contribute to superannuation in a given time frame.
Types of Contribution
We have two types of contributions to super, tax deferred (concessional) and after tax (non-concessional). As of 2025FY, the current limit per financial year for each are $30,000 and $120,000 respectively. Depending on the individual’s retirement runway, these contributions may be more than enough. However, it’s quite common for returning expats to have a considerably shorter time left until retirement, which might have been a motivating factor behind their decision to return home. With a limited timeline an aggressive contribution strategy may be required.
Aggressive Contribution Strategy
So, what aggressive options do you have available to contribute? Returning expats can take advantage of several contribution strategies to give their underfunded super accounts a significant boost:
- Catch-Up Concessional Contribution: If you have unused concessional contribution cap space from previous years (i.e. from the 2019-2020 financial year), you can carry it forward and make larger concessional contributions in subsequent years. This strategy is best used when making a tax deduction to offset other income. Concessional contributions are taxed at 15% inside super. Using this strategy and assuming no prior contributions were made, you could make a tax-deductible contribution of $162,500 into your Australian super this current 2025FY per individual.
- Bring Forward Concessional Contribution: Expats who are under 75 years old, may be eligible to bring forward up to three years’ worth of non-concessional contributions. This allows them to make a larger one-time contribution to their super. If used in full, each individual can place $360,000 into super this current 2025FY.
- Downsizer Contribution: With the recent eligibility changes that previously excluded expats from utilising the downsizer contribution strategy, they are now able to take full advantage of this. If eligible, this strategy allows an individual to contribute up to $300,000 from the sale proceeds of a property into their super account.
Example: Applying an Aggressive Contribution Strategy
Let’s consider an example of an Australian couple, James and Sarah. They are both in their early 60s, and recently returned to Australia after a decade abroad. During their time overseas, they focused on building other investments and as a result, their super accounts were left underfunded. Now back in Australia and with retirement only five years away, they are eager to maximize their super contributions while still working. With each earning $250,000 annually, they fall into the 45% tax bracket, making tax efficiency a key part of their strategy.
Step 1: Concessional Contribution
First, James and Sarah take advantage of catch-up concessional contributions. Since they had no concessional contributions during their time abroad, they have unused cap space available from the past five years. In the current financial year (2025FY), they each contribute $162,500, for a combined total of $325,000. Because concessional contributions are taxed at 15% inside super, they pay $24,375 each in super tax. This is a much lower rate than their income tax bracket. They each claim a tax deduction for their $162,500 contribution, reducing their taxable income and saving $73,125 in personal taxes at the 45% rate. After accounting for the super tax, they each net a tax saving of $48,750, giving them a combined tax benefit of $97,500 (not accounting for possible div 293 tax).
Step 2: Non-Concessional Contribution
Next, they trigger the bring-forward non-concessional contributions rule, which allows them to make larger, after-tax contributions into their super. In 2025FY, they each contribute $360,000, a total of $720,000 between them. These contributions are not tax-deductible, but once in super, they grow tax-free, allowing James and Sarah to maximize the long-term growth of their retirement savings.
Step 3: Downsizer Contribution
Finally, James and Sarah use the downsizer contribution strategy after selling their family home. This allows them to each contribute an additional $300,000 to their super, adding a further $600,000 to their accounts. Like the non-concessional contributions, the downsizer contribution isn’t taxed within super, which means these funds also benefit from tax-free growth.
As a result, over the course of one financial year James and Sarah contribute $1.645 million into their super accounts
Final Thoughts on Super for Returning Australian Expats
Returning Australian expats can quickly boost underfunded super accounts by using strategies like catch-up concessional contributions, bring-forward non-concessional contributions, and downsizer contributions. As shown in the example of James and Sarah, these methods can help inject up to $1.645m into super in a single financial year while offering tax benefits.
Everyone’s situation is different, and eligibility requirements must be met. To understand how these strategies can work for you, ensure you speak to Atlas Wealth Group.
Contact Us
At Atlas Wealth Group, we specialise in supporting Australian expats with cross-border tax planning, superannuation, and wealth management. Contact us for a free consultation tailored to your personal situation.
To learn more, check out Atlas Wealth Groups’ podcast: Expat Chat