The Family Law Act (FLA) allows super to be split between spouses (parties) through a super agreement (a binding financial agreement that covers super) or a court order. The split applies to certain types of payments (called “splittable payments”).
The super agreement or court order will include details about how much super is to be split from one spouse (the “member spouse”) to the other (the “non-member” spouse). The amount could be:
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specified as a fixed dollar amount, or
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a method for calculating the amount could be provided.
Either way, this amount is called the “base amount”.
The super agreement or court order will also state the time when the split needs to happen. This date is known as the “operative time” – think of it like a deadline. For super being split pursuant to a super agreement, the operative time is the fourth business day after the trustee receives the super agreement, and for a court order, the operative time is whatever is specified in the court order.
What happens if the super isn’t split until after the operative time?
The non-member spouse may be entitled to more than the base amount, i.e. it could be adjusted with interest at a statutory interest rate for the period from the operative time up to when the base amount is finally split to them (called the “adjustment period”). This adjusted amount is known as the “adjusted base amount”.
In the case of SMSFs, the interest rate for 2025–26 is 6.9 per cent, and there’s a special formula to calculate the amount of interest.
Let’s look at an example.
Jen and Sam are members of an SMSF. Earlier in 2025–26, they finalised their property settlement as a result of their marriage breakdown – they did this via a court order. Part of the court order relates to the splitting of their super.
The order states that:
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Jen is to receive $1 million from Sam’s entitlements in their SMSF.
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Sam’s entitlements in the SMSF are to be reduced accordingly.
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The order has effect from the operative time, and the operative time is the 10th business day after the trustee of the SMSF has been served with a sealed copy of the court order.
The base amount was not paid until 20 days after the operative time.
In Jen’s case, her $1 million entitlement would be adjusted to include $3,700 of interest – i.e. she’d get $1,003,700 from Sam’s super.
In the case of non-SMSFs, the base amount is adjusted by the actual earnings rate that applied to the member spouse’s super interest over the adjustment period.
Unlike SMSFs, the adjustment amount could be positive, negative or nil – depending on the actual earnings rate over the adjustment period.
