How to find lost super and unclaimed money

Start by accepting that there is no single national search. The closest thing to one is the ATO's view of your superannuation, which shows every account any fund has reported in your name plus anything the ATO itself is holding. That is comprehensive for super and blind to everything else. ASIC's unclaimed money register is comprehensive for bank accounts, life insurance and share money and blind to super. The state registers are comprehensive for money a business or agency in that state could not return to you, and blind to all of the above.

The ATO draws a distinction that governs the whole superannuation half of this page. Lost super is money your fund still holds but cannot connect to you — the ATO defines a member as uncontactable when the fund has lost contact and the account has received no contribution or rollover for 12 months, and as inactive when the account has received no contribution or rollover for five years. Unclaimed super is money the fund was required by law to hand over to the ATO, which then shows in ATO online services as ATO-held super. The search is the same; the claim is different, because in the first case you are dealing with a fund and in the second with the Commissioner.

ASIC's role is narrower than most people assume, and this trips up almost every first-time claimant. For bank accounts and life insurance, ASIC holds the record and the money, but the bank, credit union, building society, life company or friendly society is the body that assesses whether you are the rightful owner. You claim through them; when they approve it, they tell ASIC, ASIC releases the funds to them, and they pay you. Only money listed as company money from shares and investments is claimed from ASIC directly.

The state and territory registers exist because a company that cannot return money to a customer eventually has to hand it to the state rather than keep it. Western Australia's Department of Treasury and Finance describes money held by an organisation for six years without being successfully returned as unclaimed under the Unclaimed Money Act 1990. South Australia's threshold under the Unclaimed Money Act 2021 — which commenced on 25 November 2023 and repealed an Act from 1891 — is money held by a corporation for at least five years with no claim by the owner. Victoria's register takes money unpaid for 12 months or more. The clocks are different in every jurisdiction.

There is a fifth door that nobody thinks of as a register at all. The Fair Work Ombudsman holds unpaid wages in trust for former employees it could not contact, recovered during audits and investigations, and runs a public search that takes a family name plus either the employer's ABN or business name. If you worked somewhere that was later audited and you had already moved on, that money is sitting there waiting for you to be identified.

Finally, rental bonds sit awkwardly across the boundary. Queensland routes them through the Residential Tenancies Authority rather than the state unclaimed money register. South Australia publishes unclaimed rental bonds on the Treasury register. Western Australia lists rental bond refunds among the examples on its register, and Victoria's register covers rent and bonds. If you have ever moved out of a rental and never seen the bond, the answer depends entirely on which state you were renting in.

The fastest route is ATO online services through myGov. Sign in, select the Australian Taxation Office, then Super, then Fund details. Every super account a fund has reported in your name appears in that list, with the balance the fund last reported. If an account is flagged as a lost member account, the words Contact fund appear beside the fund's name. Anything transferred to the ATO appears as ATO-held super on the same screen. The ATO app does the same job from a phone.

Read the balances with a degree of scepticism. The ATO shows the annual balances funds report to it, and funds are generally only required to report a 30 June figure. Your actual current balance may be higher or lower, and a member statement from the fund itself will be more recent. Defined benefit schemes complicate this further — some report a zero balance to the ATO, because the entitlement is a calculated amount rather than a pot of money sitting in an account.

If you cannot get into myGov, the ATO runs an automated self-service line on 13 28 65 that will complete a super check over the phone. Have your tax file number, your name and any previous names, your date of birth, your current and previous postal addresses, and any detail you can remember about funds that might have received contributions — the fund name, a member number, the period you worked there. If the automated line will not do what you need, the ATO's superannuation enquiries line is 13 10 20, and ASIC Moneysmart also lists the ATO's Indigenous helpline on 13 10 30.

There is a paper route as well, and it matters for people who have no reliable internet access or no working phone. The ATO publishes a Searching for lost and unclaimed super form, NAT 2476, which you complete and post to the Australian Taxation Office, PO Box 3578, Albury NSW 2640. A tax agent can also check on your behalf from their client's profile in Online services for agents, and your preferred super fund will run the search for you if you ask.

Moneysmart adds a fifth option that is genuinely useful and rarely mentioned: Services Australia service centres, mobile service centres, agents and self-service access points can help you contact the ATO, use the phone, and access a computer and a printer. If the barrier is that you have no device and no credit on your phone, that is the practical answer.

If you have been told your super was transferred to the ATO but you cannot see it in ATO online services, the ATO's explanation is that the personal details the fund supplied do not match what the ATO holds. The fix is sequential: check and update your details with the ATO, check and update them with the fund, then phone the lost super search line. Take the amount, the date the fund paid it across, any payment reference numbers and whatever documentation you have to that call.

One more thing worth doing while you are in there. Under My profile, check that your personal details and your financial institution details are current — there is a separate bank account nominated for superannuation as well as one for income tax. The ATO pays some ATO-held super directly to people, and it can only do that if the account details are right.

Funds do not transfer money to the ATO because they want to. They do it because the law requires it in a defined set of circumstances, and knowing which one applies to you tells you what you can do next. The ATO lists the categories in which a fund must report and pay a benefit across as unclaimed super money, and they range from the obvious to the obscure.

The largest category by volume is the inactive low-balance account, a measure designed to stop fees eating small balances to nothing. A super account is generally an inactive low-balance account if no amount has been credited to it in 16 months, the balance is under $6,000, you have not met a prescribed condition of release, it is not a defined benefit account, there is no insurance on the account, and it is not in a self-managed or small APRA fund. Note the insurance condition carefully — an account with cover attached is not swept up. Funds identify these accounts on 30 June and 31 December each year, and report and pay them by 31 October and 30 April respectively.

You can stop your account being treated this way. The ATO's route is to give your fund a written notice declaring that you are not a member with an inactive low-balance account. That notice is valid for 16 months, so it is a repeating task, not a one-off. Consolidating deliberately, changing your investment options, electing to keep insurance, or making or amending a binding beneficiary nomination in that 16-month window also takes the account out of the definition.

The other categories are narrower. A fund must hand over the benefit of a member aged 65 or over who has made no contribution for two years and whom the fund has been unable to contact for five years. It must hand over a deceased member's benefit if it cannot pay the rightful owner. It must hand over the super of a former temporary resident six months after they leave Australia with an expired or cancelled visa. It must hand over an ex-spouse's entitlement under a splitting agreement or order where the ex-spouse cannot be found, and the balances of lost members under $6,000 or lost members inactive for 12 months where the fund lacks the information to pay them.

Separately from unclaimed super money, the ATO operates the Superannuation Holding Account special account. It is not a fund and not a trust — it is a holding account for small amounts of government super contributions and super guarantee payments that could not be paid to a fund, kept there until they can be moved into a real super account. The ATO notes that an SHA special account with no activity for 10 years becomes inactive, and that interest credited to the account is only paid on the first $1,200.

Unpaid employer super arrives at the ATO by a different road again. Where an employer has not paid the right amount of superannuation, the shortfall is payable to the ATO, and the ATO holds it on your behalf if it cannot be paid into an active account. That is worth knowing if you have ever reported an employer for unpaid super and then lost track of what happened to the money.

The ATO does not simply sit on all of it. Where it holds $200 or more for someone under 65 who has not asked for it to go anywhere in particular, it will move the money into an eligible active super account on that person's behalf. An eligible active account is one held by a living person, in accumulation phase, that accepts government rollovers, has received a contribution in the current or previous financial year, and will have a balance of $6,000 or more after the transfer. Where there is more than one, the ATO picks the account that most recently received an ATO rollover this financial year, failing that the one that most recently received a contribution, failing that the one with the largest balance at the end of the last financial year.

If ATO-held super appears on your Fund details screen, the default and usually best move is to send it to a fund. In ATO online services, select Super, then Manage, then Transfer super, and nominate the eligible fund you want it in. The ATO says explicitly that there are no fees or charges for transferring ATO-held super money into a super fund account, which makes this the cheapest transaction available to you. If you registered your device using the ATO app you will also have to verify the request inside the app before it is submitted.

Withdrawing the money as cash instead is possible only in defined circumstances, and the ATO splits them into claims that need no supporting documentation and claims that do. Without documentation, you can withdraw unclaimed super money if you are 65 or over, if the balance immediately before withdrawal is under $200, if you are a former temporary resident who meets the requirements, or as a non-member spouse where the amount arises from a splittable payment. There is also a route for a Superannuation Holding Account special account that has been inactive for 10 consecutive financial years.

With documentation, the grounds widen. Retirement due to permanent incapacity, invalidity or disability requires evidence that your employment ended because of the disability plus certificates from two registered medical practitioners — one certificate signed by both is acceptable — stating you are unlikely ever to work again in a capacity you are reasonably qualified for. Receiving Australian Government income support payments opens up an SHA special account claim on written evidence of 26 continuous weeks of payments, or 39 weeks since turning 55; the ATO names a Q230 letter from Services Australia as an acceptable document.

Two automatic payments happen without you asking. The ATO will make a direct payment of ATO-held super to you if you are 65 or over, and it will make a direct payment of unclaimed superannuation money where the amount is under $200. It also notes that a direct payment of ATO-held super under $200 is not subject to tax, has no tax withheld, and does not need to be included in your tax return. If you are over 65 and you would rather the money stayed inside superannuation than be paid out to you, the ATO requires a super fund nomination — and that request can only be made over the phone, and should be made before your fund transfers the money.

Temporary residents who have already left Australia have their own front door. A departing Australia superannuation payment can be claimed through the ATO's DASP online application system, which covers both fund-held and ATO-held super and confirms your immigration status directly with the Department of Home Affairs. The ATO's strong advice is to gather everything and start the application before you leave, because it becomes much harder once you are overseas — though you can only submit it after you have left and your visa has ceased. If you never claimed and six months passed, the super is now ATO-held and you can still claim it at any time. New Zealand citizens and people who have permanently emigrated to New Zealand may instead be able to transfer ATO-held unclaimed super to a KiwiSaver provider.

The paper alternative is the Application for payment of ATO-held superannuation money, NAT 74880. Copies of Australian identification documents such as a passport, birth certificate or driver licence do not need to be certified for this form; copies of any other original documents must be certified by an authorised person, and the ATO will not accept certification by a family member, a business partner or your own tax agent.

If you do not meet any withdrawal ground, you are not stuck — you simply cannot take the money as cash. You can still transfer the balance to a complying super fund or retirement savings account, which is what most people should be doing anyway. And if a statement of account arrives from the ATO showing debits, credits or an offset against another debt, the balance and transaction detail can be checked by phoning 13 28 61.

Finding several accounts creates an obvious temptation to collapse them into one. Usually that is right — one set of administration fees instead of three, one statement, one balance to watch. The ATO's own Super health check recommends checking how many accounts you have and considering consolidation, and Moneysmart lists the benefits as one set of fees, less paperwork and an easier balance to track.

The reason to slow down is insurance. Default cover inside super typically includes death and total and permanent disability cover, and sometimes income protection, priced in a group policy and issued without individual underwriting. Moneysmart's warning is specific: if you change funds you may not get the same cover, and it flags particular care if you have a medical condition or are 60 or over. A health event since you last applied for cover privately can make replacement insurance expensive, restricted or unavailable — and closing the account is irreversible. ATO online services flags any super account that has insurance attached, so you can see which ones are at risk before you act.

Moneysmart also notes that when you change funds you usually keep your existing cover until the replacement policy is issued and your new cover is confirmed. That is the safe sequence and the one to insist on: get the new cover confirmed in writing, then close the old account, not the other way round.

There is a second trap that costs real money at tax time. If you made a personal contribution to a fund and intend to claim a deduction for it, you must confirm your eligibility, lodge a valid notice of intent with that fund, and receive the fund's acknowledgement before you transfer the money out. Roll the balance first and the deduction is gone. Because consolidation and personal deductible contributions often happen in the same June scramble, this is a very easy mistake to make.

Check what kind of fund you are leaving, too. A defined benefit account is not a balance — the entitlement is calculated from your service and salary, and Moneysmart's advice is to get professional advice before rolling money out of one, because some carry valuable benefits and you cannot rejoin once you have left. Also check whether your employer contributes more to a particular fund, and remember that consolidating does not change where your employer pays future contributions; you have to give them the new fund's name, unique superannuation identifier and your member number.

One last piece of judgement: do not default to keeping the account with the largest balance. Moneysmart says this directly — the best account for you may be one of your small ones, or a fund you are not yet with. Fees and long-run net returns matter more than which pot happens to be biggest today.

Finally, treat any unsolicited approach about your super as a sales call until proven otherwise. Moneysmart warns that callers offer a free super health check or to find your lost super as a way into a switch, may claim your fund is underperforming, may offer better returns, and may collect your personal information without you ever speaking properly to a licensed adviser. Everything they are offering to do, you can do yourself in the ATO app for nothing.

ASIC's unclaimed money register is the one to search for anything that is not super and not state money. It holds balances from bank, credit union and building society accounts that have not been used for seven years and hold $500 or more, money from life insurance policies unclaimed for seven years after the policy matures, and money from shares and investments. The historical depth is what makes it worth searching for older relatives as well as yourself: trading bank account records go back to 1959, savings bank accounts to 1989, credit union and building society accounts to 1992, life insurance companies to 1952 and friendly societies to 2000.

There is a boundary worth remembering. If the account you are hunting was last accessed before 1992, Moneysmart directs you to the office of state revenue or state treasury in the state where the bank, credit union or building society was originally registered — so a pre-1992 New South Wales credit union account is a Revenue NSW problem, not an ASIC one.

Every record on the register carries a unique Original Transaction Number. Write it down before you go any further, because every claim form asks for it and it is how the assessing body ties your paperwork to the right entry. Only limited address information is displayed publicly, which is deliberate — it is a fraud control, and it is also why the next step is a judgement call.

Before claiming, work out whether the record is plausibly yours at all. Moneysmart's test is simple: have you lived in the suburb shown on the record, and did you hold an account with that institution or a policy with that insurer. If the answer to both is no, it is probably somebody else with your name. If yes, keep going.

For bank accounts and life insurance, the claim goes to the institution, not to ASIC. Check Moneysmart's list of banks, building societies and credit unions, or its list of life insurance companies and friendly societies, to find who the original institution has become — the lists exist precisely because so many of these entities have merged or been renamed. Then ask for the unclaimed money officer. They decide what proof they need, they assess whether you are the rightful owner, and they handle every enquiry about the claim. ASIC only releases the funds to them once they approve it. If the record shows s69 BADIVS it is bank dividend money, and the bank's share registry may be the right contact instead.

Money listed as company money from shares and investments is different: that one is claimed from ASIC directly, using Claim form A for owners, joint shareholders, directors, secretaries, liquidators, proprietors and parents of a minor, or Claim form B for executors, administrators, trustees, attorneys and court-appointed guardians.

Interest is the part most people do not know about. ASIC has paid interest on unclaimed money it holds since 1 July 2013 — nothing for the period before that — at a rate based on the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index, running from the date shown on your record to 14 days after your claim is approved. Moneysmart states that no tax is paid on the interest you earn. Two exceptions: no interest is payable on records marked Company gazette, because the company sent ASIC your details but not the money and you must claim from the company itself, and none on deregistered company trust money.

New South Wales runs its register through Revenue NSW, which describes unclaimed money as money you are legally entitled to but did not receive — unrepresented cheques, share dividends, trust accounts, a refund that never arrived, and money in a deceased person's name. Search and claim online, choosing a claim type of owner, authorised representative, family member or friend, or agent, and a claimant relationship of individual, joint, company, trust or deceased estate. Revenue NSW asks you to allow up to 28 days for assessment. If a claim is refused you have 60 days to lodge a written objection, which is considered by an independent review unit, and after that you can seek review at NCAT or the Supreme Court. That formal appeal path is unusual among the jurisdictions and worth using.

Victoria's register is run by the State Revenue Office as the Victorian Unclaimed Money Register. Businesses must lodge money unpaid for 12 months or more as at 1 March, in gross amounts of $20 or more for general entitlements, with lodgement due by 31 May. The register covers share dividends, salaries and wages, rent and bonds, debentures and interest, proceeds from a sale, and gaming winnings or prizes. Most claims are processed within four weeks. Unclaimed Tatts, Intralot and TAB winnings have their own application, and you need the original ticket, bought in Victoria, more than 12 months old and not on a registered card. The governing statute is the Unclaimed Money Act 2008.

Queensland's register sits with Queensland Public Trustee, and its scope is unusually well defined. It holds money from Queensland government departments and agencies including hospitals, correctional centres, statutory authorities and schools; from solicitors, real estate agents, accountants, nursing homes and companies; unclaimed wages or salaries for employees engaged under a Queensland State Award; and deceased estate entitlements. It states plainly that it does not hold money from dormant bank or credit union accounts, life insurance, superannuation or rental bonds. Its search is literal rather than fuzzy — a search for Smith John Patrick will not find an entry recorded as Smith J P, and it will never find Smyth. Start broad with the surname and add initials.

Western Australia's register is with the Department of Treasury and Finance, under the Unclaimed Money Act 1990, which deems money unclaimed after an organisation has held it for six years without returning it. The department says there is approximately $190 million on the register, that it is updated annually, and that records are held indefinitely until claimed. Examples it gives are rental bond refunds, dividend payments, vehicle licence refunds, refunds from education providers and overpayments of utility bills. Although the Act specifies amounts of $100 or more, the department accepts smaller amounts as voluntary transfers. Superannuation, life insurance and stale bank balances are not on it.

South Australia's register is with the Department of Treasury and Finance under the Unclaimed Money Act 2021, which commenced on 25 November 2023 and repealed the Unclaimed Moneys Act 1891. Money qualifies when a corporation has held it for at least five years following a transaction with the owner in South Australia and there has been no claim. Published categories include refunds, unpresented, void or stale cheques, deceased estates, salaries and wages, dividends, and unclaimed rental bonds. The department states it is free to search and free to apply, and points superannuation enquiries to the ATO and bank, share, investment and life insurance enquiries to ASIC.

Tasmania splits the job. Moneysmart directs Tasmanian searches to the Tasmanian Department of Treasury and Finance, while the Public Trustee separately publishes a list of estate funds it holds where beneficiaries cannot be located — either because they were not named specifically in a will or because there was no will and the next of kin could not be found. That list names the deceased, a reference number and an approximate value, and some of the amounts run into six figures. If you can prove kinship to a person on it, phone the Public Trustee.

The Northern Territory's register is run by the Territory Revenue Office. It also holds unclaimed superannuation from Northern Territory Government schemes — but only NTGPASS and NTSSS, only for former NT public sector employees aged 65 or over, and only for people who were contributing members before those schemes closed to new members on 10 August 1999. Anyone who joined the NT public sector after that date has ordinary super with an ordinary fund and should search through the ATO instead. A Territory claim needs certified identity documents, certified correspondence from the company or super provider that sent the money in, and proof of a connection to the last known address — and for superannuation claims, proof of your tax file number.

The Australian Capital Territory's register is with the Public Trustee and Guardian, which holds unclaimed dividends and shares, money from real estate agents, refunds never received, money from telecommunications providers, and money from lawyers' and solicitors' offices. The search is free through an ACT Government online form. Claims need two certified Australian identity documents — one photo document such as a driver licence, passport or proof of age card, plus one of a birth certificate, Medicare card, Centrelink concession card, veteran card, citizenship certificate or certificate of registration by descent — plus one document linking you to the address on the record. If you cannot produce one, the Public Trustee suggests requesting address history from Medicare or the Australian Electoral Commission.

Every register asks for two things: proof that you are who you say you are, and proof that you are connected to the record. The second is the one that catches people out, because only partial address information is published. ASIC's requirement is a certified copy of an official notice showing an address you used in the suburb listed on the record — a dividend advice or takeover notice, a bank statement, a council rates notice, government correspondence, a utilities bill, a relative's birth, marriage or death certificate where you can prove kinship, or even certificates or academic results. If the document does not match the full address held on the record, the claim is rejected.

Where you have no such document, there are official ways to manufacture one. ASIC will accept an electoral roll confirmation letter from the Australian Electoral Commission, a confirmation letter from your state or territory transport authority, a Centrelink confirmation letter, or a letter from your bank, as long as it shows the date of birth and address as they appear on the record. The ACT Public Trustee and Guardian gives the same advice, pointing to Medicare or the AEC for address history.

Identity documents follow a familiar pattern with local variations. ASIC wants either two certified copies of primary identification, or one primary and one secondary, with both sides copied for any card. Revenue NSW accepts any two from a list that includes an Australian driver licence, passport, proof of age or photo card, full birth certificate, Medicare card, Centrelink concession card, veteran card, ImmiCard, change of name certificate or citizenship certificate, and will alternatively verify you through a MyServiceNSW account. Superannuation is more flexible than most people expect — Moneysmart notes that where standard ID does not match, a fund may accept letters from government agencies, membership cards, community ID, or a statement from a trusted person such as a health worker, teacher, Elder or community leader.

A name change is the single most common reason a record is out there in the first place, and it is also the thing that makes a claim harder. Every register wants the link documented: an official marriage certificate issued by Births, Deaths and Marriages, not the ceremonial certificate from the day, or a change of name certificate where the change was not through marriage. Get certified copies before you start rather than partway through.

Claiming for someone who has died is a separate procedure everywhere. ASIC's requirements are graduated: with probate granted, a certified copy including the full will; with a will but no probate, certified copies of the death certificate and the will, and if the funds exceed $20,000, probate must be applied for and provided. Where there was no will at all, ASIC asks for the names of the beneficiaries, the value of the estate, the place and date of death, the deceased's usual residence, and confirmation from the probate office that no probate or letters of administration have been granted, before telling you what else it needs. The ACT requires all executors or administrators to be included, and letters of administration from the Supreme Court where a person died intestate. The ATO has its own process for representatives of deceased estates and for public trustees acting for a client.

The last point is the one every one of these bodies makes independently, which is itself telling. Revenue NSW states that money finding agents are private businesses that usually charge a fee, that they are not agents or representatives of Revenue NSW, and that you can search the register yourself without incurring any fees. Western Australia's Treasury says investigators and agents who approach people offering fee-based recovery are neither registered nor regulated by the department and it accepts no responsibility for their actions. Moneysmart says you do not need to pay anyone to help you find your super. A finder is running the same free search you can run, then taking a cut of your own money to hand you the result.

Two practical warnings while you are doing this. Moneysmart advises checking the web address carefully before entering personal information or uploading documents to a super fund site, because copycat sites exist. And Revenue NSW notes that it does contact owners of unclaimed money proactively — which means a genuine approach and a scam approach can look similar, so verify by phoning the register on its published number rather than any number in the message.