Two annual family-payment supplements sit outside the fortnightly rate you see quoted everywhere. Together they can add over $2,000 per year for a two-child family. Most free calculators leave them out — because adding them makes the math messier — so families budget around a wrong annual number.
If your kids' schooling budget, holiday-savings plan, or bill-pay cadence assumes just the fortnightly FTB rate multiplied by 26, you're missing a chunk of real money that lands each July.
The two supplements
FTB Part A supplement — paid per child, per year. Only paid to families whose combined adjusted taxable income (ATI) is $80,000 or under (a hard cliff, not a taper — cross $80,001 and the whole thing is gone).
FTB Part B supplement — paid per family, per year. Paid to FTB-B eligible families under the primary-earner income cap.
Both amounts index on 1 July each year (2026-27 rates, for 1 July 2026 – 30 June 2027, flow through NestWise live from lib/rates.ts).
When they hit your account
Not fortnightly. Not automatic. They're paid AFTER Services Australia can balance your family's FTB against your actual final ATI — which requires the ATO to have processed your tax return.
Practical timing:
- Both partners lodge their tax returns for the just-ended financial year (typically July-October).
- ATO sends the final ATI figures to Services Australia (within a couple of weeks of lodgment).
- Services Australia balances your fortnightly FTB against your final ATI. If you were underpaid, they top you up + pay the supplement.
Most families see the supplement land September-November. Families who lodge later see it land later.
The $80,000 A-supplement cliff — the trap
The FTB Part A supplement is only paid to families with combined ATI at or under $80,000. Not tapered. Cliff. Earn $79,999 and every eligible child gets the full supplement. Earn $80,001 and the whole thing is gone — for every kid.
Late-year bumps push families over $80k without warning: a bonus, a second job, a bit of contract work. Come tax time, the supplement isn't paid.
The salvage moves — done BEFORE 30 June:
- Deferring a bonus into the next financial year, if the employer will agree. This is the one that actually works — the income genuinely lands in a different year.
Super will not do it. Salary sacrifice and personal deductible contributions both reduce your TAXABLE income, and both are then added back as reportable superannuation contributions when adjusted taxable income is worked out. ATI does not move. The add-back exists precisely so contributions cannot be used to shift an income test, and putting $200 into super to chase the supplement leaves you with the same ATI and $200 you cannot touch until preservation age.
A worked example
A two-parent family with two kids under 13 in 2026-27:
- FTB Part A supplement: paid per child if under $80k combined ATI
- FTB Part B supplement: paid per family if under primary-earner cap
If combined ATI lands at $79k, the family gets both supplements — several hundred dollars per year the fortnightly calc never showed.
If combined ATI lands at $81k, the family loses the A supplement entirely (both kids) — while the B supplement may still land depending on the primary earner.
Same family, $2k in ATI difference, materially different family-payment total for the year.
What NestWise does
NestWise's FTB tool at /dashboard/ftb includes both supplements in the annual family-payment total. The number shown up top IS the annual figure a real family sees — fortnightly × 26 plus the two supplements where eligible.
The tool also:
- Shows where your family ATI sits against each Part A threshold, and says so plainly when you are close enough to one that small income moves swing the payment.
- Reminds you about the lodgment gate — Services Australia can't pay the supplement until both partners' tax returns are in.
- Shows an estimated landing date based on lodgment timing.
What to do right now
- Check your family's combined ATI trajectory for 2026-27 in NestWise's FTB tool.
- If you're close to the $80,000 A-supplement cliff, look at income that can genuinely land in a different year — a bonus paid in July rather than June. Super will not move it, for the reason above.
- Diarise a July reminder to lodge both partners' tax returns — supplements only paid once ATO + Services Australia have final ATI.
- Update your annual family-payment budget to include the supplements. This is real money you can plan against.
Rates cited: FTB Part A + Part B supplement (2026-27) — Services Australia, Family Assistance Guide §3.1.6. A-supplement income cap $80,000 (legislated). NestWise pulls these live from lib/rates.ts — no invented numbers, ever.