As the group III nitride semiconductor technology matures, an increasing number of devices are being fabricated with high Al fraction AlGaN. In this study, ohmic behavior is achieved using Ti/Al/Pt/Au contacts to n-Al0.4Ga0.6N, which is the highest Al fraction for which ohmic contact formation has been reported. The effect of contact composition, pretreatment, and annealing conditions is studied by 30 s isochronal annealing experiments between 500°C and 1000°C. A specific contact resistance ρC of (5±3) × 10−5 ωcm2 is obtained using Ti(26 nm)/Al(74 nm)/Pt(50 nm)/Au(50 nm) contacts to n-Al0.4Ga0.6N annealed in N2 at 800°C; however, this value is shown to be artificially high because the metal sheet resistance RM is 4 ω/⊏ causing an artifact in the data analysis. All contacts with ρC < 10−3 ωcm2 exhibit a local minimum in ρC after annealing at 800°C. The observed increase in ρC upon annealing at 850°C and 900°C, however, is not an artifact originating from a change in RM. The top Au layer is found to play an active role in forming ohmic contacts with low ρC, since omitting the Au layer yields an increase in ρC of two orders of magnitude after annealing at 800°C. Furthermore, leaving out the Au layer requires an annealing temperature of 700°C to result in linear I-V curves for currents up to 100 µA, as opposed to 500°C when the Au layer is present. The role of Au is further studied in Ti(26 nm)/Al(74 nm)/Ni(50 nm)/Au(50 nm) contacts, where Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy reveals Ga in the metal layer and/or Au buried deeper than the original semiconductor-metal interface, and x-ray diffraction indicates the formation of new phases to happen concurrently with a decrease in ρC of three orders of magnitude.