Zakat in Islam: Nisab, Calculation and Who Receives It

Most people get one thing wrong before they start, and it changes the whole calculation. Zakat is not a tax on income. It is a levy on wealth that has sat still for a lunar year. Someone earning well and spending it all may owe nothing; someone earning modestly with savings in the bank may owe a good deal.

Zakat in Islam is the third pillar, and it is the only one with arithmetic in it. This guide covers who pays, what counts, how to work out the amount, who may receive it, and where the scholarly differences actually bite.

Table of contents

• Who pays zakat in Islam
• Nisab: the threshold for zakat in Islam
• How to calculate zakat in Islam
• Who may receive zakat in Islam
• Zakat al-Fitr is a different thing
• Zakat and sadaqah are not the same
• Frequently asked questions

Who pays zakat in Islam

Every adult Muslim of sound mind whose qualifying wealth has exceeded the threshold for one full lunar year. Not a fixed date in the calendar: your zakat year begins on the day your wealth first crossed the threshold, and falls due on the same lunar date each year after.

Zakat is described in the Quran alongside prayer more than eighty times, which tells you something about how the two are meant to sit together. It is not charity in the sense of generosity from surplus. It is an obligation on wealth, owed to specific people, at a specific rate.

Nisab: the threshold for zakat in Islam

Nisab is set against two metals: 87.48 grams of gold or 612.36 grams of silver, converted to your currency at the current price.

Those two produce very different numbers, and the silver nisab is usually far lower. This is a genuine scholarly difference rather than a rounding question. Many contemporary scholars favour the silver standard because it brings more people into the obligation and therefore benefits more recipients; others hold that the gold standard better reflects the purchasing power originally intended. Ask which your local authority applies before assuming.

Zakat in Islam falls on wealth that grows or can grow: cash and bank balances, gold and silver, business stock, shares held for trading, money owed to you that you expect to recover, and agricultural produce and livestock under their own rules. Your home, your car, your furniture and the tools of your trade are exempt.

How to calculate zakat in Islam

Zakat in Islam is worked out as a snapshot. Add up your qualifying assets on your zakat date. Subtract debts that are immediately due. If what remains is at or above nisab, you owe 2.5% of it.

Two points that trip people up. First, the calculation is a snapshot on one day, not an average across the year, provided your wealth stayed above nisab throughout. Second, the debt deduction covers what is actually due now, not the whole outstanding balance of a long-term loan. Deducting an entire mortgage would leave almost nobody paying zakat, which is not the intent.

Worked examples are in our step-by-step zakat calculation guide and how to calculate zakat properly. The different categories of zakatable wealth are covered in zakat types.

Who may receive zakat in Islam

Unusually for an act of worship, the recipients of zakat in Islam are named in the Quran rather than left to judgement. Surah At-Tawbah 9:60 lists eight categories: the poor, the needy, those employed to administer it, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, those in bondage, those in debt, in the cause of Allah, and the traveller in need.

That list is a boundary as much as an instruction. Building a mosque, funding a hospital or paying for a school are all worthy, and none of them are automatically zakat-eligible; scholars differ considerably on how broadly the seventh category may be read. Giving zakat to something outside the eight, however good, may leave the obligation undischarged.

You also cannot give zakat to your own dependants, ascendants or descendants, since supporting them is already your duty. Each category is unpacked in the eight categories of zakat recipient.

Zakat al-Fitr is a different thing

Frequently confused with zakat in Islam on wealth, and unrelated to it. Zakat al-Fitr is a small fixed amount of staple food, or its value, paid on behalf of every member of the household including children, before the Eid prayer at the end of Ramadan.

It is owed by almost everyone rather than only the wealthy, and the timing matters: paid after the Eid prayer it becomes ordinary charity rather than discharging the obligation. See Zakat al-Fitr, and our guide to fasting for the month it belongs to.

Zakat and sadaqah are not the same

Zakat in Islam is obligatory, fixed at 2.5%, restricted to eight categories, and owed annually. Sadaqah is voluntary, any amount, to anyone, at any time. Both matter; only one is a pillar.

The practical consequence is that a generous person who gives large sums to good causes has not thereby paid their zakat, unless the recipients happened to qualify and the intention was made. Intention is required, and it has to be made at the time of giving.

On voluntary giving, see the rewards of sadaqah, digital charity and choosing charity projects. On what zakat does to the giver rather than the receiver, see how zakat purifies wealth.

Frequently asked questions

Do I pay zakat on my salary?

Not on the salary itself. On whatever remains of it, held alongside your other wealth, when your zakat date comes round.

Do I pay zakat on jewellery I wear?

A long-standing difference. The Hanafi school holds gold and silver jewellery zakatable regardless of use; the other three schools generally exempt what is worn in reasonable quantity. Follow your madhhab or ask locally.

What about my pension?

Contemporary scholars differ, largely on whether you have access to the funds. A common position is that zakat falls due on what you could withdraw, or becomes payable when you gain access. Employer-locked schemes are treated differently from ones you control.

I have missed years of zakat. What now?

It remains a debt and does not lapse. Estimate each year as carefully as you can, pay what you can afford progressively, and do not let the size of the arrears become a reason to pay nothing.

Can I pay zakat monthly?

Yes. Paying in advance across the year against your expected liability is permitted by most scholars, with any shortfall settled on your zakat date.

Every guide on zakat in Islam

Working it out: Calculation methods · How to calculate zakat · Types of zakat

Giving it: The eight categories · Zakat al-Fitr · How zakat purifies wealth

Beyond the obligation: Sadaqah · Digital charity · Charity projects

Related: Halal lifestyle for the wider question of lawful wealth, and the Masjid Directory to find a mosque that can direct your zakat locally.