2.5% of what you hold
Zakat is the third pillar. Once your qualifying wealth passes a threshold and a lunar year has turned on it, 2.5% — one fortieth — is owed. It is not charity given at your discretion, and the recipients are named in the Qur’an.
The basics
What is zakat?
Zakat is a fixed share of the wealth you have held for a full lunar year — 2.5% of it, or one fortieth — paid once a year to those entitled to it. Not a donation and not a tax: a due. This page explains how it works in plain language, and says where the schools of fiqh differ.
Four things to know
Who owes it
Any adult Muslim whose qualifying wealth stays above the nisāb threshold for a full lunar year. Below the threshold, nothing is owed.
Once a lunar year
The hawl is a full lunar year — about 354 days, so it moves earlier against the Gregorian calendar each year. You pick your own date and it recurs.
The rate is 2.5%
One fortieth of your net zakatable wealth, worked out on the day your year completes — not on what you earned over the year.
Nisāb: the threshold
Zakat is owed only on wealth above a minimum, called the nisāb. It is defined by weight of gold or silver, so its value in your currency moves with the metal price. Two standards are in scholarly use and they use different gram values for the same classical measures.
AAOIFI standard
85g of gold
595g of silver
Classical standard
87.48g of gold
612.36g of silver
The silver threshold is lower, so it brings more people into paying. Many contemporary bodies use silver for cash holdings. The app asks which you follow rather than choosing for you. See today's nisāb
What counts, and what does not
This is where most calculators go wrong. Zakat is owed on wealth that grows or is held for trade — not on the things you live in and use.
Zakatable
Cash and savings
Money in hand, in the bank, and anything readily converted to it.
Gold and silver
By weight and purity, whatever form it is in. Worn jewellery is contested — see below.
Trade goods
Stock you hold to sell, valued at what you would sell it for, not what it cost you.
Money owed to you
Loans you expect to be repaid. A debt unlikely to be recovered is treated differently.
Not zakatable
The home you live in
However much it is worth. It is not wealth held for growth.
Your car
Personal transport, not a trade good.
Tools of your trade
The equipment you earn with, as distinct from the stock you sell.
Household goods
Furniture, clothing, what you use day to day.
Property is not automatically zakatable
A home you live in and a property you let out are both exempt on their capital value — only the rent is zakatable, and it enters as ordinary income. Property bought to resell is a trade good and IS zakatable at market value. What decides it is your intention when you acquired it, which is why this app asks what each asset is for instead of treating all property alike.
How it is worked out
Add up what qualifies
Cash, bank balances, gold and silver by weight, trade goods at selling value, and money owed to you that you expect back.
Subtract what you owe
Debts that are due. Not the whole balance of a long mortgage — commonly the instalments falling due, though the schools differ on the detail.
Compare against the nisāb
If the remainder is below the threshold, nothing is owed this year.
Pay 2.5% of the rest
One fortieth, to the categories named in the Qur'an — the poor, the needy, those in debt, and the others listed in Surah at-Tawbah 9:60.
Zakat al-Fitr is a different obligation
It shares the name but not the mechanics: a flat amount per person in your household, owed before the Eid prayer at the end of Ramadan. No nisāb, no lunar year, no assessment of your wealth. It is a measure of staple food — about 2.5 to 3 kg per person — and whether it may be given as cash instead is a difference between the schools.
Where the schools differ
Several questions here have more than one answer: whether worn jewellery is zakatable, whether gold and silver are combined when each is individually below its threshold, which metal sets the threshold for cash, and how much long-term debt is deductible. This app names which position produced your figure rather than picking one silently. Where you are unsure, your own scholar's answer is the one that binds you.
Work out your own
The calculator is free, needs no account, and shows every step — which ruling applied, which threshold governed, and which of your assets counted.
Calculate your zakatThis page is educational. It is not a fatwa, and the rules behind the calculator have not yet been reviewed by a qualified scholar. For a binding answer, ask one.