Zakat calculator

What is Zakat and who must pay it?

Zakat is the obligatory annual levy on wealth that Islam prescribes as a right of the poor, not a voluntary donation. The Quran pairs it with prayer more than twenty times, and it functions as both worship and wealth purification: paying it cleanses the remainder of your property. It becomes due from every Muslim who is of sound mind and owns wealth at or above the nisab threshold for one complete lunar year. Most schools hold that the wealth of children and the mentally incapacitated is also subject to Zakat, paid on their behalf by a guardian, while the Hanafi school conditions the obligation on adulthood and sanity.

Only zakatable wealth counts toward the threshold: cash in any form, gold and silver, trade goods and business inventory, investment assets and strong receivables. Purely personal items — the home you live in, your car, furniture, clothing, and tools of your trade — are exempt no matter their value. The rate on eligible wealth is 2.5%, one fortieth, and it applies to the whole zakatable amount once you cross the nisab, not just the amount above it.

The nisab explained: gold basis vs silver basis

The nisab is the minimum level of wealth at which Zakat becomes due, set by the Prophet ﷺ at 20 mithqal of gold or 200 dirhams of silver. Converting those classical units to grams produces two slightly different modern conventions: many institutions use 85 g of gold and 595 g of silver, while others — including the NOVOX app — use 87.48 g of gold and 612.36 g of silver, based on a heavier weighting of the mithqal. Both are legitimate scholarly positions. This calculator uses 87.48 g / 612.36 g so that the number you see here always agrees with the Zakat tool inside the NOVOX app; the live threshold in your currency is displayed right in the calculator above.

Because silver is far cheaper per gram than gold, the silver nisab is today a much lower bar — roughly a tenth of the gold threshold. Which one should you use? The Hanafi position, echoed by many contemporary charities, prefers the basis that benefits the poor, which in practice means silver: more people cross the threshold and more Zakat flows. Many other contemporary scholars consider the gold nisab better matched to modern paper wealth. The calculator lets you toggle between both and shows each threshold at today's spot prices. If your wealth sits between the silver and gold thresholds, using the silver basis is the more cautious and more generous choice.

Zakat on cash and salary savings

Cash is the simplest category and usually the largest: everything in current and savings accounts, cash at home, mobile-wallet balances, prepaid cards and foreign currency converted at today's rate. All of it is zakatable at 2.5% if your total holds above nisab for the lunar year.

Salary itself is not taxed as income — Zakat is a wealth levy, not an income tax. What matters is whatever remains saved on your Zakat date. Tracking a separate one-year clock for every paycheck is technically possible but impractical, so the approach endorsed by most contemporary scholars is simple: fix one annual Zakat date, and on that date pay 2.5% on all the cash you hold, regardless of when each riyal or dirham arrived. Money that arrived a week before your date gets swept in — slightly early for that money, and paying Zakat early is valid. Note that any bank interest credited to your account is not yours to keep or to count: it should be disposed of separately and excluded from the calculation.

Stocks and ETFs: trader vs long-term investor

Shares have two distinct treatments depending on your intention. If you trade actively — buying with the intention of resale — your portfolio is treated like trade goods: the entire market value on your Zakat date is zakatable at 2.5%, exactly like cash.

If you hold long-term for dividends and growth, the majority contemporary view is that you owe Zakat on your share of the company's zakatable assets — its cash, receivables and inventory — rather than on the full market price, since factories and buildings are not zakatable. AAOIFI-style guidance often approximates this underlying-assets share at around 30% of market value when the company's books are unavailable. Many scholars and charities recommend the simpler, safer route of paying 2.5% on the full market value; it is never less than what is due. ETFs and mutual funds follow the same logic as whatever they hold, and dividends you have received simply join your cash balance on the Zakat date.

Zakat on crypto

Contemporary fatwa bodies that accept cryptocurrency as wealth treat coins held as an investment or medium of exchange like currency: fully zakatable at 2.5% of market value on your Zakat date, converted into your local currency at that day's price. Tokens bought for active flipping are trade goods with the same result. Staking or lending rewards are simply added to the pile when received.

Two practical notes. First, Zakat is due on market value, not on profit — your cost basis is irrelevant, and a portfolio that is down since purchase is still zakatable at today's value. Second, for tokens that are locked, vesting or otherwise inaccessible, scholars differ; a common position is to pay for all held years when the asset becomes accessible, similar to the treatment of strong receivables. Whatever position you follow, value the coins in the currency you selected in the calculator and enter the total in the crypto field.

Gold jewellery: worn vs stored, and the madhhab difference

Gold and silver held as bars, coins or unworn ornaments are zakatable by consensus — they are the very asset the nisab is defined in. The famous difference of opinion concerns jewellery a woman actually wears within customary limits. The Hanafi school holds that all gold and silver jewellery is zakatable regardless of use, citing the general texts on gold and silver. The Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools exempt personal-use jewellery worn in ordinary amounts, treating it like clothing. Both positions are established; follow your madhhab or your local fatwa authority, and note that when in doubt, paying is the safer course and is never wrong.

Valuation is by melt value: weigh the item, multiply by today's price per gram for its purity (the live gram price shown above is for pure gold — adjust proportionally for 21k or 18k), and ignore gemstones and workmanship, which are not zakatable in themselves. Enter the resulting figure in the gold and silver field of the calculator.

Real estate: residence, rental property and property for sale

The home you live in is personal use and carries no Zakat, whatever its value. A rental property follows the same principle for the building itself: the asset is a productivity tool, so its market value is not zakatable. What is zakatable is the rental income — whatever remains of it, after expenses, sitting in your accounts on your Zakat date, counted with the rest of your cash.

Property bought with the intention of resale is different: it is trade inventory, and its full current market value is zakatable every year you hold it, even before it sells. Land bought with no settled intention is a genuinely debated case; the predominant view ties Zakat to the intention at purchase, so land parked as an undefined store of value is not zakatable until you resolve to trade it, while land bought to flip is zakatable from day one. Shares in REITs follow the stocks treatment above.

Debts: what you owe, and what is owed to you

Debts you owe reduce your zakatable base, but not without limit. The widely adopted contemporary position is that you deduct short-term liabilities — bills due, credit-card balances, and the installments actually falling due within the coming year. A 20-year mortgage or car loan does not wipe out your Zakat for two decades: you deduct only the coming year's payments, not the entire outstanding principal. This is the convention the liabilities field of the calculator expects.

Money owed to you is the mirror image. A strong debt — one you realistically expect to be repaid, like a loan to a solvent friend or an invoice to a reliable customer — is counted as part of your wealth each year. A doubtful debt, owed by someone insolvent or denying it, is excluded; if it is ever recovered, one common position is to pay a single year of Zakat on it upon receipt, while others pay for the elapsed years.

Business inventory and trade assets

A trading business pays Zakat on its working capital, not on its infrastructure. Count the inventory held for resale at its current market (wholesale) value on your Zakat date — not at cost — plus the business's cash balances and its strong receivables, then subtract the short-term business liabilities due within the year. Premises, equipment, vehicles and fixtures are tools of production and are exempt, exactly like personal effects.

For partnerships and shared businesses, each partner calculates on their own percentage share of the net zakatable assets. Service businesses with no inventory simply zakat their cash and receivables. If valuing an entire stockroom item by item is impractical, a good-faith estimate of realizable market value is acceptable; err slightly high rather than low. Enter the resulting net figure in the business inventory field above.

The lunar year (hawl) and choosing your Zakat date

Zakat falls due when your wealth has remained at or above nisab for one complete lunar year — the hawl. The clock starts the day your wealth first reaches nisab. Ordinary fluctuation during the year does not matter under the majority of positions that assess what you hold on the anniversary date; only if your zakatable wealth drops to effectively nothing does the count reset from the next time you cross the threshold.

Practically, pick one hijri date and keep it for life — the anniversary of when you first reached nisab if you know it, or a memorable date like the 1st of Ramadan if you do not. Many people deliberately choose Ramadan for the multiplied reward, which is permitted since paying Zakat before its due date is valid. One subtlety: the lunar year is about 354 days, eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year. If you insist on a fixed Gregorian date instead, many scholars advise compensating by using a rate of roughly 2.577% instead of 2.5%. Whichever you choose, consistency is what keeps you from skipping months of wealth between dates.

Worked example: a complete Zakat calculation in SAR

Ahmed lives in Riyadh and has fixed 1 Ramadan as his Zakat date. On that morning he takes stock of everything he owns and owes:

• Cash across bank accounts and wallet: SAR 45,000
• His wife's stored (unworn) gold: 60 g ≈ SAR 29,800 at ≈ SAR 497 per gram
• Long-term stock portfolio, valued at full market price for safety: SAR 80,000
• Crypto holdings at today's prices: SAR 12,000
• Total zakatable assets: SAR 166,800
• Minus credit-card balance (SAR 8,000) and this year's car installments (SAR 12,000): −SAR 20,000
• Net zakatable wealth: SAR 146,800

Is he above nisab, and what does he owe?

At the time of writing, gold trades near SAR 497 per gram, putting the gold-basis nisab (87.48 g) at roughly SAR 43,500 — the calculator above always shows the live figure. Ahmed's SAR 146,800 comfortably exceeds it, so Zakat is due: 146,800 × 2.5% = SAR 3,670. He pays it to eligible recipients, notes the hijri date, and repeats the same exercise next year. The entire calculation took ten minutes because he tracks every account, his gold and his crypto in one place — which is precisely what NOVOX automates: it keeps live totals of your cash, investments, gold and crypto, and its built-in Zakat tool applies this same nisab convention to your live balances all year round.