Zakat Calculator: Nisab, Gold, Savings and Debts

How is zakat calculated?

1. Add up your zakatable assets: gold (every carat converted to its 24-carat equivalent), silver, cash and bank accounts, foreign currency, trade goods and money owed to you that you expect to collect.
2. Subtract the debts you must pay within this zakat year.
3. Compare what is left with the value of 80.18 grams of 24-carat gold, which is the price of 1 gram of 24-carat gold multiplied by 80.18.
4. If the net wealth reaches the nisab and a full lunar year has passed over it, give one fortieth (2.5%) of the net wealth as zakat.

According to Diyanet's Higher Board of Religious Affairs, once money, trade goods and valuable papers in circulation reach the value of 80.18 grams of 24-carat gold, alone or together, zakat of one fortieth is due.

What is the nisab? Gold and silver

The nisab is the measure of wealth that makes a person liable for zakat. Diyanet's Higher Board of Religious Affairs defines it as owning, beyond basic needs and debts, productive wealth worth 80.18 grams of 24-carat gold.

• Gold: Whatever the carat, once all your gold adds up to 80.18 grams of 24-carat gold, one fortieth is due (Board, 1 February 2023).
• Silver: Because silver has lost so much value compared with the time of the Prophet Muhammad, the Board has long preferred gold, not silver, as the measure for money, trade goods and valuable papers. For silver too the measure is the value of 80.18 grams of 24-carat gold (7 September 2022). That is why the calculator adds silver by its value, not by weight.
• Cash and trade goods: The measure is again 24-carat gold; the Board bases this on its decision 1960/75 (31 August 2022).

You may meet other figures in older sources. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam entry on the nisab, for example, gives 85 grams of gold and 595 grams of silver. This page and the calculator use the 80.18 grams from the Board's current fatwas.

What is zakat paid on?

• Gold and silver: Jewellery made of gold and silver is subject to zakat under the Hanafi school if the other conditions are met. Under the Shafi'i school, jewellery a woman wears in ordinary measure counts as a basic need and carries no zakat, unless it is kept as savings. Jewellery of other metals and stones is not subject to zakat.
• Cash and foreign currency: Money in hand, bank accounts and foreign currency count when they reach the nisab alone or together with your other assets.
• Trade goods: Goods bought and sold for profit. Zakat is paid on their current value at the time of calculation, ignoring the profit a sale would bring.
• Property and shares held for trade: Real estate bought to trade or to sell once it gains value is subject to zakat each year at market value; land bought to build a home, shop, field or garden is not. Shares held to buy and sell are treated as trade goods.
• Money owed to you: Money you lent and amounts owed for goods sold are subject to zakat every year if the debtor acknowledges them or there is firm proof. For debts that are denied or unlikely ever to be repaid, zakat is not due every year.
• Salary and wages: Having a salary does not by itself make zakat due. Together with existing savings, and after basic needs and debts payable within a year, the zakat year starts on the day the nisab is reached; salary earned during the year is added to the savings (the Board's view).
• Not subject to zakat: Things used for basic needs, such as the home you live in, and the tools you use for your work. Tools and machines bought and sold for trade are subject to zakat.

Who must pay zakat?

• A Muslim who is of sound mind, past puberty and free.
• Someone who owns productive wealth at the nisab, over and above a year's debts and basic needs.
• Once a full lunar year has passed since owning that wealth and the nisab is still held at the end of the year. Rises and falls during the year are disregarded.

When is zakat given?

Zakat can be given at any time of the year; there is no need to wait for a particular month or for Ramadan. It should be given as soon as it becomes obligatory, that is once a lunar year has passed over the nisab, because zakat is a debt owed to God and a debt should be settled promptly. The owner may also give it before the year is complete. Zakat can be paid in instalments within the year, though paying at once is preferred.

For zakat to be valid there must be intention and the zakat must be handed over to the poor person. Preparing a meal and feeding people does not count as giving zakat. It goes to the eight categories named in the Qur'an: the poor, the needy, those appointed to collect it, those whose hearts are to be won over to Islam, slaves working towards freedom, debtors, those in God's cause and travellers stranded without means. It is not given to someone who owns the nisab beyond their basic needs.