🕌 Islamic
How to Calculate Zakat: Nisab and the 2.5% Rule
Zakat is 2.5% of your qualifying wealth once it passes the nisab threshold and has been held for a lunar year. Learn what counts, how nisab is set, and how to work out what you owe.
Updated 20 August 2026 · 3 min read
Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam — an obligatory annual payment on wealth that purifies what you keep and supports those in need. The arithmetic is simple once you understand three things: the nisab threshold, the lunar year (hawl), and the 2.5% rate. This guide walks through each so you can work out your own zakat with confidence.
What zakat is due on
Zakat is paid on wealth that has the potential to grow, not on the things you use day to day. In broad terms, it's due on:
- Cash — in hand, in bank accounts, and money owed to you that you expect to receive.
- Gold and silver, whether coins, bullion or jewellery (scholars differ on jewellery in regular use — see below).
- Business assets — stock and goods held for sale, valued at their current worth.
- Investments held for growth, such as shares.
Your everyday possessions — the home you live in, your car, furniture and personal belongings — are not counted. Neither are the tools of your trade. Zakat is a charge on surplus, growing wealth, not on your standard of living.
Nisab: the threshold before zakat applies
You only pay zakat if your qualifying wealth reaches the nisab — a minimum threshold set by the value of a fixed weight of gold or silver:
Because silver's nisab is usually lower, using the silver standard means more people pay zakat and more of the needy benefit — many scholars recommend it for cash savings for that reason. Since gold and silver prices move daily, the nisab in your currency changes too; the zakat calculator uses current metal values so you don't have to look them up.
The lunar year (hawl)
Zakat is due once your wealth has stayed at or above the nisab for one full lunar year — roughly 354 days, about 11 days shorter than a solar year. Most people pick a fixed date in the Islamic calendar (Ramadan is popular) and calculate on that same date each year. What matters is that your wealth was above nisab at the start and end of the year, not that it never dipped in between.
If you're tracking your zakat date against the Gregorian calendar, the Hijri date converter helps you line the two up — and our guide to the Hijri calendar explains why the dates drift each year.
Working out the amount
Once you're over nisab and a lunar year has passed, the calculation is straightforward:
Add up your cash, gold, silver, business goods and investments; subtract debts that are due now; and take 2.5% of what remains. Enter your figures into the zakat calculator and it applies the nisab check and the 2.5% rate for you.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the nisab for zakat?
- Nisab is the minimum wealth at which zakat becomes due: the value of 87.48 g of gold or 612.36 g of silver. If your net zakatable wealth is below the threshold, no zakat is owed. Because it's tied to metal prices, the exact figure in your currency changes daily.
- Do I pay zakat on my salary?
- Not on the salary itself as it arrives. Zakat is due on the wealth you still hold when your zakat date comes around and a lunar year has passed — so money you've saved counts, money you've already spent does not.
- Is zakat 2.5% of income or of savings?
- Of savings and other qualifying wealth, not income. You take 2.5% of the zakatable assets you hold at the end of the lunar year — cash, gold, silver, business stock and investments — after deducting immediate debts.