Zakat on Salary

Enter your cash at home, your bank balances and any bills or instalments due now. The calculator below opens with those boxes ready. Your salary slip is not needed: what matters is the balance left on your zakat date.

Do I pay zakat on my monthly salary?

No. In all four Sunni schools zakat is not a tax on income. A salary is money that comes in and, for most people, goes out again on rent, food, school fees and bills. Zakat looks at wealth that stays with you. The rule comes from the hadith “There is no zakat on wealth until a year passes over it” (Abu Dawud 1573; Ibn Majah 1792). So a person who earns Rs 1,50,000 a month and spends all of it owes no zakat on that salary, however large it is.

What you do owe zakat on is your savings: cash at home, money in your current and savings accounts, money in wallets such as JazzCash or Easypaisa, prize bonds, savings certificates, gold and silver, and anything else zakatable. Money you have paid into a committee counts too (see zakat on committee (BC)), and so do coins held in an exchange or wallet (see zakat on crypto). These are added together on one day each year, your zakat date.

When does my zakat year start?

Your zakat year (hawl) starts on the day your savings first reached the nisab. For many salaried people that is a few months after starting their first job. One lunar year later is your first zakat date, and it repeats on the same Islamic date every year. If you do not know the day, our guide to hawl and the zakat due date explains how to estimate it, and the zakat date calculator shows your next dates.

In the Hanafi madhab, which most people in Pakistan and India follow, two things matter:

• The start and the end of the year. If your savings were at or above the nisab when the year started and are still at or above it on your zakat date, zakat is due, even if your balance dipped in the middle of the year. Only if your zakatable wealth fell to nothing does the year restart.
• Money added during the year joins the year (Hanafi rule). The salary you saved last month, a bonus that arrived a week ago and the gold you bought in between are all counted on your zakat date. A Hanafi does not need to track a separate year for each payment.

The Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali schools see it differently: salary is new money from outside, so each saving starts its own year from the day it arrives. Tracking every payment is hard, so their scholars allow a simpler route: keep one zakat date and on that day pay on everything you hold, including money whose year has not finished yet. That part counts as zakat paid early, which all three schools allow. Our guide to hawl and the zakat due date explains both methods.

Worked example: a salaried person in Karachi

Ahmed works in a bank and earns Rs 2,20,000 a month. He follows the Hanafi madhab. His savings first reached the nisab on 1 Ramadan two years ago, so 1 Ramadan is his zakat date. On 1 Ramadan this year he has:

Item	Amount	Counted?
Savings account	Rs 6,40,000	Yes
Current account (this month’s salary, partly spent)	Rs 1,10,000	Yes
Cash at home	Rs 25,000	Yes
Prize bonds (face value)	Rs 75,000	Yes
Rent and electricity bill due this month	Rs 70,000	Subtracted (Hanafi)
Car and household furniture	–	No (personal use)

His zakatable total is Rs 6,40,000 + Rs 1,10,000 + Rs 25,000 + Rs 75,000 = Rs 8,50,000. Minus the Rs 70,000 due now, that is Rs 7,80,000, well above the silver nisab. Zakat is 2.5% = Rs 19,500. If his bank deducted zakat from the savings account on 1 Ramadan, that deduction counts towards the Rs 19,500; see bank zakat deduction in Pakistan. For a quick check, zakat on every Rs 1,00,000 is Rs 2,500 (table up to 50 lakh).

Notice what was not counted: the salaries he earned and spent during the year, his car and his furniture. Had his salary for the coming month already arrived the day before his zakat date, it would be counted, because it is in his account on that day.

What if I save very little each month?

If your total savings and gold never reach the nisab, no zakat is due at all. Check the live figure on the nisab page. Hanafi scholars use the silver nisab for cash and mixed wealth, which is the lower and more cautious figure today. A woman who owns gold jewellery should add it in, because in the Hanafi madhab worn jewellery is zakatable and even a small amount of gold together with some savings can bring the total above the silver nisab.

What about paying zakat from every salary?

Some contemporary scholars, most famously Yusuf al-Qaradawi in his book Fiqh al-Zakah, argued that earned income (al-mal al-mustafad) can be taxed at 2.5% when it is received, without waiting for a year, relying on reports from some Companions. This is a minority view. The four Sunni schools and most scholars today hold that zakat on salary money is due only on what is still owned when the year completes. Paying something from every salary is still a good habit: you can set it aside as advance zakat and settle the exact amount on your zakat date, which the Hanafi, Shafi’i and Hanbali schools allow.

What does each madhab say about zakat on salary?

• Hanafi: no zakat on the salary as it arrives. Savings held on your zakat date are counted, including money that came in during the year, as long as the nisab was there at the start and end of the year. Debts due now are subtracted. Silver nisab. Use the Hanafi calculator.
• Shafi’i: salary money is wealth that comes from outside, so in principle each saving starts its own year from the day it is received, and the nisab must hold through the whole year. Because tracking every payment is impractical, many Shafi’i scholars advise paying on everything on one date, treating the newer money as paid early. Debts are not subtracted in the relied-upon view.
• Maliki: similar to the Shafi’i view: new money such as salary (fa’ida) starts its own year. Debts are subtracted from cash. A single yearly date with early payment for newer money is the practical route.
• Hanbali: each new amount has its own year and the nisab must hold throughout. Debts are subtracted. Cash is measured by the lower of the two nisabs, which is better for the poor (silver today). Paying everything on one date, partly in advance, is allowed.
• Ahl-e-Hadith: the Ahl-e-Hadith calculator follows the Saudi Permanent Committee: the lower nisab, cash added to gold and silver, and debts not subtracted. A simpler method often suggested in Saudi fatwas for salaried people is to pay on all savings on the date the first savings complete a year, which pays the newer money early and is allowed. Ask your own scholar if you want to keep separate years.
• Shia (Ayatollah Sistani): no zakat on paper money or bank balances, so there is no zakat on salary savings. Instead, khums (20%) is due on what is left of the year’s income after the year’s expenses. Use the khums calculator.

Common mistakes

• Paying 2.5% of the yearly salary. That counts money you have already spent. Zakat is on what is left.
• Leaving out the current account. Every account counts, not only the savings account the bank deducts from.
• Forgetting gold. In the Hanafi madhab a wife’s jewellery is her own zakat, but it often brings her above the nisab even when her savings are small. See zakat on jewellery.
• Counting the provident fund every year. Many Hanafi muftis say compulsory fund deductions are not zakatable until received; see zakat on provident fund.

If you earn abroad and keep savings both there and in Pakistan, all of it is added on the same date; zakat for overseas Pakistanis covers currency, nisab and where to pay. This page explains well-known rulings to help you calculate; it is not a fatwa. For your own situation, ask a qualified scholar you trust.

Frequently asked questions