Zakat al-Fitr calculator

A different obligation from zakat on wealth

These two get confused constantly, so it is worth separating them. Zakat on wealth is 2.5% of savings that have been held for a lunar year, and it is owed only by people above the nisab threshold. Zakat al-Fitr is a fixed measure of staple food per person at the end of Ramadan, and it is owed whether or not you have savings at all.

Paying one does not discharge the other, and the nisab machinery has nothing to do with this calculation, which is why this tool never asks about your wealth.

A measure of food, counted per head

The obligation is stated as one sa’ of the local staple for every person the payer provides for. A sa’ is a volume, four mudd, so its weight depends on what is being measured. For wheat it is commonly given as around 2.0 to 2.2 kg, and many organisations deliberately use a larger figure so that nobody falls short.

The Hanafi school accepts half a sa’ of wheat specifically, on the reasoning that its value matches a full sa’ of the other staples named in the reports. Both measures are offered here and neither is marked as the right one.

Food or money

Whether the value may be given in cash instead of food is itself a point of difference. The Hanafi school permits it; the majority position is that it is given in food as described. In practice almost every mosque and charity publishes a cash rate each year, and that is what most people hand over.

This tool works out both. Enter the published rate and it gives you the money; enter the weight of a sa’ and it gives you the food. Neither figure is shipped with the tool, because both are local and both change.

Timing matters more than it does for zakat

It has to reach those entitled to it before the Eid prayer. That is the point of it being due then. It is meant to be of use on the day. Many people pay during the last few days of Ramadan so there is time for it to be distributed. Paid after the prayer, it is generally treated as ordinary charity rather than as this obligation fulfilled.

What this tool will not tell you

Which measure applies to you, whether cash is acceptable in your circumstances, who exactly counts as a dependant in a complicated household, and who is entitled to receive it. Those are all questions for someone qualified. This multiplies a rate by a number of people.