Zakat on Gold and Silver Calculator

The Three Conditions

Zakat on precious metals only becomes payable when three things are true at once: you own the metal outright, its value reaches or exceeds nisab, and a full lunar year (hawl) of about 354 days has passed with the holding at or above that level. Miss any one of them and nothing is due this year. The rate is a flat one fortieth, or 2.5%, of market value on the due date, not of the purchase price.

Why the Silver Nisab Is Lower

• The classical thresholds are 20 mithqal of gold and 200 dirhams of silver, roughly 87.48 g and 612.36 g today.
• In the Prophet's time the two were worth about the same, so either could be used.
• Silver has since fallen far behind gold, so the silver nisab is now a much smaller sum of money.
• Most contemporary scholars therefore favour silver: a lower bar means more people qualify and more reaches the poor.
• Some use the gold nisab when the holder owns gold alone. This page lets you pick.

Jewellery You Actually Wear

This is the best known disagreement in the topic. The Hanafi school treats gold and silver as inherently zakatable wealth, so a wedding set worn daily is counted in full. The Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools exempt jewellery held for lawful personal adornment in reasonable quantity, while still charging zakat on bullion, coins, investment bars and jewellery bought to store wealth. Both positions are long established; follow the view of the scholars you refer to and be consistent from year to year.

Valuing the Metal Properly

• Use the second-hand or scrap value you could realise, not the retail price with making charges.
• Convert every item to its pure-metal equivalent before applying a price: 22K is 0.9167 of pure gold, 18K is 0.75.
• Deduct the weight of stones, clasps and non-precious settings.
• Value everything on the same day, the day your hawl completes, rather than on scattered dates.
• Metal prices move sharply. Verify the current figure with a dealer or a live market source before you pay.