Work out what your household owes at the end of Ramadan — in kilograms of the staple you give, and in money if your mosque collects it that way.
1
Who you are paying for
The head of a household pays for everyone under their roof and in their care — spouse, children, an infant born before the Eid prayer, and any dependent relative.
People in the household4
2
Which staple, and at what price
A sa' is a measure of volume, not weight, so a sa' of rice and a sa' of dates do not weigh the same. Pick the staple your community pays in and enter its local price.
Zakat al-Fitr for 4 people
9.6 kg
of rice — 2.4 kg each
It has to arrive before the Eid prayer. Given after it, it counts as ordinary sadaqah and the obligation of zakat al-Fitr is not discharged. Paying a day or two early, so the recipient can actually use it for Eid, is the point of the timing.
This is a calculator, not a fatwa. The weight of a sa’ in kilograms is a conversion from a volume measure, and mosques and councils publish slightly different figures for the same staple. Where your local mosque announces an amount, follow it — they are pricing the staple your community actually eats.
A measure of food, not a percentage
Zakat al-Fitr is the charity that closes Ramadan, and it works nothing like zakat on wealth. There is no threshold to reach, no lunar year to wait out and no percentage to apply. It is one sa’ of staple food per person, owed by the head of a household for everyone under their care, and it is owed by nearly everyone — a family with no savings at all still gives it, so long as they have food for the day of Eid with something over.
The purpose is stated plainly in the hadith: to purify the fasting person of idle talk and lapses, and to feed the poor. The second half of that is why the timing is strict. It has to arrive before the Eid prayer, because the point is that a poor family has what it needs on the day rather than after it.
Why the weight depends on the food
A sa’ is four mudd — a measure of volume, the amount a vessel holds, not the amount a scale reads. So a sa’ of rice and a sa’ of dates fill the same vessel and weigh different amounts. The kilogram figures on this page are the conversions contemporary councils publish for each staple: roughly 2.4 kg of rice, 2.2 kg of wheat or barley, 2 kg of dates or raisins.
Those conversions vary slightly between authorities, and the price of a staple varies enormously between countries. Where your local mosque announces a figure, that figure is better than this one — they are pricing the food your community actually eats.
Food or money
The Hanafi school permits paying the value in money, treating it as standing in for the food. The Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali positions hold that the food named in the text is what should be given. The disagreement is old and both sides are held by serious scholars.
In practice most mosques and charities collect money and buy the staple with it, which satisfies both readings at once. This calculator gives you the weight either way, and the money equivalent when you enter a price.