Conditions, irrigation-based rates, and how to calculate what's due.
Published September 13, 2026 · Reviewed by the Ihsabha Editorial Team
Most people learn zakat rules through the lens of cash, gold, and bank balances — a fixed 2.5% once a year. Zakat on crops and fruits (zakat al-zuru' wal-thimar), classically known as Ushr, follows a completely different logic. It isn't tied to a lunar year of ownership at all. It's tied to the harvest itself, and the percentage you owe can be 5%, 7.5%, or 10% depending on something most people never think to check: how the field was watered. This guide walks through where the obligation comes from, exactly how to work out the nisab and the rate, which crops it applies to, and how to calculate what you owe with real numbers.
Zakat al-zuru' wal-thimar is the zakat due on agricultural produce — grains and fruits that grow from the land. Its classical name, Ushr, literally means "one-tenth," because 10% is the baseline rate for land watered without artificial effort. Where zakat on money, gold, or trade goods requires a full hawl (lunar year) of continuous ownership above the nisab, Ushr has no hawl condition at all. It is assessed once, at the point the crop is ready, and it is assessed on the harvest, not on wealth held over time.
This distinction matters practically. A farmer who harvests wheat in spring and dates in late summer owes zakat on each harvest separately, calculated against that harvest's own weight and irrigation method — not combined into one annual snapshot the way cash and gold are. It's also worth reading Zakat on Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin: How Much You Owe if this situation applies to you. Use the Crops & Fruits Zakat Calculator below to check your own numbers quickly and accurately.
The obligation is rooted directly in the Quran, where believers are instructed to give what is due from the harvest on the day it is reaped (Surah al-An'am, 6:141), making the timing — at harvest — explicit in the text itself rather than left to later juristic reasoning. The specific 10%-and-5% split based on irrigation comes from hadith narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, where the Prophet ﷺ distinguished between land watered by rain or rivers and land watered by manual effort, assigning a higher rate to the former precisely because it cost the farmer nothing extra to produce.
Four conditions generally need to be met before Ushr becomes due:
Unlike zakat on trade wealth, Ushr does not require the land itself to be owned outright — a tenant farmer who cultivates leased land under most contemporary fatwa positions still owes Ushr on the harvest, since the zakat attaches to the produce, not the property. For a deeper look, our guide on Zakat on Salary and Employment Income: How Much You Owe covers this in more detail.
The nisab for agricultural zakat is 5 wasq. A wasq is a classical dry-measure unit equal to 60 sa', and the accepted modern conversion puts 5 wasq at approximately 653 kilograms (some scholars round this to 612 kg depending on which historical measure of the sa' they adopt; 653 kg is the figure most commonly used by contemporary zakat authorities and the one this guide, and Ihsabha's calculator, use by default).
This threshold is measured after any natural loss from drying — so a harvest is typically weighed once it has reached the state it would normally be stored or sold in (dried grain, dried dates), not at the wetter weight straight off the plant. If your total harvest of a given crop, across the season, does not reach 653 kg, no zakat is due on it at all — there is no partial or reduced obligation below nisab, unlike some misconceptions about "paying a smaller percentage" on smaller harvests. You can use the Crops & Fruits Zakat Calculator to get the result instantly, with no manual math.
This is the single detail that trips up most people calculating Ushr for the first time, because it has no equivalent in cash or gold zakat: the rate you owe depends entirely on how much effort and cost went into watering the crop.
A practical note: if a single well or spring feeds the land without any mechanical pumping — a gravity-fed spring, for instance — many scholars still treat that as "natural" irrigation for the purposes of the 10% rate, since the distinguishing factor is cost and effort, not simply the water's origin. This naturally leads to a related question, answered in Zakat on Retirement Accounts and Pension Funds.
The four classical schools of Islamic law take genuinely different positions here, and it's worth understanding both ends of the spectrum:
In practice, most contemporary zakat calculators and fatwa councils lean toward the storable-staple-food view for individual smallholders and orchard owners, while applying the broader Hanafi-influenced view to large-scale commercial agribusiness, since a modern farming operation functions economically much closer to a trade business. If you're uncertain which view applies to your specific crop, it's worth checking with a local scholar familiar with your madhab and your country's dominant fatwa position.
Ushr is due the moment the crop reaches the stage where its yield is apparent and usable — when grain hardens on the stalk, or when fruit ripens to the point it would normally be picked and eaten. This is distinct from harvest day itself, though in practice most people calculate and pay at harvest for simplicity. If a single field produces more than one harvest of the same crop within a year (as with some fast-cycle vegetables treated as Ushr-eligible under the Hanafi view), each harvest is generally assessed and paid separately rather than pooled.
Because there's no hawl requirement, a farmer who has a poor harvest one season and a bumper harvest the next simply calculates each season independently — there's no "carrying over" a shortfall or averaging across years. You may also find it useful to check Zakat on Stocks and Investments: How to Calculate What You Owe, which covers a related angle. For an instant, practical check, the Crops & Fruits Zakat Calculator is ready to go.
Fruit trees and perennial crops raise a question annual grain farmers don't face as often: what happens when the same orchard produces across several weeks or months, rather than in one clean harvest event? The general approach most scholars take is to treat the harvest season as a single unit for nisab purposes — you don't need to weigh and assess zakat after every individual picking, but you should keep a running total across the season and calculate once the full yield is in and reasonably estimated. If picking is staggered over several months and the fruit is sold or consumed as it's picked rather than stored, many farmers estimate the total expected yield in advance (a practice with precedent in the classical concept of khars, expert crop estimation) so zakat can be set aside progressively rather than all at once at the very end.
Good record-keeping makes this far easier the following season: note the crop type, total weight, irrigation method, and date for each harvest as you go, rather than trying to reconstruct it months later. This is especially useful if your land uses different irrigation methods in different years — a dry year that forced extra pump irrigation will carry a different zakat rate than a wetter year that didn't.
Example 1 — Rain-fed wheat. A farmer harvests 1,000 kg of wheat, watered entirely by seasonal rainfall. Since 1,000 kg exceeds the 653 kg nisab, zakat is due at the full 10% rate: 1,000 kg × 10% = 100 kg of wheat owed, or its cash equivalent.
Example 2 — Pump-irrigated dates. A date-palm grower harvests 900 kg of dates from an orchard irrigated entirely by well pumps, at real fuel and labor cost. The 5% rate applies: 900 kg × 5% = 45 kg of dates owed.
Example 3 — Mixed irrigation. A grower harvests 1,500 kg of barley from a field that relied on rainfall for roughly the first two-thirds of the season and pump irrigation to finish it off during a dry spell. Using the flat blended rate: 1,500 kg × 7.5% = 112.5 kg owed. Using a prorated approach (roughly two-thirds natural, one-third artificial, about 8.3% blended), the figure comes to about 124.5 kg. Either method is acceptable; the key is applying it consistently.
Let the calculator do the conversion. Ihsabha's Crops & Fruits Zakat Calculator applies the correct nisab and irrigation-based rate automatically — enter your harvest weight, choose the irrigation method, and get the exact amount due, in produce or in cash value.
The nisab for agricultural zakat is 5 wasq, roughly 653 kilograms of the harvested crop, measured at its dried or storage-ready weight. Produce below this amount is not subject to zakat regardless of how it was irrigated.
A 10% rate applies to crops watered naturally by rain, rivers, or springs without artificial cost. A 5% rate applies when artificial irrigation such as wells or pumps was used. Many scholars apply an intermediate 7.5% rate, or a prorated blend, when both methods were used during the growing season.
No. Unlike zakat on cash or gold, zakat on agricultural produce is due at harvest, not after a full lunar year (hawl) of ownership. It becomes due as soon as the grain hardens or the fruit ripens and is ready to eat.
They describe the same obligation. Ushr, meaning "one-tenth," is the classical name used when the full 10% rain-fed rate applies, while zakat al-zuru' wal-thimar is the broader umbrella term for zakat on all agricultural produce, whichever rate ends up applying.
The schools differ: the Hanafi school applies Ushr broadly to nearly anything the land produces for profit, including vegetables, while the Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali schools traditionally limit it to storable staple foods like grains, dates, and raisins. Many contemporary scholars extend the underlying principle to substantial modern cash crops regardless of madhab.
In the majority view, no — zakat is calculated on the gross harvest at the irrigation-adjusted rate, since the reduced 5% rate for irrigated land already reflects the farmer's added cost. A minority of contemporary scholars permit deducting direct production costs before applying the rate.
Agricultural zakat can involve additional considerations that a general guide can't fully cover — commercial-scale mixed irrigation records, crops that straddle two harvest seasons, or local agricultural customs that affect how a particular madhab is applied in your country. For larger or commercial harvests in particular, it's worth confirming your specific situation with a qualified local scholar. For everything else zakat-related, Ihsabha's Zakat Calculator and our complete guide to calculating zakat are a good next stop, and if your farm includes livestock alongside crops, our guide to zakat on livestock covers the separate nisab rules that apply there.
Put this into practice with Ihsabha's Gold & Silver Zakat Calculator and Livestock Zakat Calculator to cover the rest of your zakatable wealth. For related reading on Ihsabha's blog, see Zakat on Cash and Bank Savings, Who Is Eligible to Receive Zakat?, and How to Track Your Zakat Payments Every Year.