Calculate Zakat on Art, NFTs, and Collectibles | IslamicFinanceGuru – IslamicFinanceGuru

1. Is Zakat due on collectibles?

The collectibles market is ancient and can range from works of art and coins to modern items such as sports cards and now non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The general rule here is: Zakat is only due on a collectible if it is bought with the intention to resell in the short-term.

2. Is Zakat due on this asset?

Collectibles

If you purchase any sort of collectible, whether it be a physical work of art or a digital work of art in the form of an NFT, you only pay Zakat if your intention is to resell in the short-term.

If you buy the collectible to simply hold it, or for aesthetic reasons and as a pastime, then Zakat will not be due on it.

If you hold an asset that is non-sharia-compliant – e.g. an inappropriate painting – then zakat would not be due on that in any case as it would be deemed a haram asset.

NFTs

Additionally, with respect to NFTs specifically, if the asset you have bought is something that is fundamentally not that “useful” (e.g. arguably, owning a Tweet to which you have no real access to our usage rights to) then that may not be seen as sharia-compliant to begin with anyway. For more on NFTs, see this article here.

Coin collection

An exception to the above is if you collect coins and there are coins in your collection that are made of gold or silver.

In this scenario, Zakat would be due as per the Zakat rule on gold and silver.

3. Practical example

Ahmed is an avid collector of works of art, both digital and physical.

He has a personal art collection worth £10,000 and has also purchased £10,000 worth of NFTs.

Ahmed also has a coin collection. He weighed up the gold and silver content in the coins and it adds up to £1,000.

His personal art collection is purely for aesthetic purposes and he has no intention to resell. No Zakat is due there.

He bought £5,000 worth of NFTs simply because he wanted to support an up-and-coming digital artist and has no intention of reselling. No Zakat there again.

However, he bought £5,000 worth of NFTs as an investment with the intention to make money. He intends to sell at the next opportune time and monitors the market regularly for this reason.

Zakat is due on this £5,000 worth of NFTs since it is intended for resale. That’s £125 of Zakat.

His coin collection has £1,000 worth of gold and silver content. He owes £25 of Zakat on that.

The total Zakat Ahmed owes that year for his collectibles is £150.

4. Calculate your Zakat here

Here is a simple and easy way to calculate your Zakat using our comprehensive Zakat calculator.

Here is our detailed Zakat FAQ series.