At the table

Nisab in 2026: why the silver figure swung, and why charities quote different amounts

Updated 28 September 2026

On Monday 28 September 2026, four UK Muslim organisations' websites gave four different silver nisab figures, from £854 to £912. At the LBMA benchmark, the same nisab was about £1,691 in late January, against £966 on Friday 25 September. Neither the spread nor the swing is a mistake. This page explains both with dated snapshots; it isn't a live figure, and it doesn't choose a standard for you.

How much is nisab in 2026?

There is no single 2026 figure, only a figure for a given day. Nisab is a weight of metal, most often given as 87.48 grams of gold or 612.36 grams of silver, and you turn that weight into money at the price on the day you work out your zakat. That is why this site doesn't print a standing pound or dollar amount.

Here is the arithmetic once, using the latest prices the LBMA had published when we checked on 28 September, from Friday 25 September 2026 (it doesn't publish at weekends). Metal is priced per troy ounce, and one troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams.

• Silver: 612.36 grams is about 19.69 troy ounces. At the LBMA silver price of $65.015 an ounce (£49.09 in sterling), that comes to £966 ($1,280).
• Gold: 87.48 grams is about 2.81 troy ounces. At the LBMA afternoon gold price of $4,261.05 an ounce (£3,216.67 in sterling), that comes to £9,047 ($11,984).

Every LBMA figure on this page uses this method, with the dollar benchmark prices and the sterling equivalents published alongside them, rounded to the nearest pound or dollar. The benchmark prices are published by the LBMA, which describes its sterling equivalents as indicative. Other organisations' figures are rounded the same way.

How far did the silver nisab move in 2026?

A long way. The table uses 612.36 g of silver and 87.48 g of gold on selected LBMA dates, and the last column shows how many times larger the gold nisab was that day.

Key facts from the series:

• Over the year: from 25 September 2025 to 25 September 2026, the silver nisab rose about 47 percent in pounds and the gold nisab about 15 percent.
• Peak: on 29 January 2026 LBMA silver was $118.45 an ounce (£85.89), putting the silver nisab at more than two and a half times its September 2025 level.
• Fall: by 2 February silver had dropped 30.8 percent from that price, to about $82.
• Low for 2026: on 17 July silver was $55.29 (£41.16), and the silver nisab stood 52 percent below its January peak in pounds.
• Since then: a recovery of about 19 percent in pounds to 25 September.

Gold moved too, but less, so the gap between the two standards kept changing. Because 612.36 grams is exactly seven times 87.48 grams, the gold nisab is always the gold-to-silver price ratio divided by seven, times the silver nisab. When an ounce of gold cost about 46 times an ounce of silver in late January, the gold nisab was about 6.5 times the silver one. At a ratio of about 72 in mid-July, it was about 10.3 times.

It was not always so. The nisab page of the National Zakat Foundation (NZF) explains that in the Prophetic era the dinar and dirham were exchanged at about one to ten, so the two thresholds came to roughly the same value. Today they are far apart.

Why did silver crash in January and slide in June?

We don't forecast metal prices; the reasons below are those given by the outlets that reported the moves.

Most of the January fall came on a single day, Friday 30 January. CNBC reported that day that the first trigger was news of President Trump's choice of Kevin Warsh to chair the Federal Reserve. Markets seemed to read the pick as less of a threat to the Fed's independence, and the dollar jumped. CNBC put spot silver down 28 percent at $83.45 an ounce, and silver futures down 31.4 percent in their worst day since March 1980.

A strategist quoted by CNBC thought much of the selling was probably forced. Silver had become a favourite of short-term traders, some of the buying had been done with borrowed money, and the fall set off margin calls. NBC News reported that analysts saw investors cashing in after silver's long run, which CNBC noted had seen silver rise 135 percent over 2025.

The mid-year slide was slower. Yahoo Finance reported on 24 June 2026 that silver futures had fallen below $60 for the first time since December 2025, pointing to a stronger dollar, expected rate rises and some industries using less silver. Two days later pv magazine put silver near $57 an ounce and quoted Michael DiRienzo, president and chief executive of the Silver Institute. He put the drop mainly down to a hawkish Federal Reserve pushing real yields and the dollar higher, while calling the market's fundamentals strong.

What does the swing mean for your zakat?

The same savings could sit on either side of the silver line depending on the date. Take someone with £1,200 in zakatable savings who measures against the silver nisab at LBMA prices. On 29 January 2026 they were below the line of £1,691. On 17 July they were well above the line of £810, though their savings had not changed.

Nisab is only half the test. The other half is time, and what hawl is explains why one afternoon's balance isn't enough. The schools differ on what a dip during the year does.

Zakat Foundation of America's nisab explainer says the Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools restart the year when wealth falls below nisab. In the Hanafi school, it says, dips in between don't change your zakat date as long as you held nisab at the start of the year and hold it on the due date. Whether a dip caused only by a price spike, like January's, affects your year is a question for your scholar.

Use the price on your zakat date, not a figure from a news story or this page; our zakat calculator asks you to type the price per gram yourself for that reason. For a date that has already passed, NZF's nisab page has a date picker with past figures going back to January 2000.

What nisab did UK and US organisations quote on 28 September 2026?

We opened each organisation's nisab page or calculator on Monday 28 September 2026. These are snapshots and will have changed by the time you read this.

IDEA is the US charity formerly called Islamic Relief USA; its name change FAQ says the new name was launched on 15 September 2026 and that it is the same organisation under the same EIN.

In pounds, the silver figures spread by £58, about 7 percent, on a single day. In dollars, the two US gold figures sit about 14 percent apart, mostly because of weight: IDEA uses 85 g, while Zakat Foundation of America's calculator note uses 3 troy ounces. The choice of metal matters far more, since IDEA's own silver figure is about a tenth of its gold one.

Why do nisab figures differ between charities?

Three things explain almost all of it.

1. Weight. All four UK pages in the table use 87.48 g of gold and 612.36 g of silver, and NZF calls 85 g and 595 g another opinion. NZF Canada equates 85 g and 595 g with 20 dinars and 200 dirhams and uses them in its calculator. IDEA's calculator uses the same weights. Zakat Foundation of America's explainer gives 85 g of gold, about 3 US ounces, but the note on its calculator refers to 3 troy ounces (about 93.3 g), which gives a higher figure. At the LBMA prices of 25 September, the lighter silver weight alone takes the silver nisab from £966 to £939.
2. Price basis. Islamic Relief UK, Muslim Aid and Wifaqul Ulama all worked from silver at about £1.49 a gram. NZF's prices are lower on purpose. Its page says it takes prices from MetalPriceAPI and applies a percentage so the figure reflects a real-world price. Its FAQ adds that high street dealers offer about 10 percent less than spot, sometimes up to 30 percent less, so it uses a basket of rates from live online traders. On 28 September its silver price per gram was about 6 percent below Islamic Relief UK's, and its gold price about 7 percent below.
3. Date and time. Prices move every trading day, and each organisation updates on its own schedule. Zakat Foundation of America's figure was dated Sunday 27 September. Compared with the LBMA's Friday benchmark, Islamic Relief UK's Monday prices were lower by about 6 percent for silver and 3 percent for gold. Its page doesn't say where its own prices come from, so that gap could reflect prices moving since Friday, a different price source, or both.

A figure that differs is not necessarily wrong. What matters is which weight and price you use, and on which day.

Should you use the gold or the silver nisab?

That's a question for your scholar. Here is what the organisations say, without choosing between them.

• NZF says that if gold is your only asset, the gold nisab must be used, and that with a mixture of assets the silver nisab should be used. It notes that some scholars still hold that gold should be used regardless, but calls silver "safer and more beneficial for the recipients" of zakat.
• Islamic Relief UK says the Hanafi madhab uses the value of silver and the other madhabs use gold. It advises donors to use silver, because a lower threshold means more wealth counts and more help reaches recipients. If you have only gold, with no cash savings or other assets, it says you will need to use gold.
• For NZF Canada, most scholars prefer the lower, silver value, because more people pay zakat and more people are helped by it.
• Zakat Foundation of America's nisab explainer gives the nisab for personal and business wealth as the value of 85 g of pure gold, and doesn't offer a silver alternative.
• IDEA's calculator opens on gold at 85 g and lets you switch to silver. The page doesn't say which it prefers.

Why many contemporary scholars lean towards silver, and why others keep gold, is set out in the nisab threshold, explained. If much of what you own is jewellery, whether worn jewellery counts at all is a separate question on which the schools differ again; see zakat on gold jewellery you wear.

How do you choose a figure and stick with it?

A year like 2026 is a good reason to write your method down.

1. Settle the standard. Gold or silver, and which weights, as your scholar or the zakat body you follow advises.
2. Pick one price basis and keep it, as your scholar or zakat body advises: a benchmark such as the LBMA price, a dealer-based figure such as NZF's, or the figure from the charity you give through. Near the line, that choice can decide whether zakat is due at all, so note which one you used.
3. Know your zakat date. Islamic Relief UK and IDEA both describe it as one lunar year after your wealth first reached nisab. Some households keep a date in Ramadan instead; if you want to move your date, ask your scholar how. The Ramadan 2027 dates page covers when the month is expected to begin.
4. Check the price on that date. Multiply the price per gram by the weight and compare it with your zakatable wealth. If your savings rise and fall with each payday, zakat on salary sets out two published approaches to deciding what counts.
5. Ask when you are close to the line. If your wealth sat near nisab in 2026, or crossed it during the year, ask the scholar you follow before deciding you owe nothing.

Nisab in 2026 was a moving target, and it will keep moving. Dated figures like these explain the swings, but they are no substitute for the price on your own day, and for your own zakat the person to ask is a scholar you trust.

General information, not a fatwa. Where scholars differ, we try to say so. For your situation, ask a scholar you trust.