Short answer
Yes, on camels, cattle (including buffalo), sheep and goats that graze freely for most of the year and reach a set number, such as 40 sheep or 30 cattle. Animals raised to sell are zakated as trade goods by value. In the Hanafi school working animals, fodder-fed animals and horses kept for use carry no zakat.
Zakat is fard on sa'imah: camels, cattle, sheep and goats that graze on open pasture for more than half the year and are kept for milk, breeding or growth. The nisab is 5 camels, 30 cattle or 40 sheep and goats, held for a lunar year. Working and fodder-fed animals carry no zakat, and the fatwa follows Abu Yusuf and Muhammad that horses carry none unless kept for trade.
Other madhhabs
- Maliki
- Camels, cattle, sheep and goats are zakatable even when fed fodder or used for work, not only when they graze.
Explanation
Livestock zakat covers the grazing animals named in the hadith: camels, cattle and sheep. Buffalo count as cattle, and goats count with sheep. The animals must be sa'imah: grazing freely on open land for most of the year and kept for milk, breeding or growth.
The amounts come from the written zakat instructions that Abu Bakr sent out from the Prophet ﷺ, and the Hanafi books follow them:
- Sheep and goats: 40 to 120, one sheep; 121 to 200, two; 201 to 399, three; then one for every hundred.
- Cattle: 30 to 39, a calf in its second year; 40, a cow in its third year; then by the same pattern for each 30 and 40.
- Camels: 5 to 24, one sheep for every five; from 25, a young she-camel, rising in age as the herd grows.
The Hanafi school allows you to pay the value instead of the animal.
Animals held for trade follow a different rule. Lambs bought to fatten and sell, or sheep bought to sell at Eid, are trade goods: add their market value to your other wealth and pay 2.5 percent (see zakat on business).
Most modern farms feed their animals bought fodder, so the animals themselves are not sa'imah. A dairy farmer owes no zakat on his cows, only on the money he saves from selling milk. Animals used for ploughing or carrying, and pets, carry no zakat.
On horses, Imam Abu Hanifa held that grazing horses kept for breeding are zakatable; his two students held they are not, and the fatwa follows them, in agreement with the other three schools. The Prophet ﷺ said a Muslim owes no zakat on his horse.
The evidence
Quran, Surah At-Tawba 9:103
خُذْ مِنْ أَمْوَٰلِهِمْ صَدَقَةًۭ تُطَهِّرُهُمْ وَتُزَكِّيهِم بِهَا وَصَلِّ عَلَيْهِمْ ۖ إِنَّ صَلَوٰتَكَ سَكَنٌۭ لَّهُمْ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ ﴿١٠٣﴾
Take, [O, Muhammad], from their wealth a charity by which you purify them and cause them increase, and invoke [Allah 's blessings] upon them. Indeed, your invocations are reassurance for them. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing.
Zakat is taken from every kind of zakatable wealth, livestock included.
Sahih al-Bukhari 1454
Sahih... وفي صدقة الغنم في سائمتها إذا كانت أربعين ...
"On sheep that graze freely, when they number forty up to one hundred and twenty, one sheep is due."
The nisab of sheep, and the condition that they graze.
Sahih al-Bukhari 1463
Sahih... ليس على المسلم في فرسه وغلامه صدقة ...
"A Muslim owes no zakat on his horse or his servant."
Animals kept for personal use carry no zakat.
Where the ruling is recorded
- al-Hidaya, Kitab al-Zakat, chapter on the zakat of grazing animals (camels, cattle, sheep and horses). The nisabs, the condition of grazing, and the difference over horses.
- al-Durr al-Mukhtar with Radd al-Muhtar, Kitab al-Zakat, chapter on grazing animals (al-sa'imah), on horses. Records the fatwa on the view of the two students that horses are not zakatable.
- Mukhtasar Khalil with al-Sharh al-Kabir, Bab al-Zakat, on livestock. The Maliki view that fodder-fed and working animals are zakatable.
Checked by our team. For a more accurate answer to your own situation, consult a scholar. Quran translation by Sahih International. Hadith Arabic from the standard editions of the six books and the Muwatta, with gradings as recorded there; the English is our own rendering. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.