Short answer
Not on each paycheck as you earn it. Zakat is paid on what you still hold on your zakat date. In the Hanafi school, salary you have saved by that date is added to your other wealth and zakated with it, even if it was paid in only the day before.
There is no separate zakat on a salary when it is received. If you already own the nisab, savings from your salary join your existing pool and share its zakat date. If you do not, your zakat year begins on the day your savings first reach the nisab.
Other madhhabs
- Shafi'i
- Money received from a salary is new wealth with its own year, counted from the day it is received. Many people simplify by paying on the whole balance on one date, which pays early on part of it.
- Maliki
- New income from a separate source starts its own year from when it is received.
- Hanbali
- Each amount of new income has its own year from when it is received, though paying on the whole balance at once is allowed as an advance.
Explanation
Zakat is a charge on wealth you keep, not a tax on income. The salary you spend on rent, food and bills during the year carries no zakat. What you have saved by your zakat date does.
The Hanafi school makes this easy. Money of the same kind joins one pool, so you do not have to track the date of every paycheck. On your zakat date you take the total you hold, from salary and anything else, and pay 2.5 percent on it if it reaches the nisab after debts. If you have never owned the nisab, your first zakat year starts on the day your savings first reach it (see when zakat is due).
Example: your zakat date is 1 Ramadan. On that day you hold your old savings plus three months of saved salary, including a paycheck that landed the day before. In the Hanafi school, all of it is zakated that day.
Some contemporary writers have proposed a zakat on salaries when they are paid, by analogy with crops. The four schools did not hold this, and it is not the Hanafi position. If you like to give a share of each paycheck, you can treat it as an advance on your zakat or as sadaqah, then settle the exact figure on your date. See also zakat on money in the bank.
The evidence
Quran, Surah Al-Baqara 2:267
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ أَنفِقُوا۟ مِن طَيِّبَٰتِ مَا كَسَبْتُمْ وَمِمَّآ أَخْرَجْنَا لَكُم مِّنَ ٱلْأَرْضِ ۖ وَلَا تَيَمَّمُوا۟ ٱلْخَبِيثَ مِنْهُ تُنفِقُونَ وَلَسْتُم بِـَٔاخِذِيهِ إِلَّآ أَن تُغْمِضُوا۟ فِيهِ ۚ وَٱعْلَمُوٓا۟ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَنِىٌّ حَمِيدٌ ﴿٢٦٧﴾
O you who have believed, spend from the good things which you have earned and from that which We have produced for you from the earth. And do not aim toward the defective therefrom, spending [from that] while you would not take it [yourself] except with closed eyes. And know that Allah is Free of need and Praiseworthy.
Believers are told to give from what they earn.
Sunan Ibn Majah 1792
Graded sahih... لا زكاة في مال حتى يحول عليه الحول ...
"There is no zakat on wealth until a year has passed over it."
Zakat on money depends on a year passing, not on the moment it is earned.
Where the ruling is recorded
- al-Hidaya, Kitab al-Zakat, section on wealth acquired during the year (al-mal al-mustafad). New wealth of the same kind joins the existing nisab.
- al-Majmu', Kitab al-Zakat, on wealth acquired during the year. The Shafi'i view that new wealth from a separate source has its own year.
This answer is pending review by the scholars on our team. 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.