Zakaty e-service surpasses $180m in donations

With Eid just around the corner, Muslims are rushing to give Zakat Al-Fitr, a charitable donation that must be offered at the end of Ramadan before the Eid prayers.

Zakat Al-Fitr is paid on behalf of each member of the family. It is a fixed amount determined by scholars and is usually paid in the form of wheat or rice. This practice ensures that even the poorest people have the means to enjoy the celebrations.

The Kingdom’s Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority reported that the zakat funds transferred through the Zakaty e-service have surpassed a total of more than SR675 million ($180 million) since its inception seven years ago. More than 249,000 people have used the Zakaty platform.

The Zakaty service facilitates direct transfers of zakat to all categories of social insurance beneficiaries registered with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development.

The service is available through the Zakaty application for smartphones. Beneficiaries can use secure and reliable payment methods in banks, through SADAD, Apple Pay, Mada, and other secure methods that ensure speed and flexibility in delivering zakat to eligible categories.

The authority emphasized that these reliable and efficient payment options, among others, ensure the swift and flexible transfer of zakat funds to eligible recipients.

Beneficiaries have the ability to choose from eligible categories registered with the social security services, the most prominent of which include families in greatest need of housing, families of divorced women, and families of prisoners.

The authority also highlighted that the Zakaty service is closely supervised by experts in zakat jurisprudence and calculation.

Zakaty empowers individuals to calculate zakat for various types of assets, including money, gold, silver, stocks, investment funds, and real estate acquired for business purposes.

The service also includes a helpful reminder for zakat due dates and a specialized tool to calculate zakat on gold based on its purity level, using real-time global gold and silver prices that are updated daily.

During Ramadan, users increasingly interacted on Zakaty via zakaty.gov.sa and many new users downloaded the application.

Earlier, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Asheikh, grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, said that Zakaty is the reliable channel for receiving and disbursing Zakat for people who need it.