Is there a deadline for making up missed Ramadan fasts, and what happens if I don't?

Missing a fast in Ramadan due to illness, travel, menstruation, or another valid excuse obligates qada — making up the missed day with an equivalent day of fasting at a later time. The Quran simply says fasting is owed on 'a number of other days' (2:185), without specifying an exact deadline, so scholars have derived the timing from general principles. The majority view is that qada should ideally be completed before the following Ramadan begins, since the days are meant to remain owed only within that annual cycle; delaying without a valid reason is discouraged, though most scholars hold it does not invalidate the qada itself. Some add that an unexplained delay past the next Ramadan should be accompanied by fidyah in addition to the fast, though this is disputed among the schools. The missed days do not need to be made up consecutively, and there is no requirement to repay them in the order they were missed. If new fasts become impossible again before the debt is cleared — for example, due to worsening chronic illness — the obligation converts to fidyah instead. The safest approach is to complete qada as early as reasonably possible, out of caution and to keep the obligation from accumulating.

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