Do I have to pay zakat on my business stock and inventory?

Yes — the four Sunni schools agree that goods held for resale (ʿurūḍ al-tijārah) are zakatable. At the end of each lunar year you value the inventory at its current market selling price, add business cash and receivables you reasonably expect to collect, subtract debts that are due, and pay 2.5% if the total reaches the niṣāb (the value of roughly 85g of gold or 595g of silver). Fixed assets used to operate the business — premises, machinery, shelving, delivery vehicles — are not zakatable, because zakat attaches to what is traded, not to the tools of the trade. A minority (the Ẓāhirīs, notably Ibn Ḥazm) denied it for want of an explicit text, but the majority rely on Allah's words, "O you who believe, spend from the good things you have earned" (Qurʾan 2:267) — which the early exegetes explained as including the earnings of trade — together with the well-known practice of ʿUmar and the Companions in taking zakat from the merchants' trade goods, and the settled agreement of the four schools thereafter. The threshold itself is fixed by the Prophet's ﷺ words, "There is no zakāh on less than five awāq," five awāq of silver being two hundred dirhams, i.e. approximately 595g.

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