Do I pay zakat on a property I rent out, or just on the rental income?

The property itself — the building, land, or apartment — is not zakatable, the same way your own home isn't. Real estate held to generate rental income rather than to resell falls outside the categories of zakatable wealth in classical fiqh, since it is a productive fixed asset rather than growing wealth or trade merchandise. What is zakatable is the rental income once you receive it: treat it like any other cash. Once your accumulated rent, combined with your other cash and savings, reaches nisab and a full lunar year passes on it, you owe 2.5%. Many people simply fold rental income into their annual cash zakat calculation on their usual zakat anniversary date, rather than tracking a separate hawl for each rent payment, which most scholars accept as a valid simplification. If you bought the property specifically to resell for profit — a house-flipping or real estate trading business — that changes the ruling: the property itself then counts as trade inventory, valued at current market price and zakatable in full each year until sold, just like any other business stock.

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