Who Can Receive Zakat?
Zakat is not charity to whoever needs help most in the giver's eyes. The Quran names exactly who may receive it: "Zakat is only for the poor and the needy, those who administer it, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, freeing captives, those in debt, in the cause of God, and the stranded traveller — an obligation from God" (9:60). A payment that reaches someone outside these eight categories may still be a rewarded act of sadaqah, but according to the four schools it does not discharge the zakat that was due.
Most zakat goes to the first two categories, the poor (fuqara') and the needy (masakin). The schools draw the line between them differently — for the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools the faqir is the worse off, owning nothing or less than half of what they need, while the Hanafi school puts the miskin lower — but in practice it does not matter, because both receive. What matters is the line between them and everyone else, and here the schools genuinely divide.
The majority — Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali — use sufficiency. A person whose income and assets do not cover the reasonable needs of themselves and their dependents may receive zakat, even if they own savings above the nisab. On this view a salaried worker whose wage does not meet rent, food and the basic costs of a family can be a zakat recipient; so can someone with a small sum put aside for an emergency. The Hanafi school uses the nisab instead: whoever owns wealth equal to the nisab over and above their basic needs — their home, clothing, tools of their trade, household furniture — counts as rich and may not receive zakat, however small their income; whoever owns less may receive it, whatever their income. The two tests usually agree, and disagree most for people with modest savings and an inadequate income, who qualify on the majority view and not on the Hanafi one.
What disqualifies a person on every view is being able to support themselves and choosing not to. The Prophet ﷺ told two men who asked him for zakat that "there is no share in it for a rich person, nor for a strong person able to earn" (Sunan Abi Dawud 1633; Sunan al-Nasa'i 2598). The disqualification is the ability to earn, not the absence of a job: someone actively looking for work they cannot find is not in the same position as someone declining it.
The other six categories are narrower. Those who collect and administer zakat are paid from it for that work. Those in debt (al-gharimin) may have their debts paid if they cannot pay them, provided the debt was not for something unlawful. The stranded traveller may receive what gets them home, even if they are wealthy where they live. "In the cause of God" is read by the majority to mean those striving in God's cause rather than every good project, which is why most scholars hold that zakat cannot fund the building of a mosque or a school as such; the Hanafi school adds that zakat must pass into the ownership of an eligible person, which an institution's building fund does not.
Some people cannot receive your zakat even when they are poor. The four schools agree you may not give it to your own parents and grandparents or your own children and grandchildren, because supporting them is already your duty; nor may a husband give it to his wife. A wife giving to a poor husband is permitted by the Shafi'i school and others, on the strength of Zaynab, the wife of Ibn Mas'ud, who asked the Prophet ﷺ and was told she would have two rewards — for the charity and for the family tie (Sahih al-Bukhari 1466); Abu Hanifa did not permit it. Brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins who are poor are not only eligible but preferred, for the same double reward. Zakat is also not given to the family of the Prophet, the Banu Hashim (Sahih Muslim 1072), and the majority of scholars do not give it to non-Muslims outside the category of those whose hearts are to be reconciled — though voluntary sadaqah to anyone in need is open.
Finally, an honest mistake does not leave you owing it twice. Sahih al-Bukhari (1421) records a man who gave charity by night three times and found each time that it had gone to the wrong person — a thief, a woman of ill repute, a rich man — and was told that all three had been accepted. Most scholars apply this to zakat: if you took reasonable care to establish that someone was eligible and it later turns out they were not, your zakat stands.