How many fasts do I owe after Ramadan?

You owe one make-up day for every Ramadan day on which you did not fast for a valid reason, and nothing for the prayers you left. Count the days, subtract what you have already made up, and add anything still unpaid from earlier years. The method below is the same one every time, so you can use it as a worksheet.

Step 1: List the days you did not fast. Go through the month day by day and mark each one that falls in a category below.

• Hayd or nifas. Fasting is not valid during either, and the days are made up. The scholars cite the hadith of 'Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her): "When that would happen to us, we were ordered to make up the fasts, and we were not ordered to make up the prayers." (Narrated by al-Bukhari.) The fasts are owed; the prayers she leaves are not.
• Illness or travel. Allah says: "and whoever is ill or on a journey, the same number of other days" (Al-Baqarah 2:185). Pregnancy and breastfeeding are also valid reasons to delay, as covered in what is owed when make-up fasts run past the next Ramadan.
• Days that are not owed. Istihadah does not stop a fast, so those days are fasted, not made up. Janabah present at Fajr does not break it either (see fasting in janabah).

Step 2: Decide the edge days. The two days that cause most miscounts are the ones where bleeding starts or stops partway through.

• It started during the day, even just before Maghrib. The fast of that day is invalid and counts as owed. See what to do if your period starts during a Ramadan fast.
• It stopped before Fajr, but you made ghusl after it. That day's fast is valid, so it is not owed. What decides it is the bleeding, not the bath. See if your period ends before Fajr but ghusl waits.
• It stopped after Fajr, during the day. That day does not count as a fast and is owed. The schools differ on whether you keep from eating for the rest of that day: the Hanafis and Hanbalis say to refrain out of respect for Ramadan, the Shafi'is and Malikis say you need not. Either way the day is still owed; see when your period ends during a Ramadan day.
• Brown or yellow discharge. Whether it counts as hayd depends on when it appears, so see brown discharge in Ramadan before adding the day.

Step 3: Add it up.

> Fasts you owe now = missed days this Ramadan + unpaid days from earlier years - days you have already made up.

A worked example. A woman's Ramadan has 30 days. Her period starts at 4 pm on day 8 and the bleeding stops during the night before Fajr on day 14, and she has made ghusl by then. Days 8 to 13 are owed: that is 6 days, because day 8 started during the day and counts. Day 14 is fasted. A few days later she is ill for 2 days, which makes 8 days for the month. She has 3 days still unpaid from last year, so the total is 11. By Shawwal she has fasted 4 of them, so she still owes 7. If the bleeding in the example had instead stopped at 10 am on day 14, that day is owed too, and the month's count would be 7, not 6.

A sense check. The NHS says a period can last between 2 and 7 days, and usually lasts about 5. If your count of bleeding days runs well past a week, the extra days may be istihadah, which does not stop a fast; how to tell istihadah from hayd explains the signs. The NHS also says periods that change a lot in length or flow without an obvious reason are worth raising with a doctor, and so is bleeding between periods. This page cannot tell you which applies to you.

When to make them up. Most scholars, the Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi'i schools among them, say before the next Ramadan; the Hanafis say there is no strict deadline but sooner is better. See when to make up missed Ramadan fasts. If a deadline has already passed, what is owed when the next Ramadan arrives first covers fidya and the differences between the schools. For the ruling itself, see whether you make up fasts missed for your period.

The count that goes wrong is the one rebuilt from memory in Sha'ban. Writing down each day as it happens, with the time bleeding began or stopped, is what makes this arithmetic reliable. What a period tracker for Muslim women should do lists what to check, and Nisaa, free on the [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6756938661), logs each day and keeps a running total of the fasts you still owe.