What to do with cashback earned on a riba-based credit card

A question about a cashback reward paid by a credit-card company to the user of a riba-based card after he had stopped using it, in which the fatwa centre of IslamWeb answered that he may not benefit from it, because it is a reward conditional on use of the forbidden card and so takes on its ruling; he must dispose of it by spending it on the interests of Muslims and on the poor, and keeping the card is not permitted except for need where no alternative exists. ¹

The questioner said he is an engineer living in a Western country with a credit-score system that represents a person's creditworthiness and helps in renting or buying a home or buying a car, and that a deferred-payment credit card is one way of raising the score; he applied for an American Express card before learning that merely signing its contract is impermissible, the card being linked to his bank account so that the balance is drawn automatically each month and riba-based penalties are imposed when funds are insufficient. ¹ He said he was careful to pay on time and was never a day late, stopped using the card in the middle of the year when he learned the ruling on the contract, and the company then paid him a cashback reward for his earlier use, although the card carries an annual fee; he asked about the ruling on this reward, whether he must cancel the contract he had kept as a precaution and to preserve his credit score, and whether using the card is forbidden to him. ¹

The centre thanked the questioner for his care over what is lawful, then ruled that he may not benefit from the cashback he received for using a forbidden credit card, because the issuing bank grants this refund on account of the card's use; it is not an unconditional gift but a reward conditional on the card being used, tied to the void contractual relationship and earned through use of the forbidden card, so it takes on the same prohibition, and forbidden benefits may not be exchanged for consideration. ¹ It quoted al-Qarafi in al-Dhakhira that forbidden benefits are not matched by consideration, and Ibn Aqil in Kitab al-Funun that Ahmad's school forbids the price of every forbidden thing, arguing from the hadith cursing the Jews who, when fat was forbidden to them, sold it and consumed its price, and stating that when God forbids a thing He forbids its price. ¹

The centre required him to dispose of this cashback by spending it on the interests of Muslims and giving it to the poor and needy, referring to its fatwas 169107, 156857 and 133877. ¹ As for keeping and using the card, it said this is not permitted unless the questioner needs it and finds no alternative free of sharia objections, referring to its fatwa 456946. ¹

The fatwa centre of IslamWeb published this fatwa on islamweb.net as no. 539309, dated 15 Jumada al-Ula 1448, 26 October 2026. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.