Making Up Missed Fasts After Ramadan (Qada): Who Must, When, and What Happens If You Delay

If you missed fasts in Ramadan for a reason that has since passed – illness you recovered from, travel, menstruation, pregnancy or nursing – you owe those days back, one for one, at a later date. That is qada, and the Qur’an states it directly: whoever is ill or on a journey fasts “a number of other days” (Qur’an 2:184). No payment substitutes for it while you are still able to fast. The details people get stuck on – whether the days have to run consecutively, how long you have, and what happens if the next Ramadan comes around first – are where the schools have genuinely different positions, so it is worth knowing which one you are following.

Who owes qada, and who does not

The dividing line is whether your reason for not fasting is temporary or permanent. Someone who was ill during Ramadan and recovered afterwards makes the days up. Someone travelling makes them up. A woman who did not fast because of menstruation or post-natal bleeding makes them up – a point established in a well-known report from A’ishah, recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, in which she notes that missed fasts were made up while missed prayers were not.

Someone whose inability to fast is permanent – chronic illness with no expectation of recovery, or advanced old age – is in a different category. They do not make up days they will never be able to fast; they pay fidya instead. That is a separate ruling with its own measure, and it does not apply to anyone who is simply behind on their fasts.

Pregnant and breastfeeding women are the most contested case, and the schools split. Hanafi and Maliki scholars have generally held that qada alone is due. Shafi’i and Hanbali scholars have held that if the fast was omitted out of fear for the child specifically, qada and fidya are both due. This is a live disagreement among the schools, not a settled point.

Do the days have to be consecutive?

The four schools agree that they do not. The Qur’anic phrase is “a number of other days” without a requirement of succession, and Ibn Abbas is reported to have said explicitly that there is no harm in separating them. So fasting eight owed days across eight scattered Mondays is valid.

Some early scholars preferred consecutive make-up as the better practice, on the grounds that it mirrors the original month and reduces the risk of never finishing. That is a recommendation about which approach is safer, not a condition of validity. If you know yourself well enough to know that a scattered schedule turns into no schedule, the older advice is worth taking on practical grounds alone.

When can you fast them, and when can you not?

The window runs from after Ramadan ends until the next Ramadan begins, and within that window there are only a handful of days on which fasting is prohibited by consensus: the day of Eid al-Fitr, the day of Eid al-Adha, and the days of Tashreeq that follow Eid al-Adha. Everything else is available.

Intention matters more here than most people realize. A make-up fast is an obligatory fast, and the schools that require the intention to be formed before dawn for obligatory fasts – which is the majority position – apply that to qada too. You cannot decide at eleven in the morning that today counts as a make-up day. Cooler months and shorter days are the obvious time to clear a backlog, which is one practical argument for not leaving it until the following spring.

What if the next Ramadan arrives first?

This is the question that sends most people looking for a ruling, and the schools do not answer it the same way.

The Hanafi position is that qada remains due and nothing else is added. The days are still owed, they are still made up, and no payment is triggered by the delay – the obligation is simply outstanding.

The Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali positions hold that someone who delays without a valid excuse until the next Ramadan passes owes both the make-up fasts and fidya – a measure of staple food for each day delayed – on the basis of reports from several Companions. Where the delay was itself caused by a continuing valid excuse, such as illness that never lifted, these schools do not impose the additional payment.

What all of them agree on is that the fasts themselves do not disappear. Nobody holds that paying makes an outstanding day go away while you are still capable of fasting it.

Qada, fidya and kaffarah are three different things

These get conflated constantly, and the difference is not subtle. Qada is making up a missed fast day for day, and it applies when the reason was temporary. Fidya is a payment made when fasting is permanently beyond someone’s capacity – and, in three of the four schools, additionally when qada was delayed past the next Ramadan without excuse. Kaffarah is an expiation for deliberately breaking a fast without a valid reason, and it is far heavier: sixty consecutive days of fasting, or feeding sixty people, according to the well-known narration recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.

Forgetting and eating does not break your fast and creates no obligation at all – the fast is completed as normal, on the strength of the hadith that whoever forgets while fasting and eats or drinks should complete their fast, as it was Allah who fed them.

Fasts owed by someone who has died

If a person dies still owing make-up fasts, what happens depends on why they were outstanding. Where someone died during the illness that prevented them fasting, and never had a period of health in which they could have made the days up, the schools broadly agree that nothing is owed – the obligation never settled on them.

Where they recovered, had the opportunity, and did not use it, the schools differ. A narration recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim states that whoever dies with fasts outstanding, their guardian fasts on their behalf, and Shafi’i scholars – along with one report from the Hanbali school – permit an heir to fast those days. Hanafi and Maliki scholars have instead directed that food be given for each missed day out of the estate, treating the narration as applying to vowed fasts specifically rather than to Ramadan. Families in this position should follow the guidance of a scholar they trust rather than choosing whichever answer is easier.

Where Scholars Differ

Pregnant and breastfeeding women. Hanafi and Maliki: qada only. Shafi’i and Hanbali: qada plus fidya where the fast was omitted out of fear for the child.

Delaying past the next Ramadan. Hanafi: qada only, no additional payment. Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali: qada plus fidya per day, where the delay had no valid excuse.

Voluntary fasts before clearing qada. Some scholars hold that outstanding obligatory fasts should be completed before voluntary ones such as the six days of Shawwal; others permit the voluntary fast first, since the qada window remains open all year. The schools also differ on whether a single fast can carry both intentions.

Fasting on behalf of the deceased. Shafi’i, and one Hanbali report, permit an heir to fast the missed days. Hanafi and Maliki direct that food be given from the estate instead.

A practical way to clear a backlog

Count the days honestly, write the number down, and put them in a calendar rather than carrying them in your head. Short winter days are the easiest to fast, and pairing make-up days with days already recommended for fasting – Mondays and Thursdays – gives the schedule a rhythm that survives a busy month.

If your situation is one where a payment is due – permanent inability to fast, or a delayed year under a school that requires fidya – our Fidya and Kaffarah appeal handles those payments and directs them to food for families who need it. The per-day amount is set each year, and you can find the current figure on that page: [TBD - current figure].

Sources

Qur’an 2:184–185 – the concession for illness and travel, and making up “a number of other days”.
Sahih al-Bukhari 321 and Sahih Muslim 335 – A’ishah on making up fasts but not prayers.
Sahih al-Bukhari 1936 and Sahih Muslim 1111 – the kaffarah for deliberately breaking a fast in Ramadan.
Sahih al-Bukhari 1933 and Sahih Muslim 1155 – forgetting and eating does not invalidate the fast.
Sahih al-Bukhari 1952 and Sahih Muslim 1147 – fasts owed by someone who has died.
Ibn Abbas on separating make-up days, cited in the tafsir literature on Qur’an 2:184 and reported by al-Daraqutni.
School positions on delay and on fasting for the deceased as set out in al-Kasani, Bada’i’ al-Sana’i’ (Hanafi); Ibn Rushd, Bidayat al-Mujtahid (comparative); al-Nawawi, al-Majmu’ (Shafi’i); and Ibn Qudamah, al-Mughni (Hanbali).

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