Why am I charged on an Islamic credit card when I did not spend anything?

The charge that catches people out: billed on your limit, not your balance

Several Islamic credit cards calculate their monthly charge from the credit limit you were granted, not from what you owe. Spend nothing and you can still be billed. Here is why, and how to tell whether your card does it.

Last reviewed 2026-08-17

The short answer

Because the charge is a fee for a service rather than a charge on borrowed money, some banks base it on the facility they are providing you, which is your credit limit, rather than on the balance you happen to be carrying. Banks that do this normally operate a rebate, called ibra', that reduces or cancels the fee based on how you used the card. The problem is that the rebate is frequently discretionary and rarely published, so the fee you see in the terms is not the fee you will pay, and nobody will tell you in advance what the difference is.

How it works in practice

The bank sets a monthly rate and applies it to your credit limit. If your limit is 10,000 and the rate is 1.75 per cent a month, the headline charge is 175 a month, whether you spent 9,000 or nothing at all.

The bank then applies a rebate, ibra', which in a well-run scheme brings a full-settlement month down to nothing. Verified examples of the headline rate include Bank Syariah Indonesia and Bank Mega Syariah at 1.75 per cent of the limit per month, CIMB Niaga Syariah at 2.625 per cent, and Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam at 1.5 per cent.

The rate you are quoted is the ceiling, not the price

On this structure the published rate is the maximum the bank may charge. What you actually pay depends on a rebate. Ask for the rebate policy in writing, because it is the real price.

Why the rebate is the part to interrogate

Whether the rebate binds the bank varies, and almost nobody publishes the answer clearly.

Bank Syariah Indonesia demonstrates that a zero-spend month nets to zero. Bank Mega Syariah states that its rebate is not promised at the outset. Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam's ibra' is discretionary and never applies to cash advances.

Those three positions look similar in a brochure and are very different in your bank statement.

A discretionary rebate is not a price

If the bank is not contractually bound to grant the rebate, then your worst case is the full headline charge. Price the card on the worst case, not the brochure case.

The banks' argument, and the ruling that rejects it

The banks' reasoning is this. If the charge scaled with the balance you owe, it would rise with the amount of money outstanding, which is very hard to distinguish from interest. Basing the fee on the facility instead is said to break that link: the bank is charging for making a line of credit available, which is a service, rather than for the use of money.

Malaysia's regulator examined that exact argument and rejected it.

Bank Negara Malaysia's Shariah Advisory Council, at its 78th meeting on 30 July 2008, resolved that determining the ujrah as a percentage of the credit limit "is not in line with the Shariah and contradicts the decision of majority Shariah advisors at the international level". The resolution is published in BNM's own compilation of Shariah resolutions, at item 93.

A fee that scales with your credit limit has been ruled against

This is the clearest regulator statement on the practice that we have found, and it is the test to apply to any Islamic card whose monthly charge rises as your limit rises. It does not settle the matter globally, because a Malaysian resolution does not bind an Indonesian or Bruneian bank. But it means the practice is contested by a major authority rather than quietly accepted.

So why is it still standard in Indonesia and Brunei?

Because Shariah governance is national, not global. Indonesia's cards are governed by DSN-MUI's fatwa, Brunei's by its own Syariah Financial Supervisory Board, and neither is bound by a Bank Negara Malaysia resolution.

It is worth being clear about what that does and does not mean. It does not mean the Indonesian and Bruneian cards are non-compliant; their own boards approved them. It does mean that the same fee structure is treated as acceptable in one jurisdiction and as contrary to Shariah in another, and that no comparison site will tell you so.

If you hold a card priced on your limit, that is the disagreement you are sitting inside. You are entitled to know it exists.

How to tell whether your card does this

Look for the phrase 'of the credit limit' or 'per month on the approved limit' in the fee schedule, rather than 'on the outstanding balance'.
Check whether the monthly charge appears on a statement in a month you did not use the card.
Ask the bank directly: if I spend nothing this month, what will I be charged? Get the answer in writing.
Ask whether the ibra' rebate is contractual or discretionary. This is the question that actually determines the cost.

This is not the same as the Malaysian ceiling rate

Malaysian Islamic cards also quote a high contractual rate and rebate it down, but there the rate is applied to the balance in the conventional way. The ceiling-versus-effective distinction there is about the maximum permitted rate rather than about the base the charge is calculated on.

Both practices mean the advertised number is not the price. They are different mechanisms and it is worth not confusing them.

Sources

The contracts mentioned here

UjrahThe bank charges you a fixed fee for the service of giving you a card, rather than a charge that grows with the money you owe.IjarahYou are renting the use of the card and the payment system, and the rent is the fee.KafalahThe bank stands behind you and promises the shop it will pay, then collects from you.