USO

United States Oil Fund

DOUBTFUL — SCREEN DOES NOT PASSetf

Is USO Halal?

Oil futures ETF — uses futures contracts which involve gharar.

What You Should Know

USO's March 31, 2026 report shows $2.744 billion of assets and very high cash/collateral ratios because the fund is a commodity pool. Oil is a permissible commodity in many treatments, but USO's futures and swaps introduce gharar, leverage, settlement and speculation questions; the examined asset screens fail and scholar views differ.

⚠️ Concerns

  • Futures contracts involve gharar
  • Speculative mechanism

Current quantitative Sharia screen

Based on 10-Q figures for the period ended 2026-03-31; calculated 2026-07-14.

USD · millions
Interest-bearing debt / assets
0.00%Within limit
Below 33.333% under FTSE Yasaar

0 / 2,744.085

Cash + interest-bearing securities / assets
139.22%Above limit
Below 33.333% under FTSE Yasaar

3,820.218 / 2,744.085

Receivables + cash / assets
87.47%Above limit
Below 50% under FTSE Yasaar

2,400.225 / 2,744.085

Non-compliant income / revenue
1.22%Within limit
No more than 5% under FTSE Yasaar

12.007 / 986.39

FTSE Yasaar
v4.6, February 2026
Financial
Fails
Overall
Fails

Debt/assets is 0.00%, liquidity/assets is 139.22% and receivables plus cash/assets is 87.47%; these exceed the examined asset limits even though incidental income is about 1.22%.

MSCI Islamic (total-assets series)
October 2024 methodology
Financial
Fails
Overall
Fails

Liquidity/assets is 139.22% and receivables plus cash/assets is 87.47%, above the examined MSCI total-assets limits; the derivative structure is separately qualitative.

Malaysia SAC financial ratios
single 5% activity benchmark adopted November 2025
Financial
Fails
Overall
Fails

Liquidity/assets is 139.22%, above the examined Malaysia limit; this is not an official SAC classification of a commodity pool.

Market-cap denominator methods
MSCI M-Series, S&P and Dow Jones methods differ
Financial
Not calculated
Overall
Fails

Market-cap denominator methods do not apply cleanly to a commodity pool whose exposure is obtained through futures and swaps.

Business-activity disclosure

USO is a commodity pool that obtains crude-oil exposure through futures and over-the-counter swaps rather than owning operating oil companies. Oil is a permissible commodity in many treatments, but derivative contract form, settlement, leverage, speculation and gharar require scholar-level review.

Limitation: The filing reports derivatives, collateral and trading gains rather than operating-business revenue; it does not provide a school-neutral contract-compliance conclusion.

Purification

USO discloses interest and money-market dividend income, but no scholar-approved purification percentage is inferred from a commodity-pool income statement.

Inputs, assumptions and primary sources
  • Amounts are USD millions from USO's March 31, 2026 Form 10-Q.
  • The report shows USD 2,744.085 million of total assets, USD 2,300.218 million of cash and trading-account cash, USD 1,520.000 million of money-market funds and USD 100.007 million of broker, share-sale, dividend, interest and transaction-fee receivables.
  • The three-month income statement reports USD 986.390 million of total income, including USD 4.482 million of interest and USD 7.525 million of dividend income; both are treated as incidental/non-compliant income for this conservative fund-level calculation.
  • USO obtains crude-oil exposure through futures and swaps; contract form, delivery, leverage and gharar concerns remain qualitative and methodology-dependent.
  • ETF look-through ratios are not an official FTSE, MSCI or Malaysia classification.

This is a reproducible financial screen, not a fatwa. A failed total-assets screen can coexist with a pass under a market-cap methodology. ZakatInvest keeps the qualitative assessment separate so numerical thresholds do not erase material context.

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