Is Intel Stock Halal?

Intel designs and manufactures processors, primarily x86 CPUs for PCs and servers, and is rebuilding an external foundry business (Intel Foundry) that fabricates chips for other companies. Fiscal 2025 revenue was $52.9 billion, roughly flat year over year, though the year-over-year comparison is affected by the deconsolidation of Intel's Altera business in the third quarter of 2025. None of Intel's core operations raises a business-activity concern under AAOIFI standards: chip design, wafer fabrication, and foundry services for other technology companies are ordinary, permissible commerce. Intel holds no gambling, alcohol, or conventional lending operations, and its defense-related work (a modest share of overall revenue through government and aerospace chip contracts) has not historically been large enough to move the compliance needle for major screeners. The business-activity screen is not where Intel's compliance debate lives.

Intel's only meaningful non-permissible revenue source is interest income earned on its cash and short-term investment holdings. Intel does not report gross interest income as a standalone line; instead it discloses a combined "Interest and other, net" figure that swung to $3.257 billion in fiscal 2025 (versus $226 million in 2024), a jump driven mainly by one-time items such as gains tied to the Altera divestiture and changes in the value of external equity investments Intel received, not by recurring interest. Separately, Intel's net interest position has actually been a net expense in recent years (roughly $271 million net expense in fiscal 2025), because Intel has issued substantial debt to fund fab construction. Backing out that debt-service cost, PureInvest estimates Intel's gross interest income at approximately $800 million, or 1.51% of total revenue, comfortably under the 5% business-activity ceiling.

AAOIFI-style screening applies a second test beyond revenue composition: financial ratios, most importantly interest-bearing debt as a percentage of market capitalization, which typically must stay under a 30 to 33% ceiling. Intel has taken on substantial debt and outside capital since 2024 to fund its foundry buildout, including multibillion-dollar equity investments from Nvidia and SoftBank and a roughly 10% equity stake taken by the U.S. government, on top of ordinary bond issuance. At the same time, Intel's market capitalization has been unusually volatile amid a prolonged earnings turnaround. A heavier debt load combined with a depressed or swinging share price can push the debt-to-market-cap ratio toward or past the ceiling even when nothing about Intel's underlying chip business has changed. This is almost certainly what separates Musaffa's NOT HALAL call from Zoya's compliant rating: the two providers may be weighing the ratio screen differently, or capturing it at different points in time as Intel's stock price moves.

Intel is not categorically non-compliant like a conventional bank, and its core chip business generates negligible impure revenue. But the live disagreement between Musaffa and Zoya means conservative investors should check a current screen immediately before buying or holding, rather than relying on any single point-in-time rating, including this one. Because the disputed factor is a debt-to-market-cap ratio, it can shift meaningfully within a single quarter as Intel's share price and debt balance both move, unlike a revenue-composition issue that tends to change slowly. Investors already holding Intel should purify at the estimated 1.51% rate for dividend income at minimum, and should consult a qualified Shariah advisor for a considered view on whether Intel's current debt-financed foundry expansion crosses their own ratio-screen comfort level.