Let $X$ be a nonsingular algebraic variety in characteristic zero. To an effective divisor on $X$ Kontsevich has associated a certain motivic integral, living in a completion of the Grothendieck ring of algebraic varieties. He used this invariant to show that birational (smooth, projective) Calabi-Yau varieties have the same Hodge numbers. Then Denef and Loeser introduced the invariant motivic (Igusa) zeta function, associated to a regular function on $X$, which specializes to both the classical $p$-adic Igusa zeta function and the topological zeta function, and also to Kontsevich's invariant.

This paper treats a generalization to singular varieties. Batyrev already considered such a ‘Kontsevich invariant’ for log terminal varieties (on the level of Hodge polynomials of varieties instead of in the Grothendieck ring), and previously we introduced a motivic zeta function on normal surface germs. Here on any $\mathbb{Q}$-Gorenstein variety $X$ we associate a motivic zeta function and a ‘Kontsevich invariant’ to effective $\mathbb{Q}$-Cartier divisors on $X$ whose support contains the singular locus of $X$.