Living in Morocco
Nobody buys a yield. They buy a life.
Schools, clinics, the residence permit, the tax on your pension: the questions people actually ask before they sign. Sourced answers, articles of law cited, and cells left blank when nobody publishes the figure.
- 90
- visa-free days for a tourist stay
- 183
- days of presence that make you a tax resident
- 48
- accredited French schools in Morocco
- 65/163
- on the 2026 Global Peace Index
Photo Grand Parc, Bordeaux · CC BY 2.0
Three months, or moving in
The line between a tourist stay and settling is a sharp one: ninety days. Beyond it, this stops being about a plane ticket and becomes a file lodged with the police prefecture.
- 01
Ninety days
A passport valid for the whole stay is enough; a national ID card is no longer accepted at the border. A return ticket and proof of sufficient means may be requested. Check that your passport actually receives its entry stamp: without it, your stay becomes irregular without your knowing.
- 02
The extension
Beyond ninety days, an extension must be requested from the Moroccan authorities. It cannot exceed three further months. Any irregular stay exposes you to a fine, a removal order and a ban on returning.
- 03
The registration card
For a stay of more than three consecutive months, the residence permit is applied for at the central police station, the police prefecture or the royal gendarmerie of your place of residence. The first card is renewed every year.
- 04
The residence card
After several annual renewals comes a ten-year permit. One point that often surprises: unmarried cohabitation is not recognised in Morocco, so a partner without an activity of their own cannot obtain a permit on that basis alone.
Sources: France Diplomatie, conseils aux voyageurs — Maroc, entrée et séjour · Ambassade de France au Maroc, permis de séjour
Do you become a Moroccan tax resident?
This is the question that governs all the others, and it depends neither on your nationality nor on your residence permit. The general tax code sets three tests; meeting one is enough.
Three tests, one is enough
Article 23 of the general tax code: you have your permanent home in Morocco, or the centre of your economic interests, or you stay there more than one hundred and eighty-three days, consecutive or not, in any three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day period. As a tax resident you are taxable on all your income, Moroccan and foreign.
Non-resident: Moroccan income only
If none of the three tests is met, you are taxable in Morocco only on income of Moroccan source — your rents, for instance. The rest falls to your country of residence, subject to the tax treaty binding it to Morocco.
Foreign-source pensions
Two mechanisms combine. A flat allowance of 70% on the gross amount up to 168,000 dirhams a year, 40% above that (article 60). Then a reduction of 80% of the tax due on the pension (article 76).
The trade-off nobody mentions
That 80% reduction applies only to sums transferred definitively in non-convertible dirhams. Non-convertible means non-repatriable: the money stays in Morocco. It is a trade-off, not a gift. It has nothing to do with the convertible-dirham account through which a property purchase is settled, which does preserve the way out for your capital.
Sources: Code général des impôts 2026, Direction générale des impôts (articles 23, 60, 73 et 76)
The income tax scale
Scale applicable to individuals, article 73 of the 2026 general tax code. Annual amounts in dirhams.
| Income bracket | Rate |
|---|---|
| Up to MAD 40,000 | 0% |
| MAD 40,001 to 60,000 | 10% |
| MAD 60,001 to 80,000 | 20% |
| MAD 80,001 to 100,000 | 30% |
| MAD 100,001 to 180,000 | 34% |
| Above MAD 180,000 | 37% |
Sources: Code général des impôts 2026, Direction générale des impôts (articles 23, 60, 73 et 76)
Schooling your children
This is families' first objection, and it is settled before the preliminary contract, not after. Morocco has forty-eight accredited French schools; two of them are in Marrakech.
| School | Curriculum | Status | Published annual fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lycée Victor-Hugo | French | Directly managed by the AEFE | |
| Groupe scolaire Jacques-Majorelle (OSUI) | French | Network partner (OSUI) | |
| The British Academy School Marrakech | British | British Schools Overseas, COBIS | |
| The American School of Marrakesh | American | International Baccalaureate |
A blank cell means the school does not publish its fees. We do not repeat the amounts circulating on comparison sites: they cannot be verified and they change every September. Ask the school directly — they answer.
Sources: Agence pour l'enseignement français à l'étranger, établissements du Maroc · The British Academy School Marrakech · Baccalauréat international, fiche de The American School of Marrakesh
Count the waiting lists as much as the fees. In Marrakech, entry into nursery and into the first year of secondary school is prepared a year ahead; Lycée Victor-Hugo, directly managed by the agency for French education abroad, applies the network's priority rules. The British BASM prepares Edexcel iGCSEs and A-levels, from three to eighteen.
Healthcare
Three institutions cover the essentials in Marrakech, two of them private with round-the-clock emergency departments. What needs planning is less the supply of care than your own cover.
Hôpital International Ibn Nafis
Private
Opened by the Akdital group: one hundred beds, an oncology centre, a full surgical suite and emergencies twenty-four hours a day.
100 beds · 24/7 emergencies
Clinique Internationale de Marrakech
Private
Permanent emergency department staffed by an emergency physician, an intensivist and an on-call cardiologist. A trauma centre handles polytrauma and neurological emergencies.
24/7 emergencies
CHU Mohammed VI
Public
The university hospital brings together four hospitals — Ibn Tofail, Ibn Al-Nafis, Ar-Razi and the mother-and-child hospital — plus an oncology and haematology centre.
24/7 emergencies
Sources: Le Matin, ouverture de l'hôpital international Ibn Nafis à Marrakech (groupe Akdital) · Clinique Internationale de Marrakech · Centre hospitalier universitaire Mohammed VI de Marrakech
Your cover, before your address book
International insurance
An owner with no declared activity in Morocco falls under no local compulsory scheme. Cover therefore comes from an international policy, or from your home insurance extended abroad. Check two lines in particular: medical repatriation and hospitalisation in a private clinic.
Compulsory health insurance
The AMO rests on membership of the national social security fund, and therefore on a declared activity in Morocco. It does not open to a foreign retiree or person of private means merely by virtue of a residence permit.
Day to day
Pharmacies are plentiful and generics widely available. Bring a recent prescription for any long-term treatment: brand names differ from one country to the next.
Driving, connecting, paying
The three subjects that fill the first few weeks. None is a blocker; all of them have a lead time.
The driving licence
- 01
As a visitor
Your national licence is recognised for a short stay. Nothing to do as long as you are not settling.
- 02
As a resident
As soon as you establish residence, a Moroccan licence becomes compulsory: by exchange if your country has a reciprocity agreement with Morocco, otherwise by examination. The national road safety agency handles applications at its registration centres.
- 03
The file
On the French side, the exchange requires a secured driving-rights certificate, requested online from the national secure documents agency before filing in Morocco. Plan ahead: that certificate takes several weeks to arrive.
Networks and banking
- 01
5G
Licences were awarded by the regulator in July 2025 and the first commercial services opened in November. Operators have committed to covering 45% of the population by the end of 2026 and 85% by 2030.
- 02
Fibre
Fibre-to-the-home subscriptions were approaching one and a half million at the end of March 2026, up by a third year on year. In villa districts, check eligibility address by address: coverage varies from one street to the next.
- 03
The convertible-dirham account
This is the keystone of a purchase by a non-resident: it receives funds from abroad and allows the proceeds of a resale to be taken back out. Open it before you sign, not after.
Sources: Agence nationale de réglementation des télécommunications, lancement des services 5G
The cost of living, without invented figures
We will not publish a « typical basket »: no public statistic measures a foreign household's spending in Morocco, and online comparison sites are fed by their own visitors. Here are the three markers that are official.
MAD 3,422
The monthly minimum wage
That is 17.92 dirhams an hour since 1 January 2026, on a 191-hour basis. It is the benchmark that shapes the cost of domestic help, security and maintenance.
− 0.6%
Prices over twelve months
Consumer price index for July 2026: − 3.7% on food, + 1.9% on non-food, including + 4.1% on transport.
0
Estimates published by us
None. A realistic monthly budget depends on your way of life, school fees and household staff. We cost it with you in a meeting, line by line, rather than copying an average that resembles nobody.
Sources: Relèvement du salaire minimum au 1er janvier 2026 (accord tripartite du 29 avril 2024) · Haut-Commissariat au Plan, indice des prix à la consommation de juillet 2026
Safety, with a figure rather than an adjective
Morocco ranks sixty-fifth out of one hundred and sixty-three countries on the 2026 Global Peace Index, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, up twenty places. It sits ahead of Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Mauritania.
An index measures a country, not a street. Street crime exists in Marrakech as in any tourist city, and the gated estates on the outskirts do not compare with the medina when it comes to security. We would rather say so than sell a postcard.
Sources: Global Peace Index 2026, Institute for Economics and Peace
Five recurring questions
- Can I live in Morocco six months a year without a residence permit?
- No. The limit is ninety days, extendable by at most three months with authorisation. Beyond three consecutive months of settlement, the residence permit is compulsory. And be careful: one hundred and eighty-three days of presence, even non-consecutive, make you a Moroccan tax resident.
- If I buy a villa, do I become taxable in Morocco?
- Owning a property is not enough. The tests in article 23 decide: permanent home, centre of economic interests, or more than one hundred and eighty-three days of presence. Rental income from a Moroccan property is, however, taxable in Morocco even for a non-resident.
- Is there room in the French schools?
- The network is in demand and places are prepared a year ahead, particularly for nursery and for entry into secondary school. Contact the school as soon as your plan firms up, before you even sign.
- What happens in a medical emergency?
- Two private clinics in Marrakech run round-the-clock emergency departments, one of them with a trauma centre, and the university hospital completes the public offer. What needs settling in advance is not the availability of care but your insurance: repatriation and private hospitalisation.
- Will I get my money back if I sell?
- Yes, provided you bought with funds brought in through a convertible-dirham account and kept the bank records. That is the mechanism that guarantees the proceeds of a resale can leave. Do not confuse it with the transfer in non-convertible dirhams that unlocks the tax advantage on pensions: that one is definitive.
Going further
This page answers the questions of daily life. The rest of the site covers the property itself, the legal framework of a purchase, and the city.
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