Opening a Bank Account in Morocco as a Non-Resident Buyer

Under Article 228 of the Office des Changes' Instruction Générale des Opérations de Change, which entered into force on 1 January 2026, Moroccan banks are authorised to open a compte en devises (a foreign currency account) or a compte en dirhams convertibles (a convertible dirham account) in the name of "des personnes physiques étrangères résidentes ou non-résidentes" (foreign individuals, whether resident or non-resident), as well as Moroccans living abroad. Neither account is the ordinary current account a Moroccan resident would open at the same counter.

The practical difference is the currency the balance sits in. A compte en devises holds your money in euros, dollars or whichever currency you transferred. A compte en dirhams convertibles converts it to dirhams on arrival but keeps it tagged as convertible, meaning it retains the right to leave the country again. Both exist for the same reason: to keep foreign money provably foreign while it sits in a Moroccan bank.

The same article sets out what can be credited to either account: incoming international transfers, payment instruments denominated in foreign currency or convertible dirhams, foreign currency purchases the Office des Changes has authorised, and the proceeds or returns of an investment. On the debit side, the rule is broad: "tout règlement au Maroc ou à destination de l'étranger, y compris les retraits de billets de banque" (any payment in Morocco or abroad, including cash withdrawals). The one hard limit is that these accounts are not allowed to run in a debit position.

In plain terms, you can use the balance to pay the seller, the notary or the ANCFCC at completion, and later move whatever is left abroad, all from the same account. What you cannot do is treat it like an overdraft facility.

This is the part buyers tend to underweight at the start. A property bought with foreign currency benefits from what the Office des Changes calls a convertibility guarantee: the right to transfer the investment's income and eventual sale proceeds back out of Morocco, in full, as we cover in more detail in a separate article on repatriating money after a sale. The evidence the Office des Changes accepts to prove that right includes bank certificates "justifying the financing in foreign currencies, in convertible dirhams or by debiting a convertible account," under the instruction governing foreign investment in Morocco.

That sentence is the whole reason this article exists. A compte en devises or a compte en dirhams convertibles, funded by a transfer from your own foreign account, is itself part of the paper trail that unlocks repatriation years later. Pay through any other channel and you are relying on separate paperwork to prove the same thing.

Banks do not open these accounts on request alone. Bank Al-Maghrib's vigilance framework, set out in Circulaire n° 5/W/2017 as amended and completed by Circulaire 3/W/2019, and in Directive n° 2/W/2019 on identifying business relationships, occasional clients and beneficial owners, requires credit institutions to identify who they are dealing with and understand where the money is coming from before a relationship is opened, as part of Morocco's anti-money-laundering supervision. Expect to show your passport, explain in plain terms why you are opening the account (buying a property) and where the funds originate, and in some cases to answer follow-up questions once the first transfer lands. None of this is specific to foreign buyers. It is the same due diligence every Moroccan bank runs on every new customer.

The cleanest way to fund either account is a transfer from a bank account already held in your own name abroad. The transfer itself becomes the record a bank, and later the Office des Changes, can point to.

Bringing foreign banknotes into Morocco and depositing them is also possible, but Article 228 is specific about the paperwork required: either the original currency import declaration made to customs at the border, valid for a maximum of six months, or a bordereau de change (an exchange slip) or equivalent document no more than one month old. Miss that window and the deposit becomes much harder to tie back to a foreign source, which matters far more than it looks like it should at the time, precisely because a Moroccan bank will ask for that same proof if you ever sell.

A foreign buyer who has settled in Morocco and holds a residency card still opens the same account under the same article as one who has never set foot in the country. Article 228 covers "résidentes ou non-résidentes" side by side, with no separate regime for the two. What changes your position is not a residency card but how you originally funded the purchase, which is the same threshold the ownership rules turn on more broadly.

Some Moroccan banks let you start the process through a branch or subsidiary in your country of residence, with the account finalised once you provide the remaining documents. Others expect you in a Moroccan branch in person, or accept a power of attorney for someone to act on your behalf, the same structure that lets you handle the rest of a purchase without travelling. Which route a given bank offers varies enough that it is worth confirming directly with the branch you intend to use rather than assuming, since requirements change bank by bank in a way no single regulation fixes.