Property Taxes in Morocco for Owners Who Live Abroad

Neither tax is calculated on your purchase price or on today's market value. Both are assessed on the *valeur locative annuelle*, the annual rental value a local recensement commission assigns by comparing your property with similar homes let in the same neighbourhood, under Article 23 of Loi 47-06. That value is reviewed every five years, with a flat 2% increase, rather than reset to whatever the property is worth by then.

Liability sits with the owner or the usufructuary, not with residency. Nothing in the law asks where you live or what passport you hold before applying the tax, so a flat owned by someone in Montreal is assessed exactly the same way as one owned by someone in Casablanca.

The taxe d'habitation is progressive, calculated on the valeur locative annuelle under Article 27 of Loi 47-06:

The taxe de services communaux is a flat rate on the same rental-value base, set under Article 36 of Loi 47-06 at 10.5% inside the perimeter of urban communes, delimited centres and seaside or hill resorts, and 6.5% in the peripheral zones just outside a city's urban boundary. You owe the TSC on a property even in years where the TH itself is reduced to nothing.

If the property is your habitation principale, Article 24 of Loi 47-06 cuts the taxable rental value by 75% before either tax is calculated. That is the single biggest lever in this article, and it is not limited to owners who live in Morocco full time.

The same article extends the 75% reduction to Moroccans resident abroad for the home they keep in Morocco as their sole habitation principale, provided it is occupied free of charge by their spouse, or by their ascendants or descendants in the direct line. In practice, this means an MRE who owns one property in Morocco and lets their parents or children live in it rent-free does not lose the reduction just because they themselves are in France, Belgium or Canada. It only applies to one property per taxpayer and cannot be combined with any other reduction on the same taxe d'habitation.

A newly built property used as your habitation principale is exempt from the taxe d'habitation for five years from the year after completion, under Article 22 of Loi 47-06. The exemption is not automatic paperwork-free: it depends on the completion declaration below being filed on time, since that declaration is what tells the tax authority when the clock starts.

A holiday flat, a villa you visit twice a year, or a property let out long-term or short-term does not qualify for the 75% habitation principale reduction. Both taxes are charged on the full assessed rental value. If the property is actually let, the taxe de services communaux base can also be calculated on the real rent received rather than the assessed value, under Article 35 of the same law. Income tax on rent you actually collect is a separate matter from the annual property taxes covered here, with its own rules, and is worth checking separately before you set a budget for letting the place out.

Owners or usufructuaries must file a declaration with the local tax office whenever a construction is completed or a property changes hands, by 31 January of the year following the event, under Article 30 of Loi 47-06. The DGI reissues this reminder every January, most recently for changes made during 2025, pointing owners to form ADP060, downloadable from the tax authority's own portal, tax.gov.ma.

Missing that deadline is not a paperwork technicality you can shrug off from abroad. Article 144 of Loi 47-06 imposes a 15% surcharge on the tax that was due, or would have been due without any exemption, if the completion or change-of-ownership declaration is filed late. And if a property is not reassessed at all in a given year, for whatever reason, Article 25 of Loi 47-06 simply carries forward the last tax roll issued for it. Silence does not make the liability go away. It just means you find out what you owe later, with a surcharge attached.

If you are still working out whether you can register the property in your own name at all, these annual taxes only start once that ownership question is settled and the title is registered. And if you are further along and pricing up what the purchase itself will cost in one-off fees, it is worth keeping the two separate in your head: registration duty and notary charges are paid once, at completion, while the taxe d'habitation and taxe de services communaux are a bill you carry for as long as you own the place. Keeping a record of what you have paid also matters later, since proof of how a purchase was funded is exactly what a Moroccan bank checks before letting sale proceeds leave the country.