Short-Term Rentals in Morocco: What the Rules Are Right Now

Loi 80-14 defines a tourist accommodation establishment broadly, as any commercial establishment that receives passing or staying guests and provides them with lodging, under Article 2. That wording is wide enough to catch a one-bedroom flat let by the week as readily as a hotel. From there, the law splits into two regimes.

The first chapter names nine recognised establishment types: hotel, hotel club, tourist residence, maison d'hôtes, riad, kasbah, gîte, pension and campsite. Each needs construction sign-off, a provisional classification and an operating authorisation before opening, under Articles 4 to 6. If your property is run and marketed as a riad or a guesthouse, this is the regime it sits in: authorisation first, classification afterwards, no trading before the authorisation is granted.

The third chapter, headed "other forms of tourist accommodation", covers three categories instead: a bivouac, "hébergement chez l'habitant" (hosting travellers inside the home where the host actually lives), and a catch-all "alternative accommodation" for anything that does not resemble the first nine types. Under Article 30, operating any of these three also needs an authorisation tied to a specification sheet, a cahier des charges, before a first guest arrives.

In June 2025 the Ministry of Tourism published five ministerial orders that replace the old category system with a simplified star rating, aligned with international standards and checked partly through unannounced "mystery visits" against a detailed quality grid. Hotels, maisons d'hôtes, tourist residences, club hotels, riads and kasbahs all move onto stars, with existing operators given 24 months to comply and ratings reassessed every five to seven years afterwards.

What that reform did not yet touch, by the ministry's own account, is the other end of the market. Rules specific to home-stays, alternative accommodation and "products listed on the most widely used booking platforms", the ministry's own phrase for Airbnb and comparable sites, were described as still being drafted when the 2025 orders were published. In other words, the state modernised the paperwork for riads and guesthouses before it finished the paperwork for the apartment most owners abroad actually have.

The law is specific about what happens if you let anyway. Under Article 43 of Loi 80-14, opening a tourist establishment, or operating any other form of accommodation, without the authorisation required by Article 5 or Article 30 carries a fine of 50,000 to 500,000 dirhams. That figure applies however small the operation is: one flat let on one weekend a month sits under the same article as a hotel.

Two further obligations carry their own penalties. Every operator must take out insurance against fire, theft of guests' belongings and civil liability, and keep it renewed. Letting that lapse is fined 50,000 to 500,000 dirhams under Article 44, cut to 10,000 to 100,000 dirhams specifically for a home-stay host, and a court can additionally close the property for up to six months until a new policy is in place.

Every operator is also required to report arrivals daily to the authorities through an electronic system called télé-déclaration, under Articles 36 to 38, taking each guest's identity details on the day they check in. Failing to run that declaration, or to archive the records for a year, is punishable under Article 48 by one to six months' imprisonment, a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 dirhams, or both. None of this is enforcement theatre written for hotels and ignored for apartments. It is the same chapter that covers a single short-let flat.

Most owners abroad are not running a riad and are not personally living in the flat they let out, which means they do not map cleanly onto either named category in the "other forms" chapter. Hébergement chez l'habitant is defined in the law itself as hosting guests inside the home where the host is actually domiciled, not a separate investment unit. Alternative accommodation, in the law's own wording, is aimed at lodging with no resemblance to the named types, set up in mountains, deserts or another site of touristic interest, not a city flat.

That gap is exactly the one the ministry flagged as unfinished in 2025. It does not mean the activity is unregulated. Article 2's own definition, any commercial business providing lodging to passing or staying guests, is broad enough that the authorisation requirement still applies in substance, and tax and municipal authorities already treat an undeclared short let as exactly that kind of business. Treat an unclear category as a reason to get local advice before listing, not as a reason to assume no licence is needed. We help owners who are not in the country work out which authorisation actually fits their property, before a single guest checks in rather than after a complaint brings an inspector to the door.

Getting the tourism authorisation right does not settle what you owe the tax authority. Rental income is taxable in Morocco however you let the property, and it has to be declared whether the stay was one night or one year. We set out how letting a property changes its annual tax assessment in a separate piece, and would rather point you to a Moroccan accountant for the current thresholds and filing dates than guess at figures that move from one finance law to the next.

What does not move is the order you should do things in: get the authorisation, get the insurance in place, then set up the filing, not the other way round after guests have already started arriving.

A short checklist, in the order it actually needs doing: