Opening a business in Morocco

start-a-business-in-moroccoFirst of all, congratulations on your new adventure.

Opening your business in Morocco

Opening a business in Morocco is a relatively straightforward business. If you speak French, with a bit of patience, you can do it all yourself. At any stage, you can call on us for help or advice, and we’d be happy to do it all for you. As certified public accountant in Morocco, we are very familiar with all the procedures and ensure all compliance requirements are met.

Procedure to open a business in Morocco.

1. You will need an address for your company, either a property you own or a commercial lease.
This might actually be the most difficult part. You can also, for a maximum period of 6 months to get you started, domicile your company with a ‘fiduciaire’ or certified public accountant such as us.

2. You will need to choose a name for your business and  a ‘certificat de négativité’,  which ensures there are no other businesses with the same name out there. This can be obtained from the local CRI (Centre Régional d’Investissement), for a fee of Dh230.  You can find the full list of CRI here.

3. You will then need to write up your ‘Statut’s or articles of organisation of your SARL ( Société A Responsabilité Limitée , or LLC).
As in many other respects, Moroccan law follows french laws. You can find templates on line, such as here. You will need to copy and paste the relevant articles of the Moroccan law, known as the Dahir, but this can be done at a later stage. For the moment, these are temporary articles of organisation that you will need to present to the bank where you would like you account to be domiciled. You will need to think about the ‘raison sociale’ or purpose of your company. Try to be broad in your description so as to provide yourself with more flexibility further down the line. Include words such as ‘connexe’ or ‘liée’, which means related. As established CPA in Morocco, we’d be happy to advise you on this, or translate your ideas into French.

4. With these (temporary) Articles of organisation, you then go to the bank and request a ‘Demande d’ouverture de société en formation’.

This document might go by another name in each bank, but it opens a bank account into which you will deposit the founding capital. Altough a minimum capital of 1000 Dh is required, we suggest you try found your company with a capital of 10.000Dh, which looks much more serious. If you’re looking to set up a business with global reach, such as Riad, as Certified Public Accountant, we recommend starting your business with a much larger capital.

Good to know 1. If more than 50% of the founding capital placed in this account comes from abroad, you will entitled to export profits once you wind down your company and leave the country. As Moroccan CPA, we’d be happy to answer any questions you may have on transferring funds into or out of Morocco.

Good to know 2: You are entitled, up to a limit, to declare goods as founding capital, such as furniture, equipment (computers), etc.. As trusted CPA in Morocco, we’d be happy to advise you on how much of your existing stock or equipment can be used as. founding capital

5.Once the money has arrived from abroad into your temporary account, you will then adjust the details of the founding capital in your articles of organisation to mention the exact amount of money that you have placed in the account as founding capital and the amount placed as good (see Good to know 1&2).

6. Go back to the CRI, and they can then handle the rest of the procedure for you. They will also check quickly your paperwork is in order, and you should get your final papers within a week or two.

7. Costs: As Certified Public Accountant in Morocco, we can help you keep your costs down to the strict minimum. While other CPAs in Morocco may inadvertently inflate your costs and the needlessly complicate setting up your Moroccan business, we ensure that things are kept as simple and streamlined as possible by, for example, ensuring all the text in your documents is of optimal size to reduce the number of pages of each document, thereby reducing the number of fiscal stamps needed: Each page must bear a Dh20 fiscal stamp, and some documents must be produced in 4 or 5 copies)

To sum up, setting up your business in Morocco is relatively straightforward and simple if you speak French (or Arabic). As certified public accountant in Morocco, we’d be happy to handle all aspects of creating a company suited to your needs, as well as hosting it, providing an official address, to provide you with enough time for you to find suitable premises, and of course, provide you with all the bookkeeping and services required for your business to grow in Morocco.

2 comments on “Opening a business in Morocco”

  1. SIMAK Reply

    Salut
    excusez moi je ne parle pas anglais , mais j’aimerai quand même faire une remarque, concernant le capital minimum qui n’est plus de 10 000 Dh depuis l’année 2011 pour les SARL,voila, donc vous pouvais avoir un capital symbolique de 1 Dh lors de la constitution de votre société, merci pour l’article.

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