The CRI Explained: Morocco's One-Stop Shop for Business Registration

If you are forming a company in Morocco, such as a SARL, there are two places to know. DirectEntreprise describes itself as the official electronic platform for company creation and for procedures after creation, so the file itself can be prepared and submitted online. The Centre Régional d’Investissement (CRI) for your region is the regional one-stop centre for investors, and the place to ask what your region expects and whether it will handle or support your file. Auto-entrepreneurs register differently, online or at a post office; the guide to starting a business compares the two.

What decides how smoothly it goes is almost entirely the state of your file. The steps are not complicated. The delays come from documents: a missing apostille, an untranslated certificate, a power of attorney signed the wrong way abroad.

What to do first:

1. Start any documents that have to come from abroad, because they take longest.
2. Choose your company name and get the negative certificate from OMPIC, the first document in the creation sequence, but not before the rest of the file is moving, because it is valid for three months.
3. Have statutes drafted by a notary or lawyer.
4. Secure a registered office.
5. Confirm the current document list, then submit online through DirectEntreprise or with your CRI’s help.

Document lists and practice can differ between regions, so check with the CRI for your region before you start; what one regional office asks for is not always what another does.

The online route: DirectEntreprise

DirectEntreprise walks you through the creation of a company in stages: choosing the legal form, reserving or entering the company name, identifying the company, its registered office and its activity, giving the tax and social security information, uploading your documents, and paying. It also covers procedures after the company exists. Prepare your documents as scanned files before you start, and have the foreign ones apostilled or legalised and translated first, because the upload step is only as good as what you upload.

What the CRI does

There is one CRI in each of Morocco’s regions. For company creation, it acts as a single window that brings together registration in the trade register (registre du commerce), tax registration and CNSS affiliation. Ask yours how it works alongside the online platform for your kind of company. CRIs also support investors more widely, for example with permits and incentive schemes, which matters for larger projects more than for a small company.

Staff work mainly in French and Arabic. Some speak English, particularly in the larger cities, but do not count on it; if you do not speak French, bring someone who does.

Documents you will typically need

For a standard SARL, expect to prepare:

• A negative certificate from OMPIC, the first document in the creation sequence, confirming your company name is available and reserving it for three months from issuance. It can be obtained online.
• Company statutes (statuts), drafted by a notary or lawyer and signed by all shareholders.
• Proof of a registered office: a lease in the company’s name, a property title, or a domiciliation agreement.
• Identification for all shareholders and the manager: passports for foreigners, with the copies requested.
• A power of attorney for any shareholder who cannot attend in person, legalised or apostilled if signed abroad.
• A capital deposit certificate from a Moroccan bank, only if you are blocking capital. The partners set the capital freely, with no legally mandated minimum for a SARL since the 2016 reform, and blocking is not mandatory where the capital does not exceed 100,000 MAD.
• The registration forms, completed online on DirectEntreprise, with the supporting documents uploaded, or as your CRI directs.

You may be asked for more, so treat this as a starting list, not a checklist.

After you submit

Once the file is accepted, the registrations are processed and the company’s registration documents are issued. How long that takes depends on the route, the region and whether anything in your file has to be corrected, so ask for a current estimate when you submit rather than planning around a figure from elsewhere. If you blocked capital, the bank releases it once you show the company’s registration.

What causes delays

Foreign documents. Documents issued abroad generally need an apostille, or consular legalisation if they come from a country outside the Apostille Convention. Any that are not in French or Arabic also need a sworn translation. Ask the CRI which of your documents need which formality before you start, because missing one step on one document can send the whole file back.

Statutes. Template statutes downloaded from the internet may not match current Moroccan company law or what the CRI expects. A notary or lawyer who regularly handles company formation is worth the fee.

The power of attorney. If a shareholder is abroad, this is the document most likely to be wrong: signed in the wrong form, not legalised, or not covering what the CRI needs. Prepare it early and have the notary or CRI check the wording first.