Morocco 90-Day Rule: How Long You Can Stay Without a Visa

If you hold a passport from one of the countries Morocco lets in without a visa, you can stay for up to 90 days from the date on your entry stamp. That is one continuous period, not a rolling allowance. It is permission to visit, not to work, and it does not turn into residence however long you stay.

If you want to stay beyond 90 days, you have two legitimate routes, and both have to be started before day 90:

• Ask for an extension at the police foreigners’ service (service des étrangers) where you are staying. It is granted at the authorities’ discretion, not automatically.
• Apply for residence if you are moving here. The Carte de Séjour guide walks through it.

Leaving and coming back is something many people do, but it is not a right to a fresh 90 days. Each entry is decided at the border on the day.

Check this is your entry

This guide is about one of four entry pathways. The 90-day clock described below is the visa-free one. If you arrived another way the numbers are different, so check which pathway is yours before applying anything here to your own situation:

Morocco has four entry pathways, not one. Which applies depends on your nationality and, for some travellers, on residence permits or visas they already hold:

• Visa-free, for many nationalities visiting for short stays. Check your own situation with Accès Maroc and the appropriate Moroccan consular service.
• eVisa, issued through Accès Maroc, Morocco’s official portal, to some travellers who would otherwise need a visa. It is for one entry, allows a stay of up to 30 days, and does not permit an application for residence.
• AEVM (Autorisation Electronique de Voyage au Maroc), an electronic pre-registration rather than a visa, for a short list of otherwise visa-free nationalities. It does not change the visa-free stay length.
• Consular visa, applied for at a Moroccan embassy or consulate before travel.

Accès Maroc confirms which route applies to you. The visa and entry requirements guide sets all four out in full.

The rest of this guide assumes you entered visa-free. If you came in on an eVisa you have 30 days rather than 90, and the sections below on extensions and exit-and-reentry were not written about your situation.

How the 90 days work

Your 90 days begins on the date the border stamp is applied to your passport. It is a continuous 90-day window, not 90 days in any 180-day period (which is the Schengen rule that confuses some European travelers).

Whether a short exit and re-entry resets that count is unclear. There is no published Moroccan rule stating whether leaving for a day, a week, or any other period restarts the 90 days from the new entry stamp, and admission on any given day is a decision made by Moroccan border authorities at that time. Some long-term visitors report re-entries being treated as a fresh 90 days; others report scrutiny or pushback, particularly with a pattern of frequent short exits. Nobody should plan a long-term stay in Morocco around an assumed, guaranteed right to repeated entry on this basis.

Staying longer than 90 days

An extension is the route for staying longer on a single entry. You apply at the police station’s service for foreigners, or the gendarmerie in some areas, before your 90 days expire. The Canadian government’s travel advice for Morocco specifies contacting that office at least 15 days before your entry expires; that guidance is Canada’s, not a stated Moroccan requirement, but it is a reasonable planning margin for anyone regardless of nationality. There is no published checklist, but applicants are commonly asked for their passport, proof of where they are staying and evidence that they can support themselves, and to explain why they need the extra time.

Residence is the route if Morocco is becoming home. Law 02-03 requires a residence card for anyone staying beyond 90 days, so the Carte de Séjour is not a formality for long-stayers but the legal basis for living here.

Leaving and re-entering, by ferry to Spain or across to Ceuta or Melilla, is a common approach, but it is not a documented legal right, and it depends on meeting Spain’s entry rules as well as Morocco’s. There is no published limit on how many times you can re-enter, but officers can see your entry history, and someone arriving every 90 days may be questioned about what they are doing in Morocco. Staying longer in Morocco sets out what is known and what is not.

If you overstay

If you remain in Morocco past the 90-day limit without an approved extension or other valid permission, you become an overstayer, and what happens next is described differently by different governments’ travel advisories, so treat the specifics below as attributed guidance rather than one universal rule. The US State Department advises that overstaying requires appearing before a judge before departure and may involve a fine. The Government of Canada advises that a traveler who overstays must remain in Morocco until seen by a prosecutor and fined. The French government (France Diplomatie) warns of a fine and expulsion, with a ban on returning to stay. None of these sources publishes a specific fine amount, so do not plan around a figure, and do not assume the mildest version of any of these accounts applies to your situation.

An overstay can delay departure while the Moroccan authorities resolve your case. Contact the local police foreigners’ service before travelling to the airport or port; do not assume you can pay a fee at departure and leave on schedule.

An overstay can also count against you later, if you apply for residence. If you know you want to stay longer, start the extension or residence process well before your 90 days expire.

What the tourist entry covers, and what it does not

You can rent a place to stay, travel, and go about daily life. Short-term rentals are straightforward. For a longer lease, some landlords are happy with a passport and others, especially in the more formal apartment market, want to see proof of residence; that is landlord practice rather than a legal rule, and the renting guide covers how to handle it.

What you cannot do is take a job with a Moroccan employer, which needs its own work authorisation and a residence card. Banks can open accounts for non-residents, but whether a given branch will do so for a visitor is its own decision; the bank account guide explains the account types.

A tourist entry does not establish permission for remote work for clients or an employer abroad. Confirm your actual activity with the competent Moroccan authorities. The digital nomad guide sets out where that leaves you.

Arriving

At the airport or port you queue for passport control, present your passport and answer the usual questions: why you are visiting, how long you plan to stay and where you are staying. The officer stamps your passport, and that stamp is the start of your 90 days. Check the date before you walk away.

Health cover while you are here

Check any insurance requirement for your entry route and arrange cover before travelling. Private clinics treat visitors on a pay-as-you-go basis and expect payment up front unless your insurer has arranged otherwise, so a policy that includes medical evacuation or repatriation is worth having. The healthcare guide explains how public and private care work, what pharmacies can and cannot do for you, and the emergency numbers to save.