How do people in Morocco pay online?
Cash still dominates. Bank Al-Maghrib reports MAD 444 billion of cash in circulation at the end of 2024, about 29% of GDP. Most card use is still for taking out cash: Bank Al-Maghrib counted 401 million cash operations by card in 2024 against 192.5 million card payments.
Online, cards lead. Moroccan banks had 21.28 million cards in issue at the end of 2024, mostly Visa and Mastercard, with a shrinking number of co-badged CMI cards. E-commerce card payments rose 20% in number in 2024 to 38.5 million, worth MAD 11 billion, and made up 20% of all card payments by number. Bank Al-Maghrib links the growth to online bill payment and e-government services.
Wallets and instant transfers are early. Bank Al-Maghrib counted 13.7 million mobile wallets across 21 offers at the end of 2024, but they carried only 19.7 million transactions worth MAD 3.9 billion that year. Bill payments dominate wallet use, and the instant transfer platform launched in June 2023 processed 16.3 million transfers in 2024. For a merchant, a card checkout is the starting point.
Foreign cards matter for travel and export merchants. Foreign cardholders made 31.3 million card payments worth MAD 28.7 billion in Morocco in 2024, and since February 2025 CMI has offered multi-currency payment with Global Blue, so foreign shoppers can pay Moroccan e-commerce sites in their own currency.
What rules shape online payments in Morocco?
Foreign exchange rules cap what Moroccans spend abroad online. Under the Office des Changes’ General Instruction on Foreign Exchange Operations, in force from 1 January 2026, resident individuals can pay foreign websites with an international card up to MAD 20,000 per calendar year, up from MAD 15,000. Companies have separate allowances. A foreign merchant that charges Moroccan cards from abroad sells into that allowance; a merchant with local MAD acquiring does not.
Consumer law covers online sales. Law 31-08 on consumer protection, promulgated by Dahir 1-11-03 of 18 February 2011 and published in the Official Bulletin on 7 April 2011, regulates distance selling, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade says it gives consumers 7 days to change their mind in certain cases. In an inspection campaign reported in February 2025, the Ministry sent more than 100 warnings to online platforms for issues such as missing information on cancellation rights, sales terms not available in Arabic, prices not shown in dirhams, and failure to refund customers within 15 days when a product was unavailable.
Foreign digital services pay VAT. Finance Law 55-23 for 2024, in force from 1 January 2024, added article 115 bis to the General Tax Code. A non-resident providing digital services to customers with a registered office, establishment or tax domicile in Morocco, or staying there occasionally, must register on an electronic platform to obtain a tax identification number, file monthly turnover declarations, pay VAT without deducting input VAT, and keep a register of services for ten years. The general VAT rate is 20%.
Personal data needs clearance to leave the country. Law 09-08 of 18 February 2009 requires a prior declaration to the National Commission for the Protection of Personal Data (CNDP) before processing, and prior CNDP authorisation before personal data is transferred to another country, unless an exception such as the customer’s express consent applies.
How would Omno route payments in Morocco?
Omno is built for markets like this: a merchant connects once and sets routing rules per method, currency and customer group. Morocco now has several card acquirers, which is where orchestration helps.
- Moroccan card pay-ins would be routed to an acquirer that accepts cards in MAD, with BIN routing sending each card to the acquirer your rules set for that issuer.
- Cascading passes a failed payment to the next acquirer in the rule until one accepts, so a timeout at one provider does not end the payment.
- Foreign cards can be routed separately from Moroccan cards, to an acquirer that offers multi-currency payment where the merchant sells abroad.
PSP eligibility rules can keep each customer group on acquirers that support its currency, and the routing-decision log shows which acquirer handled each payment and why.
What should merchants plan for?
Plan for the new acquirer market. CMI stopped signing new merchants in November 2024 and transferred about 55,000 merchant contracts to bank-owned payment institutions by 31 January 2026. Confirm which acquirer now holds your contract, and compare several.
Plan for lower card costs. Bank Al-Maghrib cut the cap on domestic interchange from 0.65% to 0.50% from 1 October 2026, which gives acquirers room to reduce merchant fees.
Plan for 3-D Secure. A missed issuer code ends the payment, so clear checkout messages and retries matter.
Plan for local checkout rules. Show prices in dirhams, publish sales terms in Arabic, explain cancellation rights before the order is confirmed, and refund quickly when an item cannot be supplied.