Before you buy a machine
- No law specific to mining exists in Morocco. The 2017 exchange-control position applies when you sell coins, and draft law 42.25 reportedly leaves mining out of its scope.
- ONEE’s residential grid tops out at 1.5958 MAD per kWh, and one modern ASIC uses about 2,500 kWh a month. That puts you in the top tranche immediately.
- In our illustrative calculation, one 200 TH/s machine earned about 2,100 MAD a month and cost about 4,000 MAD in power.
- Heat is a second problem: summer temperatures inland often exceed the ambient limits manufacturers set for air-cooled miners.
- Most cloud-mining offers pushed to Moroccans online follow a fraud pattern. Fixed daily returns are a red flag.
Is bitcoin mining worth it in Morocco?
Bitcoin mining is neither specifically banned nor authorised in Morocco, but it rarely makes sense at home. Selling mined coins falls under the 2017 exchange-control position. And at ONEE’s top residential tariff of about 1.60 MAD per kWh, one modern ASIC lost about 1,900 MAD a month in our most recent calculation.
First, the basics. Bitcoin mining is the process that secures the network and creates new coins. Specialised machines called ASICs compute trillions of guesses per second. Roughly every ten minutes one miner finds a valid block and receives the block reward, currently 3.125 BTC after the April 2024 halving, plus transaction fees. Your share of the rewards depends on your share of the total computing power, the hashrate. When we last checked, the network ran at about 1,024 exahashes per second according to mempool.space, so a single home machine is a vanishingly small slice. Miners join pools to receive small, regular payouts instead of waiting years for a block.
The only variable you control is the cost of electricity. That is why mining migrates to places with cheap power, and why this guide spends most of its time on tariffs.
Is crypto mining legal in Morocco?
There is no Moroccan law that specifically authorises or prohibits mining. We found no circular from Bank Al-Maghrib, the AMMC or the energy ministry dealing with it directly.
The relevant texts are general ones. On 20 November 2017 the Office des Changes said that transactions in virtual currencies breach exchange regulations and expose people to penalties.Office des Changes Running a machine is not a “transaction” in itself. But the moment you sell the coins you mined for dirhams, through P2P or anywhere else, you are in the same grey zone as any other Moroccan crypto user.
The 2026 enforcement wave, in which the Office des Changes sent formal notices to residents suspected of trading crypto, shows that this is not a theoretical risk. Our guide to selling crypto in Morocco explains how that cash-out works in practice, and the tax page why records matter even without a DGI ruling.
Draft law 42.25 on crypto-assets, published for consultation in November 2025, would license exchanges and other service providers under the AMMC. According to Moroccan press reports on the draft, mining is excluded from its scope, along with central-bank digital currencies and NFTs. The bill had still not been adopted at the time of writing, so even that exclusion is not yet law. Our legal status page follows the bill step by step.
How much does electricity cost in Morocco?
Electricity is the number that decides everything, and for a miner it is expensive. Most Moroccan households buy power either from ONEE directly or from a regional distributor. Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier and Tetouan were historically served by private concession holders such as Lydec, Redal and Amendis. These networks are being transferred to new regional multi-service companies (SRM); SRM Casablanca-Settat, for example, took over from Lydec on 1 October 2024.SNRT News Whoever bills you, the residential grid follows the same tranche logic.
ONEE publishes this low-voltage residential grid, taxes included:
| Monthly consumption | Price per kWh (MAD, incl. tax) |
|---|---|
| 0–100 kWh | 0.9010 |
| 101–150 kWh | 1.0732 |
| 151–200 kWh | 1.0732 |
| 201–300 kWh | 1.1676 |
| 301–500 kWh | 1.3817 |
| Above 500 kWh | 1.5958 |
ONEE tariff page The page is not dated, so check the figures against your latest bill. ONEE has explained that above 150 kWh a month a selective system applies: the whole month’s consumption is billed at the rate of the band you reach, rather than band by band.Boursenews, 2018 For a miner the detail barely matters. One modern ASIC alone uses around 2,500 kWh a month, five times the top threshold, so every kilowatt-hour costs you close to 1.60 MAD.
Medium- and high-voltage industrial customers pay different tariffs, with demand charges and time-of-use periods. They can be cheaper per kWh, but they require a business connection, a transformer and a contract, which brings you straight back to the question of how a mining company would bank its revenue legally.
Heat, noise and cooling
The second Moroccan constraint is climate. Air-cooled ASICs are usually specified for ambient temperatures up to around 40°C. In Marrakech, Fès or Beni Mellal, summer afternoons regularly approach or exceed that, and a machine in a closed room adds its own heat on top. A 3.5 kW miner is effectively a 3.5 kW heater running non-stop.
The practical consequences:
- Throttling and failures. Machines slow down or shut off when they overheat. Hashboards fail faster in dusty, hot air, and the dust from a chergui wind is not kind to fans.
- Cooling costs. Air-conditioning the room adds its own consumption to the bill, which makes bad economics worse.
- Noise. Air-cooled ASICs are roughly as loud as a vacuum cleaner, around 75 decibels, all day. In an apartment in Hay Riad or Maarif, the neighbours will notice.
Coastal cities like Agadir, Essaouira or Tangier are milder, and hydro-cooled or immersion setups handle heat better. But they cost more and do nothing about the tariff.
Can you import an ASIC miner into Morocco?
Yes, as far as we can tell. We found no rule that bans importing mining hardware into Morocco. ASICs are electronic equipment and go through customs like any other: the Administration des Douanes et Impôts Indirects (ADII) applies import duty according to the tariff classification, plus VAT. We could not confirm a standard classification for ASIC miners, so ask ADII or a customs broker before ordering, and keep the commercial invoice.
Three practical points matter more than the duty rate:
- Pay through a bankPaying a foreign supplier is an import of goods and must go through a Moroccan bank under exchange rules. Paying the supplier in USDT would itself be a crypto transaction of the kind the Office des Changes targets.
- Check technical approvalsEquipment with radio functions such as Wi-Fi may need ANRT type approval. Most ASICs connect by Ethernet only, but confirm for your model.
- Expect questionsA shipment of several kilowatt-class machines will stand out. Have a clear explanation and documents ready, and remember that “mining” is not a recognised business activity in Moroccan law.
The renewable-energy argument
Morocco does have a strong renewable story, and it is often quoted in mining pitches. The facts are these. The Noor Ouarzazate complex, run by MASEN, combines four plants of about 580 MW in total. Noor I (160 MW), Noor II (200 MW) and Noor III (150 MW) use concentrated solar power, and Noor IV (72 MW) is photovoltaic. The Tarfaya wind farm, commissioned in December 2014, has 131 turbines and 301 MW. Northern Morocco has several wind farms between Tangier and Tetouan, including the early Koudia Al Baida site. The government has set a target of 52% renewables in the installed power mix by 2030.Tarfaya wind farm
What these plants do not do is sell cheap power to individual miners. Their output goes to the national grid under long-term contracts with ONEE, and you pay the regulated tariff like everyone else. The only Moroccan mining project we found that tried to use dedicated renewable power was announced by the US company Soluna near Dakhla in 2019–2020, with reported plans for up to 900 MW of wind. Moroccan press reported that it received an approval under law 54-14 on self-production.Afrik21 Later reports describe missed milestones, and we found no evidence of a large operating farm there.
The real economics: an illustrative calculation
This calculation is illustrative only. It uses network data and prices from our latest check and a widely sold air-cooled machine. Every input moves daily, so redo it with today’s numbers before you spend anything.
Assumptions:
- Machine: an Antminer S21-class ASIC, about 200 TH/s for 3,500 W, as listed by the manufacturer.
- Network: about 1,024 EH/s (mempool.space), with miners earning about 3.14 BTC per block including fees over the last 144 blocks.
- Bitcoin at about 82,400 dollars (CoinGecko) and the dollar at about 9.75 MAD.
- Electricity at 1.5958 MAD per kWh, the top ONEE residential tranche.
- No pool fee, no cooling, no hardware cost, no downtime. All of these would make the result worse.
| Item | Per day | Per month (30 days) |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin mined | ≈ 0.000088 BTC | ≈ 0.0026 BTC |
| Value of that bitcoin | ≈ 71 MAD | ≈ 2,130 MAD |
| Electricity used | 84 kWh | 2,520 kWh |
| Electricity cost | ≈ 134 MAD | ≈ 4,020 MAD |
The machine loses about 1,900 MAD a month before you have paid for it. The break-even electricity price, where revenue just covers power, is about 2,130 / 2,520 ≈ 0.84 MAD per kWh. That is below even ONEE’s cheapest residential tranche of 0.9010 MAD, which in any case only applies up to 100 kWh. In other words, at these numbers no Moroccan household tariff makes home mining profitable.
Could it change? Yes. If bitcoin doubled while the network hashrate stayed flat, the same machine would earn about 4,260 MAD a month and roughly break even on power. But hashrate tends to follow price upwards, and the next halving, expected around 2028, will cut the block reward to 1.5625 BTC. Our verdict: for an individual in Morocco, buying bitcoin directly is cheaper than mining it. If you want exposure, our step-by-step buying guide and the live BTC to MAD converter are better starting points.
Buy bitcoin on a spot market instead of paying 1.60 MAD per kWh to mine it.
Licensed in several jurisdictions · external linkMany Moroccans who choose that route buy USDT on P2P marketplaces and swap it for BTC on an international exchange, such as those in our ranking of the best crypto exchanges in Morocco. CEX.IO, for instance, has operated since 2013 and holds FinCEN registration in the US and an EU entity in Spain. It does not accept Moroccan Visa or Mastercard deposits, so you fund it with crypto, and no exchange is licensed in Morocco.
Risks: raids abroad and cloud-mining scams
Abroad, illegal mining is mostly a story about stolen electricity. In November 2024 Thai police dismantled nine unregistered bitcoin farms in Surat Thani province, accused of tampering with meters to divert more than 10 million baht of power.AFP via Connaissance des Énergies In 2021 Malaysian police publicly destroyed seized mining rigs for the same reason.Siècle Digital We found no comparable published case in Morocco, but the lesson is universal: unusual consumption gets noticed, and meter tampering turns a grey-zone hobby into a criminal case.
The bigger danger for Moroccans is cloud mining. You pay for a “contract” and the platform promises a share of mining output, often as a fixed daily percentage. Real mining income cannot be fixed, because it depends on the bitcoin price and network difficulty, so a guaranteed return is the first warning sign. The pattern the AMMC describes in its warnings about fraudulent platforms fits exactly: aggressive ads, a first deposit, fake gains displayed on a dashboard, blocked withdrawals, then the site disappears.AMMC
Red flags to watch for:
- Fixed daily returns such as “2% a day” or “double in 60 days”.
- Referral bonuses for bringing in friends and family.
- Withdrawals that require a new “fee” or “tax” before release.
- WhatsApp or Telegram “account managers” instead of a real support desk.
If an offer ticks even one of these boxes, walk away. Our crypto scam guide for Morocco explains how to report fraud and what to do if you have already paid.
Sources
Official and press sources cited in this guide. An external link does not imply any partnership.
- Office des Changesoc.gov.ma
- SNRT Newssnrtnews.com
- ONEE tariff pageone.org.ma
- Boursenews, 2018boursenews.ma
- Tarfaya wind farmen.wikipedia.org
- Afrik21afrik21.africa
- AFP via Connaissance des Énergiesconnaissancedesenergies.org
- Siècle Digitalsiecledigital.fr
- AMMCammc.ma
FAQ
Is bitcoin mining legal in Morocco?
No Moroccan law specifically authorises or bans mining. The 2017 Office des Changes statement treats transactions in virtual currencies as a breach of exchange rules, which covers selling mined coins for dirhams. Draft law 42.25 reportedly excludes mining from its scope, and it had still not been adopted at the time of writing. The activity therefore sits in a legal grey zone.
Is mining profitable in Morocco with home electricity?
Not at current numbers. In our latest illustrative calculation, a 200 TH/s machine earned about 2,100 MAD of bitcoin a month but used about 4,000 MAD of electricity at the top residential tariff. The break-even electricity price was roughly 0.84 MAD per kWh, below even ONEE's first residential tranche. Conditions change, so redo the maths before you buy.
How much does electricity cost in Morocco per kWh?
Between about 0.90 and 1.60 MAD per kWh for households. ONEE's published residential grid runs from 0.9010 MAD per kWh for the first 100 kWh a month to 1.5958 MAD above 500 kWh, taxes included. Above 150 kWh a selective system applies. Regional distributors such as SRM Casablanca-Settat apply their own bills. Check your own invoice, because a mining machine pushes a household into the top tranche.
Can I import an ASIC miner into Morocco?
Yes, as far as we can tell: we found no rule that bans importing ASIC miners. They go through customs like other electronic equipment, with import duties and VAT that depend on the tariff classification. Payment to a foreign supplier must go through a Moroccan bank under exchange rules; paying in crypto would itself breach them. Ask the customs administration ADII for the classification before you order.
Is cloud mining a scam?
Not always, but in Morocco most cloud-mining offers promoted on WhatsApp, Telegram or TikTok show the classic fraud pattern: fixed daily returns, referral bonuses and blocked withdrawals. The AMMC has repeatedly warned against unauthorised investment platforms. If a contract promises a fixed profit regardless of the bitcoin price and network difficulty, treat it as a red flag.
Did Morocco ever have a big bitcoin mining project?
Only on paper so far. In 2019–2020 the US company Soluna announced a wind-powered data-centre and mining project near Dakhla, reported at up to 900 MW. Moroccan press said the energy ministry approved it under the self-production law 54-14. Later reports describe missed milestones, and we found no evidence that a large mining farm is operating there.
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