In brief
- The DGI has issued no ruling on crypto-assets. No circular, no Finance Law article, no form box. Any rate you read online is an interpretation.
- The “15% under article 73” claim is an analogy with listed securities, not a published rule.
- Exchange control is the sharper risk. The Office des Changes, not the tax office, sent notices to crypto holders in 2026.
- Keep records now: dated purchases, sales, transfers and the dirham flows behind them.
Do you pay tax on crypto in Morocco?
Morocco has no official crypto tax rate. The tax administration (DGI) has issued no ruling, circular or form on crypto-assets, and the 2026 Finance Law contains no crypto measure we could find. Figures such as “15%” are analogies, not rules. For most holders, the sharper risk is the Office des Changes, not the taxman.
Here is the detail most crypto-tax pages avoid. At our latest check, the Direction Générale des Impôts (DGI) had published no ruling, circular, note or form dealing with crypto-assets. We checked the General Tax Code (CGI) published for 2026 and the summaries of Finance Law 2026 (law 50-25, published in the Bulletin Officiel in December 2025). We found no measure on virtual currencies.Médias24 on the CGI 2026 The DGI’s own portal is at tax.gov.ma.
This is not an oversight. A tax administration that publishes a crypto regime implicitly recognises the activity, and Moroccan authorities still describe the use of virtual currencies as unauthorised. Taxing an activity the Office des Changes treats as an infraction would create an awkward contradiction. Until the crypto-asset law is adopted, that contradiction is likely to stay unresolved.
So when someone tells you “crypto gains are taxed at X% in Morocco”, the correct reply is: according to whom?
Is crypto taxed at 15% in Morocco?
Not officially. One Moroccan personal-finance site states that crypto gains are taxed at 15% under article 73 of the CGI. It is the most-cited number on the topic, so it deserves a careful look.
Article 73 is the CGI article that sets income-tax rates. Its section on capital gains from the sale of securities (valeurs mobilières) applies different rates by type of instrument. A tax-advisory firm summarises it as 15% for listed shares and 20% for unlisted shares, bonds and some funds, with an exemption when total annual disposals stay under 30,000 MAD.Upsilon Consulting
The problem is that crypto-assets are not on that list. They are not shares, not bonds, not fund units. Applying the 15% rate means assuming that a tax inspector would treat Bitcoin like a share of Maroc Telecom. That is a possible argument, but it is only an argument. No DGI text says so, and other readings are just as plausible. We therefore do not state a rate on this site, and we suggest you treat any page that does with suspicion.
How general tax principles could be argued: open questions
Without a specific rule, an accountant would start from the CGI’s general logic. Residents are taxed on their income, including income from abroad, and income is sorted into categories: professional income, salaries, property income, and capital income and gains. Crypto does not fit neatly into any of them. The questions below are the ones a professional would ask. We do not answer them, because nobody official has.
Is an occasional gain taxable at all?
A teacher in Meknes buys 3,000 MAD of Bitcoin, holds it for two years and sells it for 5,000 MAD. Is the 2,000 MAD a taxable capital gain, and if so, under which category? The securities regime does not obviously cover it. Property-gain rules apply to real estate. There is no general capital-gains tax on all movable assets in the way some European countries have.
Does frequent trading become professional income?
A trader in Casablanca who buys and sells USDT dozens of times a month on P2P looks less like an investor and more like a business. Under general principles, regular and organised activity can be treated as professional income, which follows different rates and bookkeeping rules. Where exactly the line sits for crypto is untested.
What about mining, staking and payment for work?
A freelance developer in Rabat paid 800 USDT by a European client has earned income for services. That is ordinary professional or salaried income, whatever the currency, and its dirham value at receipt would logically be the base. Mining and staking rewards raise harder questions about timing and valuation. Our mining guide covers the legal side of running rigs in Morocco.
How would the base be measured?
Even if a rate applied, the cost basis is a puzzle. P2P buyers pay a premium of around 6% above the official dollar rate, and coins move between exchanges and wallets. Without records, nobody can reconstruct the base, which is why the next sections matter more than any rate.
The exchange-control angle matters more than tax
For most residents, the real exposure is not the DGI. It is the Office des Changes. Since November 2017 it has said that transactions in virtual currencies breach exchange regulations.Office des Changes In spring 2026 it moved from statements to letters. Formal notices reached a limited number of residents, alleging undeclared crypto assets held abroad and sales to Moroccan residents between March and August 2025. One letter, dated 28 April 2026, gave 30 days to justify the assets before litigation.Infomédiaire
Notice the vocabulary: “assets held abroad”. From the exchange-control point of view, USDT on an international exchange is a foreign asset owned by a resident, and residents need authorisation to hold foreign assets. Tax and exchange control are separate systems, but they meet in practice. A notice from the Office will ask where the money came from, and the honest answer will usually involve your bank statements.
The bigger picture is in our guide to whether crypto is legal in Morocco, including the 2021 Court of Cassation ruling on a Bitcoin intermediary.
Morocco has run voluntary regularisation programmes for assets held abroad in the past. We could not confirm whether any of them has been applied to crypto-assets, so do not assume one would cover you. A professional can tell you what options exist today.
Records to keep from today
Whatever regime eventually applies, the person with clean records will pay less, argue less and sleep better. Start now, even if you only hold a few hundred dirhams.
- Export exchange historyDownload full trade, deposit and withdrawal histories from every platform as CSV, at least once a quarter. Accounts can be closed or restricted without warning.
- Match each P2P trade to a bank lineSave the order number, counterparty name, amount in MAD and the matching line in your CIH, Attijariwafa or BMCE statement.
- Record wallet addressesKeep a list of your own addresses and transaction IDs, so you can prove transfers between your accounts are not sales.
- Note the dirham value on each dateFor income received in crypto, write down the MAD value on the day you received it, with the source of the rate.
- Keep origin-of-funds evidencePayslips, freelance invoices, foreign-account statements from before you became resident. These answer the first question any authority will ask.
Store copies outside the exchange, ideally in two places. If you sell, follow the same discipline: our guide to selling crypto for dirhams explains how to document the cash-out side, and the P2P guide shows which payment details to screenshot during a trade.
Do MRE pay tax on crypto in Morocco?
Usually not in Morocco, if they are tax resident elsewhere. Moroccans living abroad (MRE) are in a very different position from residents, and confusing the two leads to many bad decisions.
For tax, what generally counts is your tax residence, not your nationality. Under the CGI, residence is tied to criteria such as having your permanent home or main economic interests in Morocco, or staying more than 183 days in a 365-day period. An MRE living in Lyon, Antwerp or Rotterdam is normally taxed on crypto gains in France, Belgium or the Netherlands, under that country’s rules, which are often explicit. Morocco’s bilateral tax treaties decide which country taxes what when both have a claim.
For exchange control, non-residents are also treated differently. They can generally hold foreign assets, and they bring money into Morocco through dedicated account types. The difficult moment is the switch: an MRE who returns to settle in Tangier with a crypto portfolio becomes a resident holding foreign assets. That transition deserves professional advice before the move, not after.
Two developments make discretion abroad less realistic. The EU’s DAC8 directive requires crypto platforms to report users’ transactions to tax authorities from 2026, and the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) extends similar exchanges between countries. Whether and when Morocco joins those exchanges is not settled, but an MRE in Europe should assume their home tax office will see their platform data.
| Your situation | Tax usually follows | Exchange-control question |
|---|---|---|
| Resident in Morocco | Moroccan rules, no crypto ruling | Crypto abroad = foreign asset |
| MRE resident in the EU | Your EU country’s crypto rules | Bringing funds into Morocco |
| Returning MRE | Morocco from the date of residence | Declaring assets held on arrival |
| Tourist or expat on short stay | Home country | Limited, mind cash declarations |
What law 42.25 may change
Draft law 42.25 is a licensing and anti-money-laundering text, not a tax law. As reported, it would require crypto-asset service providers to be licensed by the AMMC, apply KYC, keep records for 10 years and report suspicious transactions to the ANRF.Hespress Critics noted that the draft requires reporting of all transactions with no threshold, and that it leaves the tax treatment of gains unclear.La Vie Éco
Our reading: once licensed platforms exist in Morocco, transaction data becomes available to the authorities, and a tax regime becomes both possible and likely. It would probably arrive through a Finance Law, possibly with a withholding mechanism at the platform level, as some experts have suggested. But that is speculation about a law that has not been adopted. So far, nothing has been announced.
When to see an accountant
You do not need a professional for a 1,000 MAD experiment. You do need one in the situations below, preferably an expert-comptable or lawyer who has handled Office des Changes files, not just tax returns.
- Your crypto holdings are significant compared with your declared income.
- You trade frequently, or other people’s money passes through your account.
- You are paid in crypto for work, as a freelancer or employee of a foreign company.
- You are returning to Morocco with crypto, or leaving with it.
- You receive any letter from the Office des Changes or the DGI.
Bring your exported histories and bank statements to the first meeting; it will save hours. If you plan to keep holding, a large exchange with clear licences abroad and downloadable statements helps. CEX.IO, for example, has operated since 2013, is registered with FinCEN, holds US money-transmitter licences (NMLS 1804170) and runs an EU entity in Spain. It accepts Moroccan users but not Moroccan Visa or Mastercard deposits, so you fund it with crypto. You can compare platforms in our ranking of the best crypto exchanges in Morocco, while our CEX.IO review and OTC guide cover larger holdings.
Use an exchange that provides full statements for every deposit, trade and withdrawal.
Licensed in several jurisdictions · external linkThis page is general information, not tax or legal advice. Rules may change quickly once law 42.25 moves forward, and we update this guide when they do.
Sources
Official and press sources cited in this guide. An external link does not imply any partnership.
- Médias24 on the CGI 2026medias24.com
- tax.gov.matax.gov.ma
- Upsilon Consultingupsilon-consulting.com
- Office des Changesoc.gov.ma
- Infomédiaireinfomediaire.net
- Hespressfr.hespress.com
- La Vie Écolavieeco.com
FAQ
Do I have to pay tax on crypto in Morocco?
No official rule says you must, or at what rate. The DGI has published no ruling or circular on crypto-assets, and the 2026 Finance Law contains no crypto measure that we found. General income-tax principles could apply to some gains, but how, and at what rate, has never been officially stated.
Is crypto taxed at 15% in Morocco?
Not officially. The 15% figure comes from article 73 of the General Tax Code, which sets rates for gains on certain securities such as listed shares. Crypto-assets are not listed there. Some websites apply the rate by analogy, but no DGI text confirms it, so treat it as an opinion, not a rule.
How do I declare crypto in Morocco?
There is no dedicated box or form for crypto on Moroccan tax returns. The more urgent issue is exchange control: the Office des Changes treats crypto held abroad as a foreign asset. If you hold significant amounts, ask a chartered accountant or lawyer how to document and, where possible, regularise your position.
Do Moroccans living abroad pay tax on crypto in Morocco?
Usually not in Morocco. MRE who are tax resident in France, Spain, Belgium or elsewhere are generally taxed on crypto gains in that country, under its own rules. Morocco's tax treaties decide which state can tax which income. Your country of residence, not your passport, is what usually matters.
Will law 42.25 introduce a crypto tax?
Not directly. The draft law on crypto-assets deals with licensing, stablecoins and anti-money-laundering. Analysts noted that it leaves tax treatment unclear. A tax regime would most likely come through a future Finance Law, but nothing had been announced at the time of writing.
When should I see an accountant about crypto?
As soon as the amounts become meaningful relative to your income, or when you trade often or for other people. You should also see one if you receive crypto as payment for work or return to Morocco with assets, and immediately if you receive a notice from the Office des Changes.
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