The Moroccan cash rebate is a reimbursement, not a tax credit. The production spends in Morocco, documents its expenditure, and the Centre cinématographique marocain (CCM) pays back 30% of the eligible expenditure base in a single payment. There is no assignment of receivables to arrange, no spreading across several financial years, and no cap to watch since 2022.
That simplicity comes at a price: the scheme is strict on three points, the minimum amount invested, the minimum shooting duration, and the obligation to work through an approved Moroccan production company. A production that misses any one of the three recovers nothing.
The principle and the rate
The applicable rate depends on the date on which the expenditure was incurred. The reform of 28 March 2022 raised the reimbursement from 20% to 30% and removed the cap that previously limited support to 18 million dirhams per project.
| Before 28 March 2022 | From 28 March 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Reimbursement rate | 20% of eligible expenditure | 30% of eligible expenditure |
| Cap per project | 18 million dirhams | No cap |
| Payment method | Single payment | Single payment |
The absence of a cap is what sets Morocco apart from most competing territories: on a production that spends 80 million dirhams locally, the support follows the spend instead of stopping at a ceiling.
The three access conditions
Ten million dirhams invested in Morocco
The project must represent an investment of at least 10 million dirhams excluding tax on Moroccan territory. The threshold applies to local spend, not to the film's total budget: an international production with a far larger budget that shoots only a few days in Morocco will not necessarily reach it.
A minimum of eighteen shooting days
The production must shoot at least 18 days in Morocco. Days spent on set construction count towards that total, which matters for projects with heavy sets: a period series that builds for several weeks in Ouarzazate reaches the threshold before the first day of shooting.
An approved Moroccan production company
A foreign production does not file its own application. It has to partner with a Moroccan company holding the operating licence (autorisation d'exercice) and the production approval (agrément de production) issued by the CCM. That company carries the application, executes the production on the ground and takes on responsibility for the compliance of the expenditure declared.
Which formats are eligible
The scheme targets long-form fiction and documentary. The CCM publishes the list of works admitted and the list of formats explicitly excluded.
| Eligible formats | Excluded formats |
|---|---|
| Feature-length fiction films | Animated films |
| Feature-length documentaries | Short films |
| Television fiction series | Promotional and corporate films |
| TV movies | Music videos |
| Docufiction | Reality TV |
| Fiction works intended exclusively for online distribution | Recordings of live performances |
The exclusion of advertising is worth noting, because it contrasts with the country's actual activity: the CCM authorised 116 commercial shoots in 2025. Those shoots therefore take place outside the support scheme, on the strength of the territory's economic and logistical appeal alone.
What goes into the expenditure base
An expense is only eligible if it is invoiced by an individual or legal entity established in Morocco and holding a tax identification number or a business tax number (patente). Two further rules then govern the base:
- No eligible expense may be settled in cash. Payments must be traceable.
- Eligible expenditure is capped at 90% of the total cost of the work.
The first rule has a practical consequence for the way a shoot is administered day to day: petty cash floats, payments to extras and last-minute purchases have to go through the banking system to stay inside the base. It is a point on which productions used to other territories are regularly caught out.
The timeline of the procedure
The scheme runs on fixed deadlines. Each stage starts a clock, and overrunning it forfeits the benefit of the support.
- Filing of the application with the CCM: nature of the project, distribution plan, budget and estimate of eligible expenditure.
- Response from the CCM within 30 days, subject to available funds.
- Payment by the production of a guarantee equal to 5% of the amount of support requested, within 30 days of the approval, a deadline that may be renewed once.
- Start of shooting within 6 months of the guarantee being lodged.
- Completion of the production within 12 months from the first day of shooting.
- Filing of the accounting file within 3 months of completion.
- Payment of the support in a single instalment, within a maximum of 180 days.
The 5% guarantee is returned in full when the project is completed. It is not a cost, but it ties up cash between the approval and the end of production, a line to build into the financing plan rather than discover along the way.
What the production gives in return
In exchange for the reimbursement, the production undertakes several commitments for the benefit of the CCM:
- Assign to the CCM the cultural exploitation rights in the work, from one year after its release.
- Deposit a copy of the film with the Centre.
- Authorise the use of extracts to promote the territory.
- Include a CCM credit in the end titles.
- Have settled in full all debts owed to suppliers and crews in Morocco.
The last condition is the most structuring one. Settling Moroccan suppliers and technicians is a precondition for payment: a production in dispute with its local service providers does not receive its rebate.
What the scheme has produced
The 2025 report published by the CCM gives the measure of the effect. Morocco hosted 48 foreign film and television shoots, representing more than 1.16 billion dirhams. Across all foreign formats combined, including commercials, corporate films and musical variety programmes, the total exceeds 1.21 billion dirhams, against 497 million in 2017.
| Production | Spend in Morocco |
|---|---|
| The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan) | 252 million dirhams |
| American series, working title “UNT Merc” | 234.3 million dirhams |
| The Terminal List, season 2 | 156.9 million dirhams |
| The Agency, season 2 | 113.9 million dirhams |
| Here Comes the Flood (Fernando Meirelles) | 42.7 million dirhams |
Domestic production accounted for 596.48 million dirhams over the same year. The technical ecosystem that foreign shoots find on the ground is therefore not sustained by them alone, which explains the availability of trained crews outside the peaks of international production.
In practice
Three trade-offs arise early in a project's development and decide access to the scheme: the volume of spend located in Morocco, the number of days actually shot there, and the choice of Moroccan partner. The first two are shooting schedule questions. The third is a structuring decision, because the partner carries the application, the shooting authorisation and the final accounting file.
