Morocco film incentives rest on a single instrument: a 30% rebate on eligible spend, paid in cash by the Centre Cinematographique Marocain after the shoot is finished and audited. The rate is set in law rather than negotiated project by project, which makes Morocco unusually predictable to model at the budgeting stage.
What the headline rate does not tell you is where productions actually fall out of the scheme. The disqualifiers are rarely the percentage. They are the eighteen-day floor, a distribution clause most summaries omit, a spend threshold measured on eligible expenses rather than on the budget, and a commission that meets twice a year and pays subject to the funds it has left.
This page sets out the scheme as the governing joint order actually writes it, including the conditions that decide whether a claim survives the audit.
How the CCM Rebate Actually Works
The scheme reimburses foreign production companies shooting cinematographic and audiovisual work in Morocco. It is administered by the Centre Cinematographique Marocain, the CCM, through a support commission that rules on applications and fixes the final amount. The application and preliminary approval precede filming; final support is calculated against eligible expenditure actually incurred and documented, not against a projection.
The figures on this page are taken from the scheme’s governing instruments rather than from summaries of them: Joint Order 2117-18, which fixes the rate and the conditions, Decree 2.12.325, which it operates under, and the CCM chart of accounts, whose annex carries the definitive list of eligible expenses. Where a claim on this page departs from what is commonly published about Morocco, the order is the reason.
The Rate, and the Word That Narrows It
The rate is 30% of eligible expenses, excluding taxes, incurred in Morocco. That exclusion does real work in a budget. Recoverable and non-recoverable tax lines have to come out of the qualifying base before the 30% is applied, so a production modelling 30% of its gross Moroccan spend will overstate the rebate. Model it on the net, tax-excluded figure.
Against the international field, 30% is a mid-table rate rather than a headline one, and Morocco does not compete at the top of the table on percentage alone. Where it competes is on the ratio of production value to cost, and on rate stability. The current statutory rate is 30%, and the applicable terms should be confirmed in the project’s preliminary approval. Our Europe vs MENA film incentives comparison sets the regional picture out country by country.
Which Formats Qualify
The order names the eligible work precisely: a feature film, a television fiction series, a TV movie, a docu-fiction or documentary, or an audiovisual work of fiction intended for exclusive exploitation on the internet. The work may be partly or fully of that kind, which gives some latitude to hybrid projects.
Two categories sit outside that list and are worth naming because producers ask about them regularly. Commercials and music videos are not among the qualifying formats, and a production planning advertising work in Morocco should not budget the rebate against it. Internet-only fiction qualifies, but carries lighter obligations at the back end, as set out below.
The Ten Million Dirham Floor Is Measured on Spend, Not Budget
Eligible expenses can be no less than 10 million dirhams (about US$1 million, indicative at the production’s budget rate). This is the threshold most guides restate incorrectly. It is not a minimum budget. It is a minimum of eligible expenses, and because eligible expenses may not exceed 90% of the total production budget invested in Morocco, a production needs a Moroccan budget nearer 11.1 million dirhams before its eligible expenses can reach the floor at all.
A production sitting close to the line should model that gap deliberately. Clearing 10 million dirhams of gross Moroccan spend is not the same as clearing 10 million dirhams of eligible, tax-excluded, 90%-capped expense, and the difference decides eligibility rather than merely trimming the return.
What Counts, and What Cannot Be Paid in Cash
Eligible expenditure runs to local talent and crew, hotel bills, airline tickets, studios, equipment rental, transport, fuel, art department spend and aerial work. The list is broad by international standards, and it reaches costs that several European schemes push outside the qualifying base.
Two mechanical rules govern how that spend must be evidenced. Eligible expenses cannot be paid in cash, and they must run through a convertible dirham account opened with a Moroccan banking institution. A production that settles a supplier informally has not merely broken a procedure. It has removed that expenditure from its own claim.
Co-Productions Are Assessed on the Foreign Share Only
Where the work is a Moroccan-foreign co-production, the eligibility requirements are applied to the portion accruing to the foreign co-producer, and to imported capital disbursed exclusively and directly by the foreign producer in Morocco. The Moroccan producer’s own spend does not carry the foreign partner over the threshold.
The financing plan must therefore include a detailed breakdown of expenditure between the foreign producer and the Moroccan producer. This is the clause that most often surprises a co-production structured for convenience rather than for the claim: a project comfortably above 10 million dirhams in aggregate can fail the floor once the spend is split along the line the CCM actually tests.
| Parameter | Position under the joint order |
|---|---|
| Rate | 30% of eligible expenses, excluding taxes |
| Minimum eligible expenses | 10,000,000 MAD (about US$1 million, indicative) |
| Ceiling on eligible expenses | 90% of the total budget invested in Morocco |
| Minimum shooting days | 18, including set construction days |
| Distribution | International distribution required |
| Qualifying formats | Feature, TV fiction series, TV movie, docu-fiction, documentary, internet-only fiction |
| Application | Before shooting, and subject to availability of funds |
| Bank guarantee | 5% of the support requested, renewable once only |
| Start and finish | 6 months to start; finish by end of month 12 from day one |
| Payment file | Within 90 days of the last shooting day |
| Payment | One tranche, no later than 180 days after the commission’s decision on the complete file |
| Commission sittings | Twice a year, and whenever necessary |
| Cap | No scheme cap under the framework effective from 28 March 2022. Support remains subject to available funds, preliminary approval and the commission’s decision |
The Conditions That Quietly Disqualify Productions
The joint order attaches conditions that sit outside the financial thresholds entirely. Each is binary. A production either satisfies it or receives nothing, and the commission is required to reason any rejection it makes.
Eighteen Days, Counting Set Construction
The minimum shooting time in Morocco is eighteen days. Where the work requires sets to be built, the minimum duration includes the days spent building them. That inclusion is worth reading twice: a schedule with fourteen shooting days and five construction days clears the floor, while a lean sixteen-day shoot with no build does not.
The International Distribution Clause
The work must have international distribution. This condition appears in the order itself and is absent from most fixer summaries of the scheme, which makes it a quiet risk for productions whose distribution is regional, unsold or platform-specific at the point of application. It is a question worth settling with the CCM in writing before a bank guarantee is lodged, not after.
What Morocco Asks in Return
Support is conditional on obligations that continue long after wrap. The company transfers cultural exploitation rights in Morocco to the CCM for an indefinite period, beginning one year after the film’s first worldwide commercial release. Those rights cover non-commercial screenings at Moroccan cinematographic events rather than any commercial exploitation, but they are permanent.
A copy of the film is deposited with the CCM. The CCM may use excerpts in campaigns promoting Morocco as a shooting or tourist destination. The opening credits must carry the wording “This film has benefited from Morocco’s support for cinematographic production” in the language of the credits, though the CCM may substitute a visual equivalent. Internet-first fiction and documentary work is carved out of the rights transfer and the deposit.
Morocco has long doubled for territories it does not resemble politically, which is why the stand-in question comes up early in scheduling. We set the trade-offs against an Indian alternative out in our Rajasthan and Morocco comparison.
From Application to Payment
The chain has four fixed points: a request before the shoot, a bank guarantee, a payment file within ninety days of wrap, and a single transfer within a hundred and eighty days of the commission examining that file. Each has a consequence attached to missing it.
The Request Goes In Before the Camera Turns
The application is addressed to the CCM before shooting, specifying the nature of the production, the type of distribution, the shooting duration, the schedule, the planned investment in Morocco and the amount of support requested. There is no retrospective route. A production that shoots first has forfeited the scheme entirely.
Requests go to the Secretary of the Commission for Foreign Production Support, overseen by the Director of the CCM, at the Centre Cinématographique Marocain in Rabat: +212 (0) 537 289 200, contact@ccm.ma. The CCM’s foreign production pages carry the current forms and terms.
The order also states that support is granted subject to the availability of funds. This is not boilerplate. It means the scheme is budget-limited, and that an eligible production is not automatically a funded one.
The Five Percent Bank Guarantee, and How It Is Lost
Within thirty days of receiving the application, the CCM invites the company to lodge a bank guarantee of 5% of the support requested. The company then has thirty days to provide it, renewable once only. The guarantee is refunded if the planned investment materialises in full, and released pro rata where the amount invested falls short.
It is forfeited outright if the production does not take place, is cancelled, is not completed, or misses the time limits: work must begin within six months of filing the bond, and finish by the end of the twelfth month after the first day of filming. The guarantee is the scheme’s enforcement mechanism, and it is the reason a speculative application carries a real cost.
Ninety Days to File, and the Payment Window
Within ninety days of the last day of filming, the company submits its payment request. The file is substantial: company constitution and registration, proof of copyright acquisition, the filming authorisation, the detailed schedule, daily call sheets for every Moroccan shooting day, contracts signed with Moroccan technicians and performers, a final cost statement, and a summary of actual expenditure supported by vouchers and certified by a statutory auditor.
Every accounting document must carry two references: a chronological expenditure number and a charge allocation number matching the classification in the specifications. That requirement is decided in pre-production, in how the production accountant codes the ledger, not in the three months after wrap. Retrofitting it to a finished shoot is where claims stall.
Assembling that file, and holding the call sheets, contracts and coded ledger that support it, is production office work rather than paperwork done at the end. It is the part of the scheme our line producer Morocco desk is built around, alongside the temporary import chain the CCM’s customs facilitation is designed to smooth: our airport, cargo and customs checklist covers the carnet and clearance sequence in full.
A Commission That Sits Twice a Year
The support commission meets twice a year, and otherwise when necessary, with applications circulated at least a week before it sits. It deliberates only with four members present and decides by majority. It may also increase support where the amount actually invested exceeds the amount stated in the request, again subject to available funds.
Payment is a single installment to the production’s Moroccan account, within a maximum of one hundred and eighty days after the commission examines a complete file. Read the calendar honestly: ninety days to assemble, a wait for the next sitting, then up to a hundred and eighty days to pay. Morocco is not a fast rebate, and a production financing against it should price that.
What the Audit Actually Tests
The commission is charged with verifying compliance with the commitments the foreign producer gave, and with ruling on the claim according to the cost classification in the specifications. It may engage a chartered accountant to do that, at its own cost rather than the production’s. Any rejection of expenditure, in whole or in part, must be reasoned.
In practice the audit tests whether the ledger matches the classification the production agreed to at application, whether each line is evidenced by a voucher a statutory auditor will certify, and whether the money moved through the convertible dirham account. A production that can answer those three questions on demand, with the supporting documentation in order, is positioned for a smoother audit; one that cannot should plan for a longer review.
Budgeting Morocco Against the Alternatives
Morocco is chosen for what it can put in frame at a given cost, with the rebate improving a decision that was already sound. Productions that invert that order, chasing the percentage first, tend to find the conditions unforgiving.
A Worked Example
Take a production placing 15 million dirhams into Morocco (around US$1.8 million, indicative). Strip the taxes and the non-qualifying lines and suppose 12 million dirhams survives as eligible expense. That clears the 90% ceiling test comfortably and sits above the 10 million floor, so the claim is live. The rebate is 30% of 12 million, or 3.6 million dirhams (around US$430,000, indicative).
Now move the same production to 11 million dirhams of Moroccan spend. The 90% ceiling caps eligible expense at 9.9 million, which is below the floor. The rebate is not reduced. It is zero. The scheme has a cliff rather than a slope near the threshold, and productions budgeting close to it should model the cliff rather than the rate.
Morocco, Jordan and the Gulf
Jordan pays from a 25% base rising to 45% through a points system, over a minimum spend, and delivers through a single-window permit office. Abu Dhabi runs a 35% base reaching up to 50%. Saudi Arabia now heads the region at up to 60%, the top of a fast-moving Middle East film incentives landscape. Morocco does not answer any of those on rate.
It answers on depth. Six decades of foreign production have left a crew base, a studio infrastructure at Ouarzazate and a familiarity with large international units that the higher-paying schemes are still building. The CCM can also coordinate institutional access, subject to the relevant approvals: liaison with the Royal Armed Forces, the Royal Gendarmerie and the National Police, and access to historic sites and monuments. Our Jordan incentives and locations guide sets out the closest regional comparison.
What the CCM Brings Beyond the Cash
The commission attaches services to the rebate that carry real budget value. Where approved, institutional support can run through the Royal Armed Forces, the Royal Navy, the Royal Gendarmerie and the National Police, coordination that supports large-scale sequences. A one-stop service handles contacts with the departments and authorities involved in filming.
Customs facilitation simplifies temporary import and export for filming equipment, and preferential rates apply at historic sites and monuments. For a production weighing a mid-table 30% against a higher headline elsewhere, these are the lines that close the gap, because each one removes a cost or a delay that a rebate percentage never touches.
What the Rebate Does Not Cover
Nothing spent outside Morocco qualifies, and nothing spent with suppliers outside Morocco qualifies, unless the terms specify otherwise. For a production with a substantial travelling department, that clause decides more of the return than the rate does.
The CCM may inspect filming at any point during production. Where a producer is found to have breached its commitments, the CCM may pursue reimbursement of part or all of the support through the courts, in Morocco or abroad. The support is recoverable, which is a materially different risk profile from a rebate that is final once paid.
Where the Cap Question Stands
Morocco’s rebate is uncapped. The former ceiling of 18 million dirhams per production applied before 28 March 2022; the support framework effective from that date carries no scheme cap.
The ceiling that still appears in the historical Joint Order describes the pre-2022 position and is not a present-day limit. Support remains subject to available funds, preliminary approval and the commission’s decision, so a large production confirms the current terms in its preliminary approval rather than against the older figure.
The conditions, not the cap, are where the scheme is won or lost. Morocco’s 30% is dependable and written into law. The eighteen days, the distribution clause, the funds availability and the forfeitable guarantee are where productions win or lose the money.
