For most of the past decade, Morocco’s startup ecosystem has existed in a state of polite optimism. It has infrastructure, policy ambition, talent, and just enough international interest to remain visible — but not quite enough regulatory oxygen to breathe freely.

When we spoke last year to Meriam Bessa, who had just closed an undisclosed round backed by Madica by Flourish Ventures, Renew Capital and Digital Africa, the constraints were less about product-market fit and more about basic financial plumbing.

“Moroccan startups can only access about $100,000 per year in foreign currency for international expenses like ads or SaaS tools,” she said at the time. “This is extremely restrictive compared to global competition. The current restrictions make it incredibly difficult for tech companies to pay for international software, cloud services, and talent. Easing these regulations is essential for us to compete globally.”

That complaint was hardly radical. It was, however, a neat summary of how Morocco’s foreign exchange rules — designed for a world of importers, exporters and family remittances — had become the single biggest bottleneck for modern, cloud-native businesses.

In 2026, that bottleneck is finally being loosened.

Morocco’s foreign currency rules grow up

The country’s Exchange Office has issued a new General Instruction on Foreign Exchange Operations (IGOC) 2026, replacing the 2024 framework. The changes are not cosmetic. They materially reshape how individuals, companies and — crucially — startups can access and move foreign currency.

The old system treated digital businesses as suspicious anomalies. The new one treats them as a policy constituency.

Where startups finally stop begging

The most consequential reforms are reserved for startups and e-commerce operators.

• The e-commerce grant for startups certified by the Digital Development Agency (ADD) has been raised from 1 million to 2 million dirhams (from $110,000 to $220,000) per year.
• A minimum grant of 50,000 dirhams is introduced for newly created companies, tax-exempt firms, or those with very low tax history — ensuring that early-stage founders are no longer locked out of the global internet economy simply because they have not yet had time to pay the taxman.
• For individuals, the annual e-commerce allowance rises from 15,000 to 20,000 dirhams.

The real departure from orthodoxy, however, is this:

Young innovative companies certified by the ADD can now make foreign investments related to their activities up to 10 million dirhams($1.1 million) per year, without meeting the usual three-year operating history or audited-accounts requirement.

In plain language: Moroccan startups can now invest abroad, acquire technology, set up operations or buy stakes in foreign companies while they are still young — not after they have aged into irrelevance.

This is the sort of policy detail that sounds dull until you realise it determines whether a founder can buy a US SaaS tool this month or must wait three financial years and a certified audit.

Travel and financial mobility

For individuals, the annual personal travel allowance is now meaningfully higher:

• Basic allowance: still 100,000 dirhams ($11,000) per person per year.
• Additional allowance: now capped at 400,000 dirhams, calculated as 30% of income tax paid in the previous year (up from 200,000 dirhams).
• Total annual ceiling: 500,000 dirhams ($55,000), compared with 300,000 previously.

Moroccan students abroad also get more breathing room, with their monthly allowance increased from 12,000 to 15,000 dirhams.

And in a quietly progressive move, resident foreigners now enjoy the same travel, study and medical treatment allowances as Moroccan citizens — an administrative detail that signals Morocco’s intent to behave like a regional hub rather than a gated economy.

There is also a concession to long-term foreign residents: those who have held investments in foreign currency for at least ten years can now transfer up to 2 million dirhams per year in investment income abroad, without providing proof of funding source. For a country keen on attracting patient capital, this is not nothing.

Business trips without bureaucratic gymnastics

Companies, too, get more room to manoeuvre.

• Firms without foreign-currency or convertible-dirham accounts see their annual business travel allowance doubled from 500,000 to 1 million dirhams, based on 100% of tax paid in the prior year.
• “Categorised operators” — essentially companies trusted by the Exchange Office — now have a ceiling of 1.5 million dirhams.

It is still tax-linked, still procedural, still Morocco. But the numbers now resemble something a mid-scale tech company might plausibly operate with.

The ecosystem Morocco is trying to build

The regulatory reset comes at a time when Morocco’s startup scene is quietly outperforming its own narrative.

According to Launch Base Africa, Morocco raised $128.4m in 2025, ranking sixth on the continent, with B2B SaaS, agritech and logistics emerging as core sectors and year-on-year growth of 18%.

Not unicorn territory — but real traction, particularly for a market long overshadowed by Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa.

What has been missing is not entrepreneurial energy, but regulatory alignment. Until now, Moroccan startups have been encouraged to “think global” while being permitted to spend local.

A new lease — with Moroccan conditions attached

None of this transforms Morocco into a frictionless sandbox. The allowances remain capped, tax-linked and permission-based. The Exchange Office is still very much in the room. And startups still need ADD certification to access the most generous provisions — a reminder that innovation in Morocco remains something you apply for.

But compared to the previous regime — where founders were rationing cloud credits like wartime sugar — IGOC 2026 marks a decisive shift in posture: from guarding foreign currency to enabling economic participation.

For Meriam Bessa and her peers, the question is no longer whether Moroccan regulation understands digital business, but whether this understanding will be applied quickly enough to matter.

For now, the country’s startups finally have something they have not had in years: not more pitch decks, not more incubators — but permission to operate like the global companies they are told they should become.