Glovo has closed all seven of its dark stores in Morocco, suspending an urban grocery delivery model the company had spent years quietly building across the country’s largest cities. The shutdowns, which took effect last week, span sites in Tangier, Mohammedia, Casablanca, Dar Bouazza and Marrakech — and appear to have been triggered by a single administrative order that then cascaded into a nationwide withdrawal.

The closure came without public explanation from Glovo’s management. Attempts to reach the company’s Morocco operation for comment were unsuccessful at the time of publication.

One Order, Seven Closures

According to local press reports, the immediate trigger was an administrative decision issued by the authorities of Nouâceur province, targeting Glovo’s Dar Bouazza dark store. Within days of that site going dark last Thursday, the company’s six remaining locations followed. The speed and uniformity of the closure strongly suggests a coordinated, top-down decision by Glovo’s leadership rather than separate local compliance actions.

Dark stores — warehouses repurposed as fulfilment centres invisible to the public — have been central to Glovo’s ambition to move beyond restaurant delivery and into on-demand retail. Customers in Morocco could not visit the locations directly; instead, orders placed through the app were assembled on site and dispatched to riders within minutes. The model mirrored what Glovo and rivals such as Gorillas and Getir have deployed across European cities, and it had begun to carve out a meaningful share of urban grocery demand.

A Regulator Sharpening Its Teeth

The closures arrive at the end of a bruising stretch with Morocco’s Competition Council that began in late 2024, when the regulator conducted a dawn raid on Glovo’s Casablanca offices following a complaint filed by Kooul, a local rival delivery platform. The probe alleged that Glovo had abused its dominant market position, primarily by locking restaurants into exclusivity clauses that prevented them from listing on competing services.

In July 2025, the two sides reached a settlement. Glovo agreed to remove all exclusivity clauses from its restaurant contracts, cap its commission rates at 30 per cent, provide clearer criteria for partner visibility and rankings on the app, and improve the pay conditions of its couriers. The settlement also involved an undisclosed financial penalty. Days before the agreement was signed, Glovo’s riders in Casablanca staged protests over pay — a sign of the mounting internal and external pressures the company was managing simultaneously.

The dark store closures now appear to be part of the same risk-management logic. While the company’s restaurant and retail delivery services continue to operate, it has chosen to pause the element of its business most likely to attract further scrutiny — a vertically integrated model that gives Glovo direct control over inventory, rather than simply connecting customers with third-party merchants.

What the closures mean for the workers employed inside the dark stores — pickers, supervisors, logistics staff — is not yet clear. Glovo has not stated whether the suspension is temporary or permanent, nor whether it intends to restructure the dark store model to bring it into compliance, exit the format entirely in Morocco, or wait for the regulatory landscape to stabilise before resuming. The absence of communication has left both employees and restaurant partners uncertain about the company’s direction.

For the broader market, the pause is notable. Glovo’s dark stores represented one of the more sophisticated logistical bets in Moroccan e-commerce, and their withdrawal cedes space in fast-delivery retail to potential rivals — including, conceivably, Kooul, the very competitor whose complaint set the regulatory process in motion.

What Comes Next

Morocco’s Competition Council has signalled it intends to maintain close oversight of delivery platforms. The 30 per cent commission cap and the removal of exclusivity clauses are already reshaping how platforms negotiate with restaurant partners across the country. If Glovo’s dark store pause proves to be a permanent exit, it will mark a significant retreat from a model that had been held up internally as proof that the company could expand beyond food delivery.

The Morocco episode is a live test of how one of Europe’s largest food delivery groups handles the tension between platform scale and local regulatory accountability — and whether the competitive dynamics that triggered the original complaint have genuinely changed, or merely gone underground.

Key Facts: Glovo’s Morocco Timeline

— Late 2024: Morocco’s Competition Council raids Glovo’s Casablanca offices following a complaint by local rival Kooul.

— July 2025: Glovo settles with the regulator, agreeing to remove restaurant exclusivity clauses, cap commissions at 30%, and improve courier pay.

— Early 2026: Administrative order targets Glovo’s Dar Bouazza dark store; all seven Moroccan dark stores close within days.

— Glovo’s restaurant and retail delivery services continue to operate; only the dark store network is suspended.

Glovo did not respond to requests for comment. This article will be updated if the company provides a statement.