Auto-entrepreneur status for e-commerce in Morocco

Most online stores in Morocco start small: one person, one phone, a product, a few ads and a delivery company that collects cash at the door. Sooner or later the seller has to decide how to operate legally. For a single person selling goods, the usual answer is the auto-entrepreneur status. It was created by law 114-13, it runs on a national register, and it taxes turnover at a flat, very low rate. In November 2024 the Minister Delegate for the Budget, quoted by Hespress, put the number of people holding it at 434,289.

The status also comes with caps, a periodic declaration, compulsory social-security membership and a few traps that hit online sellers harder than most. This guide covers who can register and how, the caps, the tax, social cover, declarations and records, what happens when you outgrow the status, and when a company starts to make more sense. It is based on the Directorate General of Taxes (DGI) guide for 2026, as summarised by Le Matin in August 2026, and on earlier official announcements reported by the Moroccan press. It is general information, not legal or tax advice: the rules can change with every finance law, so have an accountant or tax adviser check your own situation before you act.

Who can become an auto-entrepreneur

The status is open to any natural person carrying on a professional activity on their own. The DGI’s 2026 guide adds three points worth knowing before you start:

• Owning shares is fine. Being a partner or shareholder in a company does not stop you registering, provided you do not work in that company.
• An activity already taxed must be closed first. Anyone already running an activity subject to business tax (taxe professionnelle) has to cease it before joining the National Register of Auto-Entrepreneurs (RNAE).
• Some professions are excluded. The list includes architects, lawyers, doctors, dentists, chartered accountants, notaries, pharmacists, vets, hotel operators, booksellers, publishers, customs agents and property developers.

Selling physical products online, whether clothing, cosmetics, accessories or homeware, is normally a commercial activity, the category with the higher cap and the lower tax rate. Choose your main activity with care when you register, because that choice settles both. If you also sell a service on the side, such as running ads or building stores for other sellers, that part counts as services, with its own cap and rate. When you are unsure which activity code fits, ask before registering rather than after your first declaration.

Social-security membership is also a condition of the status (see the CNSS section below). And you may domicile the activity at home, which suits a seller who keeps a small stock in a spare room.

How to register

Registration goes through the national register’s portal, ae.gov.ma, operated with Barid Al-Maghrib. You start online from a personal space, and the file can then be completed through the network of partner agencies. In 2021 Médias24 reported that registration was possible at 5,460 partner agencies around the country, banks included. You do not need to wait for the physical card to begin trading: an auto-entrepreneur can work with the registration certificate downloaded from the personal space.

Two obligations start straight away. First, give the DGI an email address so that the tax administration can send you its notices electronically. Second, keep your domiciliation address up to date with the register: law 114-13 lists failing to report a change of address among the grounds for removal.

Before you register, confirm three things: that your activity is not on the excluded list, that you do not already run an activity under business tax, and which category, commerce or services, your main activity belongs to. If you are only starting out, our guide to selling online in Morocco as a beginner covers the commercial side.

The revenue caps

The status sets two annual caps: 500,000 MAD for commercial, industrial and craft activity, and 200,000 MAD for services. The DGI is explicit that the figure that counts is turnover actually collected.

For a cash-on-delivery seller, that has three practical consequences:

• The cap is on sales, not profit. A store selling on thin margins hits the cap with far less profit than a consultant on the same turnover. Spread over twelve months, the commercial cap is a little over forty-one thousand dirhams of collected sales a month, a level a COD store with steady advertising can reach quickly.
• A refused parcel is not turnover. An order that came back was never paid, so it was never collected. Your declaration should follow delivered, paid orders, not orders placed or parcels shipped.
• All your stores add up. The status belongs to a person, not to a website. If you run several stores or brands, their collected sales count toward the same cap.

To see what your turnover looks like once returns and delivery are taken out, run the numbers in our COD calculator.

The tax: a percentage of collected turnover

Income tax is calculated directly on collected turnover, with no deduction for expenses. The rate is 0.5% for commercial, industrial and craft activity up to 500,000 DH, and 1% for services within the annual limit of 200,000 DH. These rates settle the income tax in full: there is no second calculation at year end. They date from the 2019 finance law which, according to a DGI notice reported by Hespress, set them at 0.5% instead of 1% for commerce and 1% instead of 2% for services; the 2026 guide keeps them unchanged.

Two further advantages apply. The auto-entrepreneur is outside the scope of VAT, because turnover stays below the 500,000 DH VAT threshold, and is exempt from business tax for five years from the start of the activity. There is also no obligation to join the trade register or to keep formal accounts.

Because the tax falls on turnover, ad spend, delivery fees, packaging and stock purchases do not reduce it. At these rates that rarely hurts, but it changes the comparison with a company, which is taxed on profit (see below).

The 80,000 DH rule for a single client

Service providers have a second limit to watch. When annual turnover with one client goes over 80,000 DH, the surplus bears a 30% withholding tax deducted by that client, at the rate set by article 73 of the General Tax Code. The rule came in with the 2023 finance law, during whose passage the threshold was raised from 50,000 DH to 80,000 DH. In November 2024, while the 2025 budget was being examined, the government turned down amendments to raise it to 100,000 or even 200,000 dirhams, citing the risk of disguised employment. The DGI’s 2026 guide still includes it.

A store selling its own products to the public is not affected, since every buyer is a different client. The rule does matter for the people working around the store:

• a confirmation agent, media buyer or designer working as an auto-entrepreneur for a single store;
• a seller who also runs ads or builds stores for one main client;
• a store owner who pays such freelancers, because the client is the one who must withhold.

If your confirmation team is paid as auto-entrepreneurs, ask an accountant to check how much each person invoices you over the year.

CNSS and health insurance (AMO)

Membership of the social-security scheme is a condition of the status, and social cover opens on registration with the RNAE. Auto-entrepreneurs were brought into the compulsory health insurance run by the CNSS once the decrees were adopted in November 2021: for this group, contributions became due on 1 February 2022 and benefits began on 1 March 2022, and children and spouses can be covered too.

The contribution amount is set by regulation. Check the one that applies to you in your personal space or with the CNSS, rather than trusting the figures in online guides, which contradict each other. What matters most is paying on time: leaving social and tax contributions unpaid for a year is one of the grounds for removal from the register.

Declarations, invoices and records

An auto-entrepreneur declares turnover actually collected, monthly or quarterly, depending on the option chosen. On the monthly option, declaration and payment are due before the end of the month after the month of collection; on the quarterly option, before the end of the month after the quarter. Declarations and payments can be made electronically through Barid Al-Maghrib. Filing nothing, or declaring zero turnover from the second year after registration, can lead to removal. As for penalties, in 2019 the DGI cut the minimum surcharge for a missing or late declaration from 500 to 100 dirhams.

No formal accounts does not mean no paperwork: auto-entrepreneurs remain subject to the rules on tax audits, disputes, penalties and limitation periods. For a COD seller, a simple file is enough:

• a register of payments received (date, order number, amount, payment method), kept as you go;
• each delivery company’s remittance statements, showing what was collected from customers and what was kept as fees;
• your suppliers’ purchase invoices and your bank statements.

The courier collects the price the customer pays, then sends you that amount minus its fees. Ask your accountant which of the two figures to declare; either way, keep both for every parcel so you can answer whichever way the question is put. For invoices, which business customers and some suppliers will ask for, invoice in your own name with the identifiers shown on your card or certificate, number invoices in sequence and keep a copy of each.

When turnover goes over the cap

Going over once does not cost you the status. According to the DGI, the regime keeps applying as long as the limits are not exceeded for two consecutive years. After that, unless you opt for the simplified net result or for the single professional contribution (CPU), professional income moves to the actual net result regime from the 1 January following those two years.

Exceeding the caps two years running is also one of the grounds for removal, along with not declaring, switching to another status and unpaid contributions for a year. In practice, track your cumulative collected turnover every month. Treat the first year above the cap as a warning: you then have roughly a year to choose your next regime instead of having it chosen for you.

When to move to a SARL or SARL AU

The single-member SARL has become the most common company form in Morocco. Of the 109,656 companies created in 2025, single-member SARLs made up 64.8% of creations and multi-member SARLs 34.4%, according to OMPIC figures published on the national portal.

Switching to a company usually makes sense when:

• your collected sales pass the cap for a second year, or are clearly heading there;
• you bring in a partner or an investor;
• business customers, platforms or suppliers require a company;
• you want the business’s assets kept apart from your own: a company is a separate legal person, and in a SARL the partners’ liability is limited to what they put in;
• you are hiring and want a structure that can grow with the team.

In return, a company registers with the trade register, keeps accounts, pays tax on its profit and comes into VAT depending on its activity, and you will need to budget for an accountant. Compare both scenarios over a full year, using your real margins, before you decide.

Keeping your figures straight with Cashod

Staying within the rules starts with knowing what you really collected. Cashod tracks returned parcels, and each carrier’s delivery and return fees are set per city in it, so you can separate orders delivered and paid from parcels that came back: the difference between turnover you collected and orders that never turned into money. See the returns page.

One Cashod account can manage several stores, which helps when more than one site counts toward the same 500,000 MAD cap for commercial activity. See multi-store. And if you confirm orders by phone, Cashod includes a call center where agents confirm COD orders. Cashod does not replace your accountant or file your declarations, but it gives you the figures to hand over.

Checklist before you register

• Check that your activity is not excluded, and choose the right category: commerce for selling products.
• Declare collected turnover every month or every quarter, even when it is small.
• Pay social and tax contributions on time: a year of arrears can cost you the status.
• Keep a register of payments received and your delivery companies’ statements.
• Watch the cap every month and plan your next step from the first year you exceed it.
• If you pay freelancers, remember the 80,000 DH per-client rule.

The DGI itself says its guide is a simplified document that does not replace the laws in force. This article is not legal or tax advice: check each point with a professional, and on the official portal, before making a decision.