What are the accounting obligations of companies in Morocco in 2026?

The following are subject to accounting obligations, pursuant to Law No. 9-88:

• SARLs and SARL AUs (Law 5-96, as amended in particular by Laws 21-05, 24-10 and 21-19)
• SAs (Law 17-95)
• SASs (Law 5-96 as amended and supplemented by Law 19-20)
• Sole traders (natural persons) entered in the commercial register
• Auto-entrepreneurs (Law 114-13), who benefit from a lighter regime: they keep a register of purchases and sales without full accounts within the meaning of Law 9-88

From its registration in the commercial register, the company must therefore open its books, appoint the person who will keep the accounts (chartered accountant, certified accountant or in-house department) and retain all its supporting documents. The practical organization of this bookkeeping (in-house or with an accountant, software, filing of documents) is detailed in our guide to bookkeeping in Morocco.

Law 9-88 requires every trader, whether a natural person or a company, to keep regular, true and complete accounts that faithfully reflect the company's financial position and results. The Commercial Code (Code de commerce) (Law 15-95, Articles 19 et seq.) refers to this law and recognizes the evidentiary value of properly kept accounts. The CGNC sets out the methodology: chart of accounts, principles (going concern, consistency of methods, historical cost, prudence, accrual basis [spécialisation des exercices], clarity, materiality) and presentation of the financial statements. Entries are kept in dirhams and each financial year lasts 12 months; only a given financial year, in practice the first, may exceptionally be shorter.

Law 9-88 requires three statutory books to be kept:

The general journal and the inventory book must be numbered and initialled (cotés et paraphés) by the registry of the competent court (in practice, the commercial court registry) before they are used; they are kept without blanks or alterations. Each entry is based on a dated and retained supporting document, and transactions must be recorded in sufficient detail to allow each entry to be reconstructed from its supporting document. Companies whose annual turnover does not exceed 10 million dirhams may adopt a simplified accounting organization provided for by Law 9-88, without being exempted from properly keeping their books.

The General Accounting Standards Code (CGNC) provides for five financial statements (états de synthèse) at the close of each financial year:

• Balance sheet (Bilan)
• Income statement (Compte de Produits et Charges, CPC)
• Statement of management balances (État des Soldes de Gestion, ESG)
• Financing table (Tableau de Financement, TF)
• Statement of additional information (État des Informations Complémentaires, ETIC)

Companies whose turnover does not exceed 10 million MAD may present their financial statements using the simplified model of Law 9-88. The financial statements are drawn up by the management or the board of directors, submitted to the ordinary general meeting within 6 months of the year-end (Article 70 Law 5-96; Article 115 Law 17-95), then filed with the commercial court registry within 30 days of their approval (Article 95 Law 5-96; Article 158 Law 17-95). They also serve as the basis for the tax return package (liasse fiscale) filed online with the DGI within 3 months of the year-end (Article 20 CGI 2026). These deadlines are part of the calendar of annual obligations of companies in Morocco.

Article 22 of Law 9-88 and Article 211 of the CGI 2026 set the retention period at 10 years for books, financial statements, invoices, bank statements and all supporting documents. This period runs from the close of the financial year concerned. Documents may be kept on paper or in electronic form, provided that they remain legible and intact throughout the legal period, and that they are presented to the tax authorities in the event of an audit.

The chartered accountant (expert-comptable) is a professional governed by Law No. 15-89 and registered with the Order of Chartered Accountants (Ordre des Experts-Comptables, OEC). They keep or supervise the accounts, prepare the financial statements and tax returns, and support the company. The certified accountant (comptable agréé) (Law No. 127-12) may also keep the accounts of small and medium-sized enterprises. No law requires a SARL to entrust its accounts to an external professional, but responsibility for their regularity lies with the manager; in practice, most companies entrust their bookkeeping to a chartered accountant or a certified accountant (see when a chartered accountant is mandatory or useful).

The statutory auditor (commissaire aux comptes, CAC), provided for by Law 17-95 for the SA and by Law 5-96 (Article 80) for the SARL, is a chartered accountant registered with the OEC who carries out a statutory audit of the accounts, distinct from keeping them (details in our guide to the mandatory statutory auditor):

The accounts serve as the basis for the company's tax returns, presented in detail in our guide to the tax obligations of a new company in Morocco:

• Tax return: within 3 months of the year-end, by online filing on SIMPL (Article 20 CGI 2026)
• IS instalments: four instalments of 25% of the previous financial year's IS (Article 170 CGI 2026)
• Minimum contribution: 0.25% of turnover, minimum 3,000 MAD, with an exemption during the first 36 months of operation (Article 144 CGI 2026)
• VAT: monthly return if the previous year's taxable turnover reaches 1 million MAD, quarterly otherwise and for new taxpayers; online filing and payment before the end of the month following the period (Articles 87 to 125 CGI 2026)
• Invoices: mandatory particulars, including the ICE of the customer and of the supplier, and supporting documents for expenses (Articles 145 and 146 CGI 2026)
• 10-year retention: Article 211 CGI 2026

Advanced electronic signature (Law 43-20) and archiving with probative value facilitate the dematerialization of accounting documents. Retention of digital originals is permitted subject to compliance with integrity and time-stamping requirements.

The 2026 Finance Law (Law No. 50-25) goes a step further: the accounts must be kept in electronic format and the company must be able to provide the tax authorities, in particular during an audit, with an accounting entries file (fichier des écritures comptables, FEC) compliant with Opinion No. 24 of the National Accounting Council (Conseil National de la Comptabilité). In practice, the accounting software must number entries sequentially, prevent the deletion of validated entries, link each entry to a supporting document and generate the file for each financial year.

Failure to keep accounts, or irregular accounts, expose the company to the following consequences, which are in addition to the other non-compliance penalties for companies in Morocco:

• Rejection of the accounts during an audit, with the turnover and profit reconstructed by the authorities (Article 213 CGI 2026)
• Ex officio assessment (taxation d'office) in the event of failure to file a return or refusal to present the accounting documents (Articles 228 and 229 CGI 2026)
• Surcharges and late payment penalties provided for by the CGI 2026 on the reassessed tax
• Where applicable, the civil and criminal liability of the directors (Law 5-96 for the SARL; Law 17-95 for the SA; Law 5-96 as amended and supplemented by Law 19-20 for the SAS), in particular in the event of failure to draw up the financial statements or presentation of inaccurate accounts, and also under the Commercial Code in the event of collective insolvency proceedings (procédure collective)

To be compliant, here is what you need: books kept in accordance with Law 9-88 and the CGNC, financial statements approved and then filed with the registry, and documents kept for 10 years. With Charikaty, a private Moroccan legal-tech platform, you do everything online: we set up your SARL, SARL AU, SAS or SA remotely, then support you with the compliance that follows registration, with corporate secretarial services (approval of the accounts, minutes), filings with the commercial court registry and introduction, through our accounting service, to a partner chartered accountant registered with the Order (Law 15-89) who keeps your accounts in accordance with Law 9-88, the CGNC and the CGI 2026. You send your documents online and we coordinate the rest.

More than 250 companies have already been set up with Charikaty.