Company affiliation with the CNSS: how do you do it in 2026?

The affiliation of employers and the registration of employees take place under the conditions of these texts and of the CNSS regulations.

Affiliation requires the company to have:

• Been registered in the Commercial Register by the commercial court registry (greffe du tribunal de commerce) (Law 15-95; Law 53-95), which gives it its RC number (see the role of the Commercial Register in Morocco)
• Obtained its Tax Identifier (Identifiant Fiscal, IF) and its ICE from the DGI (ICE: Decree No. 2-11-63)
• Established a registered office in Morocco with supporting evidence (commercial lease, Law 49-16; ownership; or domiciliation, Law 89-17), without a physical office being necessary (see the physical address needed to set up a company in Morocco)

Affiliation is granted by the CNSS, which assigns the employer affiliation number. Law No. 88-17 makes it possible to complete the formation formalities electronically: with Charikaty, the CNSS affiliation application is filed online as part of the formation, at the same time as the Commercial Register registration file and the obtaining of the IF, the ICE and the professional tax (taxe professionnelle). You receive your affiliation number as soon as the CNSS has assigned it.

If the application was not made at the time of formation, the employer files it itself with the CNSS branch for its registered office, in practice within 30 days of recruiting the first employee:

Affiliation is free of charge: no fee is charged by the CNSS.

DAMANCOM is the CNSS electronic filing and online payment portal, the use of which is mandatory for employers. It allows:

• The monthly declaration of salaries (BDS: Bordereau de Déclaration des Salaires, salary declaration form)
• The electronic declaration of employee arrivals and departures
• The online payment of contributions
• The issuing of certificates (affiliation, good standing) and histories
• The management of registrations of new employees

Enrolment in DAMANCOM is done on www.damancom.ma with the employer affiliation number issued by the CNSS; the employer designates the authorized user or users there (director, accountant).

At each hire, the employer must:

1. Register the employee with the CNSS (registration application, copy of the CIN) if they do not already have a registration number (CNSS number)
2. Declare them on the BDS for the month concerned via DAMANCOM
3. Keep the employment contract (Labour Code: Law 65-99) and the identity documents

Employees who are already registered (having worked for a previous employer) keep their personal CNSS number. A foreign employee is registered under the same conditions, their contract having to be approved (visé) by the ministry responsible for Labour. An MRE director can handle all these procedures remotely. The other steps of hiring (written contract, register, first payroll) are detailed in the steps for hiring an employee in Morocco.

Once the company is affiliated, CNSS and AMO contributions in 2026 amount to 21.09% of gross salary payable by the employer and 6.74% payable by the employee, with a ceiling of 6,000 MAD per month for social benefits; the rates and the ceiling are set by regulation and may be revised. The breakdown by branch and worked examples are set out in the guide to the cost of an employee in Morocco (CNSS and AMO).

After affiliation, the employer declares salaries and pays contributions every month on DAMANCOM, before the 10th of the following month, failing which late payment surcharges, a reassessment and fines apply. The deadlines, procedures and penalties are detailed in the employer's CNSS obligations in Morocco.

Certain schemes provide for contributions to be covered or exempted:

• Tahfiz (Article 57-20° CGI): for businesses set up between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2026, the State covers the CNSS employer share and the TFP for 24 months, for a maximum of 10 employees on permanent contracts (CDI), gross salary ≤ 10,000 MAD (with IR exemption)
• Idmaj (ANAPEC integration contract, Article 57-16° CGI): internship allowance ≤ 6,000 MAD exempt from IR for 24 months and from CNSS contributions during the internship; in the event of hiring on a permanent contract (CDI), the employer share is covered for 12 months
• Sector-specific measures provided for by specific agreements

The conditions of these schemes change over time; check them at the time of recruitment in the ANAPEC, Tahfiz and Idmaj hiring incentives.

For each employee, the employer keeps:

• The signed employment contract (Law 65-99)
• Monthly payslips (Labour Code)
• Monthly DAMANCOM declarations and acknowledgements of receipt
• Proof of payment of contributions
• Registration and payment certificates

These documents are kept for 10 years (Article 211 CGI 2026; Law 9-88), on paper or electronically.

• IR on salaries is withheld at source by the employer and paid over to the DGI; the annual return of wages and salaries is filed before 1 March
• Social security charges (employer share) are deductible from taxable income (Article 10 CGI 2026)
• The IF, the ICE and the CNSS affiliation number appear on payslips and in the tax return package (liasse fiscale)

Here is what you need to affiliate your company with the CNSS: a registered company, its IF and its ICE, and proof of registered office. With Charikaty, the affiliation application is filed online together with the formation file. Charikaty is a private Moroccan legal-tech platform specializing in company formation and compliance. When your company is set up with our online SARL formation service, we file the CNSS affiliation application online together with the registration file, then we send you the affiliation number assigned by the CNSS together with your RC extract and your tax identifiers. More than 250 companies have already been set up with Charikaty. For enrolment in DAMANCOM, employee registration from the first hire and payroll, we refer you to chartered accountants (experts-comptables) registered with the OEC (Law 15-89).