Morocco Public Holidays 2026: Calendar and Payroll Impact

If you're running payroll for a Moroccan hire, or waiting on an invoice from a Casablanca-based contractor, Morocco's public holiday calendar isn't just trivia. It decides when banks close, when CNSS offices stop processing paperwork, and when a payslip needs to reflect a paid day off.

Morocco recognizes 11 fixed civil public holidays in 2026, plus up to 6 days tied to religious observances that shift each year based on the lunar calendar and are only confirmed by Morocco's Ministry of Islamic Affairs a few days beforehand. Salaried employees, including those hired through an umbrella company (portage salarial), are paid in full on these days even if they don't work.

What are Morocco's fixed civil holidays in 2026?

These eleven dates are set by government decree and don't move from year to year, unlike the religious holidays below. They apply nationwide, including to employees hired through an Employer of Record or umbrella company arrangement, since those contracts fall under standard Moroccan labor law.

Amazigh New Year is a fairly recent addition, folded into the official paid calendar in 2024. Worth noting for anyone budgeting payroll disruption: two of these eleven days land on a weekend in 2026 (January 11, October 31), which slightly reduces the actual impact on working days.

Several independent Moroccan HR sources (DRH.ma, AgendaMaroc) were cross-checked to confirm these eleven dates for 2026, and they agree on the full list.

Compared to some other nearshoring destinations in the region, Morocco's civil calendar is relatively light and predictable, which is one of the reasons companies use it as a payroll benchmark when comparing EOR options across North Africa. Knowing these eleven dates in advance, rather than discovering them one at a time through a payroll provider's notice, makes it much easier to forecast staffing coverage for a support or engineering team operating on Moroccan hours.

When are Morocco's religious holidays in 2026?

Unlike the civil dates, religious holidays follow the Hijri lunar calendar and aren't officially confirmed until the crescent moon is sighted, typically a day or two before the holiday itself.

These dates are estimates. They can shift by a day depending on the official moon-sighting announcement, and the exact length of Mawlid Ennabawi in particular varies from year to year. If you're managing payroll or an onboarding date through an EOR, build in a one-day buffer around each religious holiday rather than scheduling a payment on the estimated date itself. It's the kind of detail most foreign companies only learn about after their first missed transfer.

Is a public holiday paid for an employee under an umbrella company?

Yes, and the protection is stronger than most foreign employers expect. Morocco's Labor Code (Law 65-99, articles 217 to 220) bars employers from requiring staff to work on officially designated paid holidays. For salaried staff paid monthly, pay cannot be reduced because of a holiday, whether or not it's formally listed as a paid day. Employees paid hourly or daily receive compensation equal to their normal daily wage for that day.

This rule applies in full to anyone employed through an umbrella company, since their contract is governed by Moroccan labor law just like a standard fixed-term or permanent contract. To see how an umbrella company arrangement actually works in Morocco, the payslip issued by the provider needs to reflect that day without deducting it from net pay.

What if the business has to stay open?

Some sectors, call centers, hospitality, manufacturing, can't fully shut down on a public holiday. In that case, an employee who actually works gets their normal pay for the day plus an equal additional allowance, and is entitled to a compensating day off within 30 days.

What Morocco's holidays mean for EOR and umbrella company payroll planning

For a foreign company hiring in Morocco without a local entity, through an Employer of Record or umbrella company, the holiday calendar becomes a real HR planning input. Morocco's payroll cycle, typically anchored to month-end, needs to account for these dates when calculating payslips, filing the employer's monthly CNSS declaration, and releasing contributions.

Three windows deserve extra attention in 2026: late March (Aïd Al Fitr), late May (Aïd Al Adha, which lands mid-month this year), and August, which packs four separate public holidays into three weeks. Companies planning an onboarding date, a first salary payment, or what an Employer of Record actually costs in Morocco should schedule those operations outside these windows, since Moroccan administrative processing times stretch out around them.

An experienced EOR or umbrella company provider builds this calendar into its own planning and flags sensitive periods to clients ahead of time, rather than letting them discover a delayed transfer the day before it's due.

Take a mid-size SaaS company based in Berlin hiring its first Moroccan support engineer through an EOR. If the offer letter sets a start date of August 19, the new hire's first week overlaps with three public holidays in a row, Revolution Day, Youth Day, and the following weekend. Nothing wrong with that on paper, but the onboarding checklist, laptop delivery, CNSS registration, bank account setup, effectively gets compressed into two working days instead of five. Shifting the start date by a week avoids the bottleneck entirely, and it's the kind of adjustment a Morocco-based EOR team will usually suggest before you even ask.

There's a knock-on effect that's easy to miss: Moroccan banks and CNSS offices close on these days too, which delays international transfers. A company based in London or New York that initiates a salary payment on July 29 for a July 30 payout (Throne Day) should expect it to land a business day late. On its own that's a minor annoyance. Repeated every month because nobody flagged it, it becomes a real friction point for a distributed team relying on predictable pay dates.

The safest habit for a finance team managing Moroccan payroll from abroad is to move the payment initiation date two business days earlier than usual whenever a holiday falls in the final week of the month, rather than trying to remember each date individually. It's a small process change that removes most of the recurring friction described above.

What this means for freelancers and digital nomads based in Morocco

If you're a freelancer registered under Morocco's self-employed status or a remote employee based in Morocco but billing clients abroad, the calendar cuts both ways. A Moroccan public holiday won't affect your obligations to a foreign employer. But it will close the local bank branch or CNSS window you might need for an administrative errand, and it can slow down a cash withdrawal or a wire transfer initiated locally.

Coworking spaces in Casablanca and Rabat generally stay open through civil holidays, since most of their members work remote hours tied to a different time zone anyway. Religious holidays are a different story: expect reduced hours or full closures around Aïd Al Fitr and Aïd Al Adha specifically, even in spaces that market themselves as always-on.

Some digital nomads based in Morocco under a tourist status rather than a formal work arrangement assume public holidays don't apply to them at all. They're right about their own work obligations, but wrong about the practical impact: a closed CNSS office or bank branch doesn't check anyone's visa status before locking its doors for the day.

Keep this calendar close when you're setting invoicing deadlines, quarterly CNSS filings, or payroll runs for 2026. The civil dates are locked in already; the religious ones are worth double-checking against the official announcement in the weeks before each holiday.