Your household goods to Morocco: the papers, and the car that usually doesn't come

Your household goods enter Morocco without paying import duties, if you can produce three papers. Your car usually doesn't come. Temporary import gives six months, even if you settle. After that it has to leave the country, or you pay the import duties.

So the first item turns out fine, the second almost always disappoints.

Which papers and clocks apply to the household goods?

Used personal belongings and furniture that belong to a normal move enter Morocco exempt from duties and taxes. Customs name three documents with it, and the third is almost never mentioned.

A detailed inventory, dated and signed, of everything that comes along.

A certificat de changement de résidence, to be issued by the municipality of departure or by the Moroccan consulate. This is the paper that says you're not going on holiday but moving. Customs add themselves that any other document establishing the move will do too, for instance an employment contract.

An attestation sur l'honneur (a sworn statement) on the customs model, but only where one of the two partners of a family living abroad returns to Morocco definitively.

Then the clocks. The main rule is a single shipment: the import of your goods and your change of residence are supposed to coincide. Where particular circumstances make that impossible, two consignments are allowed. Then three conditions apply at once:

• Everything has to appear on the global inventory you present at the first importation.
• Both consignments go through the same customs office.
• They fall within six months, counted from the date on the certificate, not from your departure or your arrival.

So don't apply for the certificate too early: the clock starts on the date printed on it.

Clock	Period
Second consignment of the household goods	within 6 months of the date on the certificate, through the same customs office
Car under admission temporaire	six months; re-export or clear it before the end
Driving on your Dutch licence	1 year at most from your residence in Morocco
Pet after a first rabies vaccination	at least 21 days before departure (EU rule)

By road or by container

By road through France and Spain, with the ferry across, is usually the cheapest and fastest for a part load; a full household goes by sea container from Rotterdam or Antwerp. Also count what you don't take: Morocco rents a lot furnished.

Why does the car usually not come along?

Your Dutch car may enter Morocco under admission temporaire, temporary import: six months of driving with duties and taxes suspended. No formality at all is needed beforehand. Customs arrange it on board the boat or at the border, on presentation of your residence document and the original of your vehicle registration, and you get a printout you have to be able to show at every check.

That is allowed even if you are coming to settle in Morocco: customs say so in as many words. But it is a bridge of six months, not a lasting solution.

Two hard obligations come with it as well. You have to regularise your car's situation before the term expires, by re-exporting it or clearing it through customs after all. And the car is for your own use only: not to be lent, placed at the disposal of third parties, transferred or hired out, on pain of prosecution.

Clearing it is also called definitive import. You get no exemption for it, unlike your household goods. You pay import duty (17.5%), VAT (20%) and a small levy: together 41.3% of the new value customs set for your model. For age, at most a quarter comes off. For a car of three years or older you therefore pay about 31% of what it cost new.

A car five years or older cannot be cleared. For that you need an identification certificate from the registration centre, and such a car no longer gets one. If you are Moroccan as well and returning for good, a passenger car may be up to ten years old. The six months cannot then be extended. If at the end you choose to clear the car instead of re-exporting it, you pay a fine of 2,000 dirhams plus 40 dirhams stamp duty on top of the duties. The 90% reduction for Moroccans abroad aged sixty and over does not apply to people who settle in Morocco for good.

The sum therefore usually comes out at selling in the Netherlands and buying again in Morocco: put the difference in your budget. If you want to try anyway, have it confirmed before you leave that your car makes definitive import.