The residence routes to Morocco: one question comes before all the others

Which residence route you take to Morocco depends first on your nationality, and only then on what you are going to do there.

• If you hold Moroccan nationality alongside the Dutch, you are not a foreigner in Morocco and you need no residence card.
• If you hold only Dutch nationality and want to stay longer than ninety days, you need a residence card, with a mention that follows from your reason for staying.

Most emigration journeys start with the question what you're going to do. This one starts with the question who you are.

Why does this journey start with your passport?

Law 02-03 regulates the entry and residence of foreigners in Morocco. Whoever holds Moroccan nationality alongside the Dutch is not a foreigner in Morocco and falls outside that law. No residence card, no mention of purpose, no renewal clock.

That is no edge case. Moroccan nationality passes by descent and cannot be given up. So many Dutch people have it without ever having done anything with it, sometimes without knowing for sure.

If you don't know, finding out is the first step of your emigration and not a detail for along the way. The Moroccan consulate can establish whether you're in the registers. If you are, your journey runs through the Moroccan identity card, and that is afterwards the key to almost everything: the bank, the land registry, enrolling children.

Whoever never had Moroccan papers before and whose parents' certificates are missing is looking at a file of months. So start on it early.

What if you don't have that nationality?

As a Dutch citizen you enter Morocco without a visa. If you want to stay longer than ninety days, you need a carte d'immatriculation, the residence card for foreigners. You lodge the application with the police or the royal gendarmerie of the place where you live, within ninety days of entry.

Mind that word: lodge. The clock runs on the application, not on the issue. That helps, because gathering the documents takes more time than ninety days suggests. Until the card is there you get a receipt that temporarily replaces it. Keep it carefully, because it is then your only residence title.

The three mentions

The card comes in three flavours, and the mention follows your reason for staying.

• Visiteur. For pensioners and people of independent means. Almost everyone who comes from the Netherlands on a pension or own means falls under this.
• The name of your profession. For whoever will practise a profession that needs authorisation, such as salaried employment. The law has no fixed mention "travail": the card carries the name of that profession. The employment contract should be approved before the card is issued.
• Étudiant. For whoever studies there.

The card is issued for one to ten years and renewed each time for the same period. How long your card is valid depends on the reasons you put forward. Put the end date in your diary on the day you receive it: this is a clock you watch yourself, because nobody sends you a reminder.