AOW, pension and tax in Morocco: the treaty is missing one article

Most tax treaties have an article on social security, and that article decides where your AOW, the Dutch state pension, is taxed. The treaty with Morocco, concluded in 1977 and in force since 1987, doesn't have that article.

That sounds like a footnote. It is the core of this file.

What the missing article does

Without a social security article the AOW falls back on the residual article — article 22 — and that says: items of income of a resident of one of the States to which the preceding articles of this Agreement do not apply are taxable only in that State.

Only in that State. If you live in Morocco, Morocco taxes, and the Netherlands doesn't.

Your occupational pension goes the same way, but through a different article. Article 19 paragraph 1: private pensions and other similar remuneration paid to a resident of one of the States in consideration of past employment are taxable only in that State. No threshold amount, no Dutch withholding at source — unlike in the newer treaties with, say, Cyprus or Portugal.

The exception that overturns the picture

There is one source of income for which this doesn't hold, and it is precisely the source many readers of this site have.

Article 19 paragraph 2: government pensions and other similar remuneration paid to a resident of one of the States in consideration of past employment may be taxed in both States.

May be taxed in both. So whoever has ABP, or another pension from past employment with the government, cannot be done with one exemption request. For that source the taxing right does not lie exclusively with Morocco, and the outcome depends on how the relief from double taxation works out on your amounts.

Have that worked out before you leave. The difference between "everything goes to Morocco" and "half my income is looked at in both countries" is no detail in your monthly budget.

Apply for the exemption, otherwise the Netherlands simply keeps withholding

Even when the treaty places the taxing right with Morocco, your pension fund keeps withholding wage tax until you have applied for and received the wage tax exemption. For that you need a Moroccan residence certificate.

Without that application you first pay in the Netherlands and have to reclaim it afterwards. That works, but it costs a year and a tax return.

What Morocco itself does with it

Two schemes stack on top of each other.

The deduction. Article 60 of the Moroccan tax code first deducts seventy percent of your gross pension, up to 168,000 dirham a year. On the excess the deduction is forty percent. Above the threshold the deduction is thus the sum of both parts.

The reduction. Article 76 gives on top of that a reduction of eighty percent on the tax you owe over your pension.

Together those two make the Moroccan levy on a Dutch pension low. That is where the reputation comes from.

The condition that carries the reputation, and what it costs

The reduction of article 76 doesn't apply just like that. The text of the law ties it to the amounts that have been transferred definitively, in non-convertible dirham.

Those two words are the whole deal. Definitive means here that the money no longer leaves the destination. So the reduction belongs to wealth that stays in Morocco.

Whoever transfers their pension in full every month to take the reduction builds up wealth there that they can no longer reach from the Netherlands. That is a different decision from "in Morocco you pay almost no tax", as it is usually summarised — and it is a decision for two, not for one.

Take it before your first transfer, and get advice from someone who knows both the Moroccan exchange rules and your Dutch situation. It is the one step on this journey that cannot be reversed.

The headline going round since January 2026

Morocco has abolished income tax on pensions from its own basic schemes as of 1 January 2026, and also on the supplementary pensions of the CIMR. In Morocco that is summarised as "pensioners no longer pay income tax", and that sentence also ends up in Dutch-language pieces.

For a Dutch pension that exemption does not apply. Pensions of foreign origin stay taxed. What applies to you is precisely what was already there: the deduction from article 60 and the reduction from article 76. The deduction has since then even existed solely for the pensions that fall outside the exemption, and the Dutch one is one of them.

Your AOW comes along in full

Apart from the tax there is the question whether your AOW can go to Morocco at all. It can, and without reduction: article 20 of the social security treaty lets the Dutch institutions calculate the old-age pension solely on the Dutch insurance periods. Morocco is a treaty country, so the country-of-residence principle that lowers the benefit in some countries doesn't play here.

Do report your move to the SVB in time, with the date, your address and your bank details.

If children come along: don't count on child benefit

Since 2 January 2021 the right to child benefit for children living in the other country no longer exists. That is in article 35d of the same social security treaty, and it closes a phase-out that began in October 2016 in steps of ten percent a year.

For ongoing cases there is grandfathering. Whoever leaves now falls under the new rule, and that is a monthly item that disappears.