Paid Leave, Public Holidays and Absences in Morocco
If you work in Morocco and you are not sure exactly how many days of leave you are entitled to, this guide puts the numbers on the table. The Labour Code sets precise rules: duration, calculation, payment, and what happens when a public holiday or an absence falls at the wrong moment. Here are the essentials, article by article.
The essentials in brief
After six months of continuous service with the same employer, every employee is entitled to paid annual leave of one and a half days per month worked, raised to two days for those under eighteen [Art. 231]. During this leave, you receive an allowance equal to the remuneration you would have earned while at work, salary and accessories included [Art. 249] [Art. 250]. A public holiday that falls during your leave extends it by the same amount [Art. 235]. The allowance must be paid before departure [Art. 259].
How many days of leave you really earn
Let us start with the threshold. You do not acquire the right to paid annual leave from the very first day: you need six months of continuous service in the same company or with the same employer [Art. 231]. This is a condition of access, not a ceiling.
Once this threshold is crossed, the calculation is mechanical. One and a half days of effective work per month of service. For employees under eighteen, the rate rises to two days per month [Art. 231]. Over a full year, that amounts to eighteen days for an adult and twenty-four for a minor.
Watch the word "favourable", because that is where people get it wrong. The scale in Article 231 is a minimum. If your employment contract, a collective agreement, the internal regulations or even company custom provide for something better, it is the more advantageous rule that applies [Art. 231]. Check your documents before assuming that eighteen days is all you will get.
Honestly, the legal minimum is only a starting point. Read your contract.
How a "month" of work is counted
A month of service seems obvious. It is not always so.
For determining the duration of leave, a month of work corresponds to twenty-six days of effective work [Art. 238]. The Code also provides an hourly equivalence for jobs that do not break down into full months: each period of work, whether continuous or discontinuous, of 191 hours in non-agricultural activities, and of 208 hours in agricultural activities, counts as one month of work [Art. 238]. Useful if you string together fragmented assignments.
The calculation does not stop at time actually spent on the job. Certain periods when you did not work are nevertheless counted as effective work and cannot be deducted from your leave [Art. 239]. This covers the previous year's annual leave, the dismissal notice period, the periods during which the contract is suspended in the cases provided for in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Article 32, as well as short-time working, an authorised absence not exceeding ten days per year, the temporary closure of the establishment by judicial or administrative decision, and cases of force majeure [Art. 239].
Remember the ten-day cap. An authorised absence counted as effective work stops there [Art. 239]. Beyond that, assume nothing.
Public holidays and leave: which one prevails
Here is a rule many people are unaware of, and it works in your favour.
If a paid holiday or a public holiday falls during your paid annual leave, your leave is increased by the same number of days [Art. 235]. In other words, the holiday is not "lost" within the leave: it extends your break. Take ten days of leave with a holiday in the middle, and you recover that day.
Illness follows the same protective logic. Interruptions of work due to illness are not counted within paid annual leave [Art. 235]. Falling ill in the middle of leave does not swallow your days.
The status of the public holiday itself deserves a word. It may be decided that the public holiday be paid as effective working time [Art. 218]. And the Code seriously frames breaches relating to public holidays: the Labour Inspectorate — the administration in charge of monitoring the application of labour law in companies — may intervene, and fines are applied as many times as there are employees concerned, without the total exceeding 20,000 dirhams [Art. 230].
Compensatory rest — that is, the rest granted in return for work performed on a day that is normally not worked — may moreover be added to the duration of paid annual leave [Art. 241]. The days stack up in your favour.
Do you see the pattern? Public holiday, illness, compensatory rest: none of them is supposed to eat into your leave.
When to take your leave
The window is wide. The period for paid annual leave extends over the whole year [Art. 244]. You are not locked into a single month imposed by default.
There is a sectoral exception. In each wilaya, prefecture or province, the periods during which employees of agricultural and forestry operations and their dependencies cannot benefit from leave are set by decision of the government authority in charge of labour — the ministry responsible for labour — after consulting the most representative professional organisations of employers and the trade unions [Art. 244]. If you are in agriculture or forestry, find out about the blocked periods in your province.
Frankly, for most non-agricultural employees, the rule comes down to one sentence: leave may be taken at any time of the year.
What you receive, and when
The leave is paid. Not symbolically — really.
During your annual leave, you are entitled to an allowance equivalent to the remuneration you would have received had you remained at work [Art. 249]. This allowance is not limited to base salary: it includes salary and its accessories, whether material or in kind [Art. 250]. The usual benefits do not disappear because you are on leave.
The payment schedule is strict. The paid annual leave allowance is paid at the latest the day before the employee's departure [Art. 259]. You should not have to wait until your return to be paid: the money arrives before you leave. If the employer drags its feet, that is a breach.
The precise methods for calculating the leave allowance and the compensatory leave allowance are set by the government authority in charge of labour, in compliance with the principles laid down by the Code [Art. 258]. And when compensatory rest is added to leave, it forms part of this same set of rights [Art. 241].
One final reflex: keep a written record of your dates and your leave balance. If payment does not arrive before departure as required by Article 259, you have a concrete point of support.
Sources
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 218
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 230
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 231
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 235
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 238
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 239
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 241
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 244
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 249
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 250
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 258
- Labour Code (Law No. 65-99) — Article 259
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