Updated April 2024

• To enter Morocco with a vehicle all you need is:
  A passport (most visitors don’t need a visa and you can stay for 90 days).
• Your vehicle ownership document (‘V5’ in the UK)
• Motor insurance covering Morocco, if you can get it. If you can’t (as with most Brits) just buy at the port, see below.
• Covid restrictions are over but at airports you may still get asked for Passenger Health Forms (fiche sanitaire; link to a pdf to fill out online in advance and print off). They may do them at maritime ports too, but I’ve found not since October 2023

Immigration procedures
On ferries heading directly to Moroccan ports (ie: Tangier Med or Nador) passport control is done aboard. Don’t get off the boat without getting stamped – they check as you come off the ramp. Once aboard, on one of the decks look for a counter with a cop, a laptop and a queue.
If you’re heading to the Spanish North African enclaves (Ceuta, Melilla) you will effectively be landing in Spain and so must drive on a couple of kilometres to the actual land border with Morocco.

Immigration cards have been dropped
Fill out a white immigration card (right) often handed out when buying your ticket in Spain, or found at the ferry’s police or information counter, or ask at the police counter on the ship, or handed out by enclave border helpers looking for a tip. The form is in French with English subtext.
Under ‘going to’ write any big Moroccan city like Fez or Marrakech; for ‘coming from’ put the European port you’ve just arrived from (Algeciras, Almeria, etc).
For an ‘address in Morocco’ any hotel or camping in any well-known town will do if you don’t actually have one. Pick one from your guidebook.

Your passport will be stamped with a date of entry and also a ‘CIN’ number (right; it may be scribbled by hand into your passport). This is an ID number that links you to a police database and you may be asked for it on other forms. It is often hard to find in your passport. If you have visited Morocco before on the same passport you do not need a new CIN; they do not expire so it helps to open the passport page with the CIN to save them looking and giving you another.

Once off the boat in Moroccan ports (e.g.: TanMed, Nador) proceed to Customs (grey uniforms) and hand over your vehicle ownership document and passport to a Customs guy. Wait by your vehicle. They return with your documents and a white, credit-card sized card, the new-style TVIP in as little as 5 minutes. They may also perform a cursory search. Don’t lose your TVIP card. You will need to show it when you leave Morocco to prove you left with your vehicle.

You may be lucky enough to have a ‘green card’ motor insurance extension for Morocco. Otherwise, at TanMed, just beyond the Customs is a row of cabins (left). Change some money and buy local insurance (assurance frontiere) at the last cabin.

The fixed cost and time periods are about 600dh for 10 days or 955dh for a month for car or bike. Motorhomes pay more.

BOOK UPDATE
At  Melilla (SP) or Beni Enzar (Nador port, Mk), the insurance office or booth either close to the Spanish border or in Nador port somewhere comes and goes. If it’s not there, at the nearby roundabout turn south along the sea for 12km to Nador town. 
One of the AXA insurance agencies here at Assurance Al Karama on Ave. Youssef Ben Tachfine, (left off the second big roundabout) will sell you ‘Assurance Frontiers’ (insurance for foreigners) at the normal price. See the map left; it’s a pretty straightforward drive. The only problem is ferries arrive late at Beni Enzar which means an overnight in Nador. If you don’t get your insurance before leaving Nador, you will struggle to do so down the road.

That’s it! As you leave port they may check your passport, but rarely the insurance. At the very exit by the roundabout at TanMed, guys are still trying to sell you SIM cards.

Form (fiche) for checkpoints, Western Sahara

Download this blank Word.doc template of a fiche or form (left) to fill out with your details. Hand them out to speed up passage through the many checkpoints in Western Saharan (south of Tan Tan and Assa), particularly if heading down the Atlantic Route to Mauritania.
They can also be handed over instead of your passport at hotels in ‘mainland’ northern Morocco who ask to copy down your details. Up here the checkpoints won’t require your fiche or details.
There are 4 fiches to a page. For a transit of the Atlantic Route you’ll want at least 8 fiches to get to the RIM border. And maybe as many again in Mauritania.