Morocco abandons GMT+1 after eight years: what will change from tonight

At 2 a.m. this Sunday, September 20, it will once again be 1 a.m. in Morocco. Watches, alarm clocks and clocks will therefore have to be turned back by 60 minutes. Properly configured phones and computers should make the change automatically.

This change ends the quasi-permanent GMT+1 introduced in October 2018. Until now, Morocco had stayed one hour ahead of Greenwich for most of the year and temporarily returned to GMT during the month of Ramadan.

Decree No. 2.26.530, adopted by the Council of Government on June 25 and published in the Official Bulletin, repeals this arrangement. The return to GMT is therefore not simply a seasonal change: Morocco is once again adopting this time zone as its permanent legal time.

On Bladi.net : Attention! Morocco is switching back to GMT+1 this Sunday

Last February, the kingdom had once again temporarily turned back its clocks for Ramadan, before restoring GMT+1 in March. This mechanism is now disappearing: no further time change is planned for the next holy month.

Two-hour time difference with France from Sunday

The main consequence for MREs concerns the time difference with Europe. From Sunday, Morocco will be two hours behind France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, which will remain on European summer time until October 25.

When they switch to winter time, the difference will be reduced to one hour. When it is noon in Casablanca, it will then be 1 p.m. in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Madrid and Berlin. Next summer, the time difference will return to two hours when these countries move their clocks forward.

With the United Kingdom, the situation will be different. Morocco will be one hour behind London until the British time change in October, after which the two countries will be on the same time during the winter.

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For travelers, departure and arrival times shown on airline tickets are always expressed in the local time of each airport. A flight displayed as departing Casablanca at 10 a.m. will therefore take off at 10 a.m. GMT, while its arrival in France will be indicated according to French time.

The change will also have a visible effect on the days: the sun will rise and set one hour earlier according to the clock. However, the official schedules of schools, administrations and businesses are not automatically changed by the time-zone change.

The night from Saturday to Sunday will finally last one hour longer. After eight years of almost permanent GMT+1, Morocco is thus durably returning to Greenwich Mean Time and should no longer have to adjust its clocks at the beginning and end of Ramadan.