Morocco Introduces Amnesty Program for Bounced Check Offenders

Following the entry into force of the amnesty law in accordance with the provisions of the 2024 Finance Act, issuers of bounced checks must pay an exemption contribution, set at 1.5% of the amount of unpaid checks issued before December 31, 2023. The maximum amount of this contribution is set at 10,000 dirhams for individuals, and 50,000 dirhams for legal entities, regardless of the number of unpaid checks, according to Le360. They must fulfill this obligation before December 31, 2024. If they fail to do so, they will be subject to financial penalties for the unpaid checks.

The Moroccan Parliament approved this new provision included in the 2024 Finance Act last year. It is an amendment introduced by the parliamentary group of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM) in the House of Advisors. This amendment received the approval of the government of Aziz Akhannouch during the debates on the 2024 Finance Bill.

In Morocco, the proliferation of bounced checks is a reality. This is evidenced by the 11.8% increase in the number of unpaid checks between January 2021 and December 2022, according to the observation made by Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) in a report on the economic situation in 2023. In total, 559,918 payment incidents were recorded in 2022 by the centralized service for fines for lack of provision on checks, which represents an increase of nearly 12% compared to the previous year. According to the central bank, the total amount of unpaid checks over this period amounts to 17.2 billion dirhams.