Before you start

Physical passport, or carte de séjour
For postpaid: carte de séjour and a Moroccan bank account
For a riad: the landlord's or owner's agreement to installation works

Step-by-step

1
Buy the SIM in an operator shop with the passport in hand
Registration requires the identity document to be presented and recorded. A photocopy is generally refused, and a pre-activated card from a street seller is registered to somebody else and will eventually be cut.
In personWho: YouDay 1–2
2
Start prepaid; postpaid can wait for the residence card
Prepaid data bundles are cheap and need nothing but the registered SIM. Postpaid wants a carte de séjour and a Moroccan account for direct debit, neither of which you will have in week one.
In personWho: You
3
In the medina, ask which operator has line in your derb
Fixed-line and fibre availability in the old city varies alley by alley, and the answer for the house next door is not necessarily yours. Neighbours know. The operator's coverage map does not go to that resolution.
In personWho: You
4
Get the owner's consent in writing before any installation work
Running a line into a medina house means drilling, cabling along an alley wall, and sometimes a shared riser through a neighbouring property. Heritage constraints and neighbours both apply. Agree it with the owner and the neighbours before an engineer arrives, or the visit is wasted.
In personWho: You
5
Build a redundant setup if you work from here
The workable pattern for remote workers in Marrakech is a fixed line plus a generous mobile data plan on a second operator, and a router that can fail over. Thick walls, courtyard geometry and older installations all conspire against a single connection.
OnlineWho: You
6
Use the coworking spaces as infrastructure, not as an office
Gueliz and the Palmeraie have several coworking spaces with business-grade connections. Even if you work from home, having a paid day pass relationship with one is what you fall back on when the line goes down before a client call.
In personWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Physical passport
Carte de séjour, for postpaid
Moroccan bank details, for direct debit
Owner's written consent, for medina installations

Things most newcomers don’t know

A riad's connectivity is a property characteristic, not a service you order later.

Whether a medina house can get a proper fixed line depends on what has been brought into that specific derb and whether a cable can physically be run to your door — sometimes through a neighbour's wall, always past heritage constraints. Two houses fifty metres apart can have completely different answers. If your income depends on the connection, treat it as a lease- or purchase-condition question and verify it with the neighbours, not with a coverage map.

Source: community-reported

Anonymous prepaid SIMs are gone, and enforcement catches people months later.

The ANRT made identification of every prepaid card mandatory and operators deactivated unregistered stock when it came in. A card bought ready-activated in a shop near the square is registered to a stranger. Lines like that get cut — typically after you have given the number to your bank, your landlord and your clients, which is the expensive part.

Source: ANRT

Mobile data in Marrakech is good enough to make people over-rely on it.

Coverage and speed across Gueliz, Hivernage and most of the medina are genuinely strong, which tempts remote workers to skip a fixed line entirely. That holds until a two-hour video call from a courtyard house with metre-thick walls. The pattern that works is a fixed line as primary, mobile as failover, and a coworking space as the second failover.

Source: community-reported

Morocco moves its clock for Ramadan, which quietly breaks a remote worker's calendar.

Morocco is on GMT+1 all year but reverts to GMT+0 for the month of Ramadan and then returns. Handsets cope; recurring calendar invites created by European colleagues, booking systems and automations frequently do not, and for a month everything is an hour off in one direction. Anyone working with European clients should expect it and re-check standing meetings when it happens.

Source: community-reported

Common mistakes to avoid

Buying a pre-registered SIM near Jemaa el-Fnaa.
Signing for a riad without establishing what fixed connectivity is actually available in that derb.
Arranging installation work without the owner's and neighbours' agreement.
Running a client-facing business on mobile data alone.
Forgetting the Ramadan clock change when scheduling with Europe.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.