Before you start

Carte de séjour, or récépissé plus a residence certificate under three months old
Valid original foreign licence
Translation into Arabic or French if the licence is in another language
Photographs and the fee

Step-by-step

1
Check reciprocity first
Exchange depends on an agreement between Morocco and the issuing state. Several English-speaking countries do not have one. If yours does not, there is no exchange and you take the code and conduite at an auto-école.
OnlineWho: YouBefore month 12
2
Apply through NARSA and hand over the original
The file goes through the NARSA services portal and the regional office. Your original licence is sent to the issuing authority abroad for verification. Fees run to a few hundred dirhams including stamps.
OnlineWho: You≈MAD 700 including timbres
3
Use the sixty-day provisional while verification runs
NARSA issues a provisional Moroccan permit valid around sixty days while your original is authenticated abroad. Timing is out of your control; if you have a trip requiring you to drive elsewhere, get an international permit before surrendering anything.
In personWho: You≈60 days
4
Try the tram for a month before buying a car
Two lines link Salé across the Bouregreg to central Rabat and Agdal, with extensions toward Hay Riad, and they cover the ministries, both stations, the universities and most residential districts. Frequency is good and fares are low. A month on it tells you honestly whether you need a vehicle.
In personWho: You
5
Use Al Boraq rather than driving to Casablanca
The high-speed line from Rabat-Agdal reaches Casablanca in well under an hour and Tangier in about the same, and it is far faster and calmer than the motorway at peak. A substantial number of people live in Rabat and work in Casablanca on exactly this basis.
OnlineWho: You
6
If you do buy, budget for the ownership costs, not the purchase
Insurance, the annual vignette and the visite technique inspection are recurring, and parking in Agdal and the centre involves informal gardiens expecting a few dirhams each time. None of it is expensive individually and all of it adds up.
In personWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Original foreign driving licence
Translation into Arabic or French, where required
Carte de séjour or récépissé with a residence certificate under three months old
Passport and legalised copy
Identity photographs

Things most newcomers don’t know

Rabat plus Al Boraq is a genuine alternative to living in Casablanca.

The high-speed line puts Casablanca well under an hour from Rabat-Agdal, on a service frequent enough to commute on. That makes Rabat's calmer streets, cheaper rents, greenery and vastly easier administration compatible with a Casablanca career — a trade a growing number of professionals make deliberately. The equivalent drive on the motorway at peak is slower and considerably less pleasant.

Source: ONCF; community-reported

The twelve-month exchange clock starts at residence, and people sleep through it.

The window runs from when you take up residence — in practice the date on the carte de séjour or its récépissé — not from arrival. That is generous, and it also means the deadline lands eleven months into a year full of other things. Missing it means the full Moroccan theory and practical tests regardless of experience. Diarise month eight.

Source: NARSA

Reciprocity is a published list and has nothing to do with your driving record.

Whether you can convert without testing depends solely on whether Morocco and your issuing country recognise each other's licences. A thirty-year clean record from a non-agreement country counts for nothing. Check the list in your first month; people assume a European-style mutual recognition that simply does not exist for many nationalities.

Source: NARSA

Rabat's tram is unusually well aligned with where foreigners actually need to go.

Both lines run through the administrative centre, past the main stations, into Agdal and across the river into Salé — which is to say through the ministries, the universities and the districts where a newcomer would sensibly live. That alignment is not accidental and it is not replicated in other Moroccan cities. Choosing a flat within a short walk of a stop is the single decision that determines whether you need a car here.

Source: Tramway Rabat-Salé