Payslip in Morocco: what it contains and a worked example, line by line

What is a payslip for in Morocco?

The Moroccan Labour Code requires every employer to give employees, when salaries are paid, a supporting document called the payslip (bulletin de paie), whose mandatory content is set by an order of the minister in charge of labour. It is the written record of what the employee earned, what was withheld and what was actually paid.

For the employee, it is proof of income (renting a home, applying for a loan) and a way to check CNSS and AMO contributions, on which social security rights depend. For the employer, it supports the payroll expense in the accounts and feeds the monthly salary return on DAMANCOM and the annual 9421 return filed on SIMPL-IR. Worth knowing: under the Labour Code, an employee who accepts a payslip without objection, even after signing it as read and approved, does not waive any salary still owed.

What information does a Moroccan payslip show?

Layouts vary from one software package to another, but a complete payslip usually contains the blocks below. The official list is set by ministerial order and may change, so have your template reviewed by your accountant or payroll adviser.

• Employer: company name, address and CNSS affiliation number.
• Employee: full name, CNSS registration number, job title, hire date and seniority.
• Pay period, days or hours worked, and any overtime.
• Base salary and additions: seniority bonus, bonuses, allowances, benefits in kind, then gross pay.
• Employee deductions: CNSS and AMO contributions, then taxable income and income tax withheld at source.
• Net pay, payment method (bank transfer, cheque or cash) and payment date.
• Paid leave balance, often shown to keep the employee informed of their entitlement.

Payslip example: from 10,000.00 DH gross to 8,903.64 DH net

Take Salma, an accountant at a limited company (SARL) in Casablanca, hired on 1 March 2023, single with no dependants. September 2026 payslip: 26 days worked (191 hours), base salary of 9,000.00 DH and a performance bonus of 550.00 DH. The rates and scale used are those in force at the time of writing; they change with finance laws and CNSS decisions, so check them before reusing the calculation.

Step 1, gross pay. With 3 years and 6 months of service, Salma has passed the two-year step, so her seniority bonus is 5% of salary, or 450.00 DH. Her gross pay is 9,000.00 + 450.00 + 550.00 = 10,000.00 DH. Step 2, employee contributions. The 4.48% CNSS contribution applies to salary capped at 6,000.00 DH: 268.80 DH. The 2.26% AMO contribution applies to the full gross: 226.00 DH.

Step 3, taxable income. Salma's annual gross (120,000.00 DH) is above 78,000.00 DH, so the professional expense allowance is 25%, or 2,500.00 DH, below the annual cap of 35,000.00 DH. Taxable income: 10,000.00 − 268.80 − 226.00 − 2,500.00 = 7,005.20 DH. Step 4, income tax. On an annual basis, this income of 84,062.40 DH falls in the 80,001 to 100,000 DH bracket, taxed at 30% with an amount to deduct of 18,000.00 DH, which is 1,500.00 DH for one month. Tax: 7,005.20 × 30% − 1,500.00 = 601.56 DH.

Step 5, net pay: 10,000.00 − 268.80 − 226.00 − 601.56 = 8,903.64 DH, paid by bank transfer. The professional expense allowance was not deducted from this amount: it is only used to compute the tax. The table below shows this payslip line by line.

What does this employee really cost the employer?

The payslip mainly shows the employee's side. Yet the real cost of employing Salma is higher than her 10,000.00 DH gross: the employer also pays its own contributions, which do not appear in net pay, namely the employer share of social benefits and AMO, family allowances and the vocational training levy, all declared and paid to the CNSS. Many payslips show them in a separate column, which helps managers think in terms of total cost before hiring or granting a raise. These rates and ceilings change, so have your accountant calculate the full cost before committing to a salary.

How long should payslips be kept?

The Labour Code requires employers to keep a payroll register (livre de paie), which may be replaced, at the employer's request, by a computer system or another means of control accepted as equivalent by the labour inspectorate. It must be kept for at least two years and remain available to labour inspectors and CNSS inspectors.

That period is a minimum: payslips and the payroll journal are also supporting documents for your accounts and your tax and social security filings, which can be audited over several years. Ask your accountant to set the right retention period and archive copies by month and by employee. Employees, for their part, should keep every payslip, as they prove their career and declared salaries when the time comes to retire.

Which common payslip mistakes should you avoid?

Most errors come from forgotten parameters rather than complex calculations, and they then flow into the DAMANCOM return and the 9421 return.

• Seniority step not updated: the move from 5% to 10% on the fifth anniversary of service is often missed for months.
• CNSS ceiling ignored: applying 4.48% to 10,000.00 DH instead of 6,000.00 DH would give 448.00 DH instead of 268.80 DH.
• Professional expense allowance deducted from net pay, when it is only used to compute income tax.
• Rounding in the wrong place, leaving differences of a few centimes between the payslip, the transfer and the return.
• Wrong period: an absence, a start or a leaving date attached to the following month, or a bonus paid in the wrong month.
• Family situation not updated, although it changes the income tax deductions.
• Old income tax scale kept after a new finance law.

How does SOGESTIO produce your payslips?

The SOGESTIO Payroll module produces payslips with CNSS, AMO, income tax and seniority. Each payroll run automatically generates its accounting entry on the Moroccan chart of accounts (CGNC), so there is no payroll journal to re-key. For filings, SOGESTIO generates a preparatory DAMANCOM file and a preparatory 9421 return in XML, to be transferred into SIMPL-IR.

The Human Resources module keeps each employee's paid leave balance up to date under the usual legal rule. SOGESTIO prepares and automates, but does not replace your accountant: filings are still checked and submitted by the company or its accountant. Payroll and HR are included in the Pro (449 DH/month excl. VAT) and Groupe (990 DH/month excl. VAT) plans, with a 14-day free trial and no card required.