Roads, water and electricity not yet completed: Morocco may still authorize construction
In Morocco, some building permits may be issued before all the subdivision’s infrastructure is completed. This new, strictly regulated possibility applies in particular to public rehousing projects following a natural disaster or aimed at combating substandard housing.
The measure is set out in Law 34.21 amending Law 25.90 on subdivisions, housing complexes and parcel divisions. Promulgated by Dahir No. 1.26.61 of July 28, 2026, the text was published in Official Gazette No. 7533 on August 10, 2026. It introduces a system allowing the infrastructure works for certain subdivisions to be carried out progressively.
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This possibility is not open to all real estate projects. It concerns operations responding to an urgent need to rehouse victims of natural disasters, combat substandard housing or serving a public-interest purpose. They must be carried out by the State, a local authority or their groupings, as well as by certain public establishments, companies or organizations.
In these operations, beneficiaries may obtain a building permit without waiting for all the subdivision’s infrastructure works to be completed. This option does not, however, exempt the project owner from carrying out the planned infrastructure.
The infrastructure remains mandatory
The project must notably provide for internal roads as well as drinking-water, electricity and sewage networks and, where they exist, their connection to the main networks. The law also requires compliance with minimum standards for health, soundness, safety and decent housing.
The progressive installation of infrastructure must be planned from the outset. The file must specify the public works and infrastructure to be completed, their schedule, the sources of funding, as well as the mechanisms planned to ensure their implementation and monitoring.
The reform thus makes it possible to advance the construction of housing in parallel with the completion of certain infrastructure, mainly in public projects where the urgency of rehousing makes it difficult to wait for the subdivision to be fully completed.
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Once the works have been completed, the infrastructure remains subject to the procedures laid down by law for its provisional and then final acceptance. The early issuance of building permits therefore eliminates neither the obligation to complete the infrastructure nor its supervision by the competent authorities.
