How much does a trip to Morocco actually cost?
Morocco is one of the best-value destinations within easy reach of Europe. Your daily spend depends far more on how you travel than where you go — the same city can cost a backpacker 250 MAD a day and a luxury traveller ten times that. As a rough guide, a budget traveller spends around 230–430 MAD (€21–39) per day, a mid-range traveller 660–1,300 MAD (€60–120), and a comfortable traveller 1,650–3,800 MAD (€150–345). The calculator above breaks these down by category so you can adjust for your own style, trip length, and group size.
The biggest single variable is accommodation. A hostel dorm in Marrakech runs 80–140 MAD a night, while a beautifully restored riad in the same medina is 350–700 MAD, and a design hotel can pass 2,000 MAD. Food, by contrast, stays cheap at every level: you can eat exceptionally well from street stalls and local restaurants for under 130 MAD a day, and even a mid-range trip rarely needs more than 280 MAD on food unless you drink alcohol, which is taxed heavily and pushes restaurant bills up quickly.
Cash, cards, and the closed currency
Morocco runs largely on cash. Riads, restaurants, and shops in the main tourist cities increasingly take cards, but taxis, grand taxis, market stalls, medina shops, tips, and parking attendants are cash-only — and that is where a large share of a traveller's daily spend goes. Withdraw dirham from ATMs (which are plentiful in cities but scarce in the desert and small towns) and keep a mix of small notes and coins for taxis and tipping.
The dirham is a closed currency: you cannot legally buy or sell meaningful amounts outside Morocco. Do not order dirham from your home bank — exchange on arrival at the airport or a city bureau de change, and spend or reconvert what you have left before you fly home (keep exchange receipts, which you may need to convert dirham back). At the time of writing, 1 EUR ≈ 11 MAD, 1 USD ≈ 10 MAD, and 1 GBP ≈ 13 MAD; rates move, so treat the calculator's conversions as approximate.
Tipping in Morocco
Tipping (pourboire) is woven into daily life and is a real, recurring line in your budget. It is modest but constant: 5–10 MAD for a parking attendant (gardien de voitures), 10–20 MAD for a helpful café or restaurant server, 10–20 MAD per bag for a riad porter, and 100–200 MAD per day for a private guide or driver you are happy with. Café and restaurant service is usually not included, so rounding up or leaving 10% is normal in sit-down places. Carry a pocket of small coins for exactly this — being unable to tip because you only have a 200 MAD note is a daily frustration.
Haggling — where it applies and where it doesn't
Bargaining is expected in the souks (medina markets) for rugs, lamps, leather, ceramics, and souvenirs, and for the price of a grand taxi you hire privately. It does not apply in supermarkets, modern shops, train and CTM bus tickets, or restaurants with menu prices — those are fixed. In the souk, the opening price is a starting point; a relaxed, friendly counter of roughly 40–50% and meeting somewhere in the middle is normal. If you don't want to buy, don't start negotiating. The single most useful budgeting habit is simply to confirm the price before you commit — before getting in a taxi, before a hammam scrub, before the guide starts walking.
Where to save — and where not to
- Eat where locals eat. A set lunch menu (soup, main, bread) at a neighbourhood restaurant is 50–80 MAD and often the best meal of the day. Tourist-facing restaurants on the main squares charge two to three times more for similar food.
- Take the train and CTM buses. Intercity transport is genuinely cheap and comfortable — Casablanca to Marrakech is about 90 MAD by train. See the transport guide for routes and fares.
- Travel in shoulder season. Riad and hotel prices swing hardest with demand. Spring and autumn cost less than the Christmas, Easter, and midsummer peaks — the best time to visit guide covers the trade-offs.
- Don't cut the desert. A Sahara camp overnight (300–600 MAD per person for a standard camp) is one of the few "big spends" that most travellers rate as the highlight of the whole trip. This is the wrong place to economise.