You are in Leeds, Lyon, Doha or Toronto. Your mother has found an agency for her Umrah through a neighbour, and you did the sensible thing: you opened the Ministry of Tourism's directory and typed the agency's name. Nothing came up.
This page helps you work out what that empty screen means, from a distance, without accusing anyone and without letting a payment go through while the question is open.
Why might the agency not come up in your search?
Before drawing any conclusion about the agency, check the search itself. Searching a French-language government site from abroad adds a few traps of its own.
- You searched the shop name. The name your parents know from the sign, the business card or a social media page is often a trade name. The directory may list the company that owns the agency, under a name that looks nothing like it.
- The name is Arabic, the list is in Latin letters. One Arabic name can be written several ways: “El” or “Al”, a doubled letter or a single one, two words or one joined by a hyphen. Your spelling and the registered spelling may simply differ.
- You typed the full name. One extra word, such as “voyages” or “travel”, or a legal suffix the registration does not carry, can be enough to return nothing.
- Automatic translation changed the page. If your browser translates the site into English, it may also translate words inside the names in the list. When you search for a name, look at the page in its original French.
- The office sells for another agency. There are 2 licence types: Travel Organiser-Distributor (ODV) and Travel Distributor (DV)1. The office your parents visited may be selling a trip organised by a different company, and the paperwork may come in that company's name.
- The licence is no longer valid. This possibility cannot be ruled out, and it is the reason the rest of this page exists.
Trade name, company name, city: which three searches should you try?
Collect the names from documents, not from memory. Ask your parents to photograph the shop sign, any business card, and the top of any form or receipt the agency has given them. Then run three searches.
| Search | Where the name comes from | Tip |
|---|---|---|
| The trade name | Shop sign, business card, social media page | Use one distinctive word, not the whole name |
| The company name | Contract, receipt, invoice, the agency's stamp | Try two or three Latin spellings of each Arabic word |
| The city, as a cross-check | Your parents know where the office is | Use it only if the entry you find shows a city: we have not seen an official description of what an entry contains |
Tick off
- Type the ministry's web address yourself. Do not use a link sent by the agency or by a group chat.
- Open the travel agencies directory and look at both lists, ODV and DV2.
- Search one distinctive word of the trade name, in two or three spellings.
- Search the company name as written on the contract or the receipt.
- Take a dated screenshot of each result, including the empty ones, and share it in the family chat.
If you find a listing, compare it letter by letter with the name on your parents' papers before you relax. How to read the two lists is explained in ODV and DV: what Morocco's travel agency licences mean.
What does the law say about an agency without a licence?
The rule is simple: under Law 11-16, no travel agency may open without a licence1. The law was promulgated by Dahir 1-18-107 of 9 January 2019, with Decree 2.21.80 as its implementing decree4. Applications are filed online and handled by the Tourism department's regional services, which also handle withdrawals1.
Two practical consequences follow. The directory is the reference, not what the agency says about itself or what the neighbourhood says about it. And a licence is not a permanent status: an agency that was licensed when a cousin travelled may not be today.
What neither you nor we can do is declare a named agency illegal. What you can say, honestly, is that a careful search did not find it, and that this is enough to pause the payment and ask for an explanation. The full licence check, step by step, is in how to check a Moroccan Umrah agency's licence.
A published case: pilgrims stranded by an unrenewed licence
According to H24info, a Marrakech agency left pilgrims stranded in Turkey: it was operating without authorisation, having failed to renew its licence, and was therefore not on the official list3. According to H24info, the pilgrims were repatriated3.
We do not name the agency; the lesson does not need a name. Its absence from the list was visible to anyone who searched, before the trip turned into families waiting in another country. That is why the search belongs close to each payment date, not only to the first visit. Other published cases and the warning signs they share are in Umrah scams in Morocco: warning signs from published cases.
What should you ask the agency in writing before any transfer?
If the agency still does not appear after the three searches, send one message, from your phone or your parents', with numbered questions. Keep it polite: a licensed agency has every reason to answer quickly.
Tick off
- Under what exact name does your agency appear in the Ministry of Tourism's directory?
- Which licence do you hold: ODV or DV1?
- Do you organise this Umrah yourselves, or sell it for another agency? If another, under what name is it listed?
- In which company's name will the contract and the receipts be issued?
- What is the name of the account holder for any transfer?
Then search every name you are given, yourself, in the directory. If the answers point to a company you can find, and the contract, the receipts and the bank account all carry that same name, the doubt is cleared. If the answers are vague, or never come, the doubt stays, and so does the money.
If money has already been sent, keep every transfer confirmation, receipt and message in one folder. The Ministry of Tourism routes complaints to the national complaints portal, where you can file with the Tourism department, track the file with its number and an e-mail address, and reopen it if the answer is unsatisfactory5. The options, in order, are in complaint against a Moroccan travel agency: your options.
Still unclear
- Exactly what a directory entry shows (address, licence type, date granted): no official source we have read describes it.
- How long it takes for a new or renewed licence to appear in the directory, and for a withdrawn one to disappear.
- Whether the regional tourism services confirm a licence by phone or e-mail to someone abroad: we have found no source describing such a service.
- Whether an English or Arabic version of the directory exists: the pages we link to are in French.
What should you do next?
Ask your parents tonight for photos of the shop sign and of any paper with the agency's stamp, then run the three searches while you are on the phone together. If the name appears, move on to the contract and the receipts, following our guide to checking your parents' agency from abroad. If it does not, send the five questions and wait for written answers before anyone pays.