This guide is for the person about to pay. Often that is a son or daughter organising an Umrah for a mother or father, sometimes from London, Paris or Dubai; sometimes it is the pilgrim. You need no account, no legal knowledge and no contact with us: a phone, the agency's documents and ten quiet minutes are enough.
How do you know a Moroccan agency is licensed?
You compare what the agency tells you with what the ministry publishes, never the other way round. If you are asking yourself “is my Umrah agency legit?”, this is where the answer starts. Work through the steps in this order and write each answer down as you go.
Tick off
- Get both of the agency's names in writing. The trade name on the shop sign or Facebook page is often not the name of the company behind it. Ask for the exact company name and the address of the office, by message, so that you keep a trace.
- Open the official directory yourself. Type the address of the ministry's site rather than following a link the seller sent you. The directory lists the ODV and DV agencies licensed under Law 11-161.
- Search each name separately. One search for the trade name, one for the company name. Start with a single distinctive word: a missing accent or an extra word is enough to return nothing.
- Write down the licence type and the date of your search. The two possible types are Travel Organiser-Distributor (ODV) and Travel Distributor (DV)2. Note which one you found and when.
- Compare the name on every document. The directory name should be the one on the contract, on the receipt and on the bank account that receives the money. A different name is not proof of fraud, but it needs a written explanation before you pay.
- Pay the agency, and only the agency. A transfer to the company's account, or payment at its counter against a dated, signed receipt in its name. No cash handed to a go-between, no transfer to a “coordinator's” personal account.
If all six answers line up, you have done the core of the check. If one of them does not, stop at that step and ask. A licensed agency has no reason to hide who it is.
Where is the official directory?
On the Ministry of Tourism's website, mtaess.gov.ma. The site is in French: open the menu “Annuaires” (Directories), then “Annuaire des agences de voyages” (Travel agencies directory)1. The direct address is the ministry's travel-agency directory page. According to H24info, this is where the ministry publishes the official list of authorised travel agencies5.
A few habits make the search more reliable, especially if you do not read French comfortably:
- Try every spelling. Names transliterated from Arabic change from one document to the next: El or Al, Hajj or Haj, Omra or Umrah, Makka or Mecca. Search the shortest distinctive part of the name.
- Try the company name before you give up. Many agencies trade under one name and are registered under another.
- Use your browser's translation if you need it, but compare the names in their original spelling, letter by letter.
- Keep your own proof. Take a screenshot with the date visible on your phone and file it with the contract.
We do not describe what each directory entry displays, because no official source we have read details it. Compare what you see with your documents. How the lists are organised, and what the two licence types mean, is explained in ODV and DV: Morocco's travel agency licences.
What do ODV and DV mean?
They are the two licence types. ODV stands for organisateur-distributeur de voyages, Travel Organiser-Distributor; DV for distributeur de voyages, Travel Distributor. Applications are filed online and handled by the Tourism department's regional services, which also handle withdrawals2.
For an Umrah buyer, the useful question follows from the names: “Do you organise this trip yourselves, or do you sell it for another agency?” If another agency organises it, ask for that agency's name in writing and check it the same way.
A licence can also be taken away. The regional services handle withdrawals2, and Law 11-16 allows agencies to be sanctioned6. A check made last year, or even last month, tells you about last year or last month.
The agency is not listed: what now?
First, do not jump to conclusions. An empty result often comes from a spelling difference or from a trade name that differs from the company name. Second, pay nothing while the doubt remains.
Tick off
- Search again with one word of the name, then with the company name.
- Ask the agency, in writing, for the exact name under which it appears in the directory and the type of its licence.
- Search that name yourself, without using any link the agency sends.
- If the agency still cannot be found, pay no deposit, not even “to hold the hotel room”.
- If money has already been paid, keep every receipt and message and follow the complaint options, in order.
This is not a theoretical risk. 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 list5. The same report says the pilgrims were repatriated, according to H24info5.
The case teaches two things. An agency can have been legal once and no longer be legal on the day you pay. And a directory search, made in time, would have raised the question. Other published cases, each with its source and status, are in the Morocco Umrah fraud log.
If you are checking for parents who live in Morocco while you live elsewhere, the steps do not change, but the paperwork reaches you as photos. Checking your parents' agency from abroad shows how to organise that.
Is a licence enough?
No. A licence shows that the agency has the right to trade. It says nothing about the trip it sells you or about the person behind the counter. The president of the agencies' federation himself said that gaps in licensing allow unqualified people to operate legally, and a consumer association warned against online offers at abnormally low prices7.
So the licence opens the check; it does not close it. After the directory, three questions matter just as much:
- Are the answers in writing? Hotel, transport, who accompanies the group, what happens if the trip is cancelled: get each answer by message or on the contract, not only by phone.
- Is the contract in the agency's name, and complete? What is not written down binds nobody.
- Does every payment leave a trace? A transfer or a dated, signed receipt in the agency's name, for every amount.
The patterns behind published fraud cases, and the signals that should make you stop, are set out in Umrah scams in Morocco: warning signs from published cases.
Check us too
This site is published by a travel agency, Wiki Tours International, based in Casablanca. We ask you to apply exactly the method on this page to it, with no special treatment.
Search its name in the ministry's directory, compare what you find with the name on a contract and a receipt, and put your questions in writing. Its licence details will appear on the publisher page only once they can be linked to an official source; until then, this site states nothing about that licence. Wiki Tours International's own website tells you what the agency says about itself. The directory tells you what the ministry publishes. Only the second one is a check.
Still unclear
- What a directory entry shows exactly (address, licence type, date granted): no official source we have read describes it. We tell you what to compare, not what the entry displays.
- How often the directory is updated, and how long a withdrawn licence takes to disappear from it.
- Whether the directory exists in English: the page we link to is the French version, and we have not found another.
- Whether a separate official list exists for Umrah organisers: the published label lists we have seen concern Hajj, and we wait for official confirmation before saying there is no other.
What should you do next?
Run the search now, while you have the agency's documents in front of you, and save your dated screenshot. Then read the contract before anyone signs, and keep a receipt for every amount. If a step leaves you unsure, you can write to us: we explain the method, and we do not pass judgement on a named competing agency.