The Amazigh Language to Feature on the New Moroccan Passport Starting August 2026
After a long wait, Moroccans are finally getting an Amazigh-language passport. A legal reform of the biometric passport will add Tamazight to the document for the first time. The reform also scraps the temporary passport and ends the exemption that had allowed minors applying for a passport to receive an electronic national ID card instead. The new passport is expected to roll out nationwide by August 2026.
The reform takes the form of draft decree No. 2.26.551, which amends decree No. 2.08.310 of October 23, 2008, establishing the biometric passport. The Council of Government adopted the text on Thursday.
According to the bill’s explanatory note, its provisions are spread across several articles. These assign responsibility for setting the procedures and conditions for issuing the passport to a joint decision by the government authorities in charge of the Interior and Foreign Affairs. They also define the document’s format: a booklet consisting of a cover and several pages, including a data page and a page reserved for a handwritten signature, along with an electronic component. Other provisions set out the content of the cover and data page. Among the main changes are the adoption of four languages — Arabic, Amazigh, French and English — the addition of a secure photo of the holder on the signature page, and the removal of the holder’s address, which previously appeared on the data page.
The draft decree also specifies the data to be stored in the passport’s electronic component.
The new text repeals two articles of the previous decree. The first concerned the temporary passport, which will no longer be issued. The second concerned the exemption allowing a minor applying for a passport to obtain an electronic national ID card instead through the General Directorate of National Security — a provision now considered outdated.
Per the explanatory note, the new provisions allow authorities to keep issuing passports in the current format while the new generation of documents is gradually rolled out. Passports already issued will remain valid until their expiration date, ensuring continuity of public service.
The reform, the note states, is part of “efforts to protect the Moroccan passport by adopting a new generation of biometric passport equipped with security features and safeguards drawn from the latest technologies.” The approach is designed to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving methods used in forgery and counterfeiting. The new document’s design also reflects Morocco’s Amazigh identity.
The draft decree amends the aforementioned decree No. 2.08.310 establishing the biometric passport in order to “create this new generation of biometric passport, which will be gradually rolled out at the level of prefectures and provinces, as well as at the Kingdom of Morocco’s embassies and consulates general abroad, with a view to its nationwide rollout by August 2026.”
