Uber is back in Morocco,” several Careem drivers in Casablanca and Rabat tell us. For the past few days, they have been gradually switching to the Uber Driver app, on instructions from their employers. “Users will not see this change immediately, but the name of the application will be replaced in the coming days,” they explain.

Founded in 2012 in Dubai by Mudassir Sheikha and Magnus Olsson, two former management consultants, Careem first emerged as a carpooling app before expanding its services to delivery and financial solutions. Present in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, the company was acquired in January 2020 by the American giant Uber for 3.1 billion dollars.

But until recently, Careem still operated in Morocco as a separate subsidiary of Uber, keeping its brand and application in the ride-hailing segment. It is only in the past few days that the transition toward Uber appears to have begun. Contacted by TelQuel, a Careem official specifies, however, that this update currently concerns only the drivers and that no change is planned for users of the application. He adds that this transition is part of a broader process carried out in several other markets where Careem is present.

Moving toward a headquarters in Marrakech?

However, the first signs of an Uber comeback began to appear as early as last May, with a job posting published on LinkedIn and several specialized sites. The announcement aimed to recruit a “Country Manager” for Morocco, or more precisely a Country Operations Manager. According to the description, the position “is part of the MEA team” (Middle East and Africa) and consists of “ensuring Uber’s success in Morocco, starting with Marrakech, and contributing to the growth of our business in this key market.”

This job posting outlined a clear roadmap: relaunching the brand’s operations through driver and rider acquisition and retention, developing strategic partnerships with local fleets, and implementing regional programs to adapt Uber’s model to the Moroccan context. It also specified that the position would be based in Marrakech, thus confirming the company’s intention to reestablish its presence in Morocco starting from this city before broader expansion. Asked about this job posting, the Careem representative says he has no information on the matter.

For taxi drivers, the long-standing and primary opponents of Uber and ride-hailing apps in general, this return, even discreet, has not gone unnoticed. “We have of course heard about the return of the Uber company to Morocco. At the time of its presence, we organized, within the union and with other organizations, several protests to block it because it threatened to slaughter the transport sector in Morocco,” says without hesitation Mohamed Fadde, first national deputy secretary of the taxi sector union, affiliated with the National Union of Labor in Morocco (UNTM), contacted by TelQuel.

Under-the-table apps

For him, the problem today goes beyond the single case of Uber. “We are not only against Uber, but against all ride-hailing apps that do not have any legal authorization to operate in Morocco, namely Careem, Yango, InDrive and Yassir. They are simply illegal and operate under the table. All you need is a car and a phone to work for them,” he laments.

The unionist also warns about the precariousness of ride-hailing drivers, whom he considers the first victims of this system. “Even the drivers who work with these applications are victims of these companies. They sometimes find themselves arrested, their driver’s license taken away and their car seized. Meanwhile, the company continues to make money through an opaque circuit. We do not know where this uncontrolled money goes,” he continues.

According to him, the contrast is striking compared with the strict system taxis are subject to: “We have to check in every day, pay insurance specifically for transporting people and comply with precise rules. The vehicles used by these applications are subject to no control at all.”

It is precisely this absence of a legal framework that led to Uber’s departure from Morocco in early 2018, after three years of activity filled with obstacles. A few months earlier, the UNTM, through its taxi sector union, had taken legal action to denounce the company’s illegality. In a complaint dated September 25, 2017, addressed to the public prosecutor at the Aïn Sebaâ criminal court in Casablanca — of which TelQuel holds a copy — the union accused Uber of “carrying out passenger transport activities without authorization from the local authorities.”

“Anti-competitive practices”

The complaint explicitly names Meryem Belqziz, then Uber’s representative in Morocco, who had allegedly “implicitly acknowledged” the unauthorized nature of this activity. It also refers to several media appearances, including a report by the program 45 Minutes, broadcast on the national public television channel Al Aoula on July 23, 2017.

The union then invoked Royal Decree No. 1.63.260 of July 12, 1963 on road transport, whose Article 2 assigns local authorities the responsibility for issuing permits. According to the complaint, Uber “created confusion among professionals in the sector through its anti-competitive practices” and caused “material and moral harm” to taxi drivers. More surprisingly, the document also raised concerns about potential security abuses, arguing that the company’s unregulated activity “could be exploited for drug trafficking, alcohol smuggling or high-end prostitution” due to the lack of driver oversight and financial traceability.

Lastly, the letter concluded by asking the prosecutor’s office “to intervene immediately to put an end to the chaos” and to shut down Uber’s administrative headquarters in Casablanca.

At the same time, the union had also petitioned the Director General of National Security, the Ministers of Interior and Justice, as well as the Wali of the Casablanca-Settat region. In December of the same year, the organization received an official response from the Presidency of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General at the Casablanca Court of Appeal, informing them that the complaint had been taken up and forwarded to the competent services. “After our complaints, measures had begun, but Uber left Morocco in the meantime and the legal proceedings against it were suspended,” Mohamed Fadde tells us.

In a statement released in February 2018, Uber officially announced the suspension of its activities in Morocco. The company recalled its original philosophy: “a simple idea: press a button to get around,” claiming more than 15 million daily trips worldwide and a desire to “be a responsible partner for cities, drivers and users.”

But the American giant acknowledged in the same statement the regulatory deadlock it faced in Morocco: “Since our launch in Morocco almost three years ago, we have not had clarity on how applications like Uber could be integrated into the existing transport model. That is why we are making the difficult decision to suspend our activity in Morocco.”

Previously announced return

At the time, Uber had around 19,000 regular users and nearly 300 active drivers in the kingdom. The company said it intended to support each of them individually during the transition period, while reaffirming its intention to return as soon as a clear legal framework was established. “Morocco, ranked among the 50 most innovative countries according to the Bloomberg Innovation Index, deserves modern regulation that encourages innovation and competition,” the platform wrote, citing as an example its partnership with COP22 in November 2016, during which it facilitated more than 10,000 hybrid and electric vehicle trips in less than a week.

The conclusion of the statement already hinted at the desire for a return. “We will come back as soon as new rules are in place. Although we are no longer active in Morocco, we remain available to help define a favorable environment that will allow our technology to reach its potential,” the American multinational promised.

Seven years after its departure, nothing seems to have fundamentally changed on the legislative front. To this day, no clear text governs the activity of ride-hailing services in Morocco, unless an announcement is made in the coming days. Such legalization would, moreover, arrive at a perfect time, as the country prepares to welcome thousands of supporters for the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN 2025), scheduled from December 21, 2025 to January 18, 2026.

Minister of the Interior Abdelouafi Laftit has repeatedly reminded the public that the use of private vehicles for paid transportation via applications, without an appropriate license, remains illegal. But at the beginning of the year, he acknowledged the need for clearer regulation. “We cannot officially integrate ride-hailing services, but we also cannot pretend to ignore them,” he said, specifying that a study was underway to define the terms for legally integrating this type of activity.

The minister then called for dialogue among all stakeholders in order to find a compromise between innovation, safety and compliance with the regulatory framework. On the taxi side, the position remains unchanged. “We ask the Ministry of the Interior to take responsibility. If it wishes for these applications to operate in Morocco, taxi drivers are the only ones authorized to do so, since they hold an authorization, a professional card and a trust permit,” insists Mohamed Fadde. While awaiting clarification, ride-hailing applications, including Uber, still operate in a gray area, between tolerance and illegality.

Written in French by Ghita Ismaili, edited in English by Eric Nielson