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Casablanca Finance City — Africa's Leading Financial Hub

Morocco · Casablanca · See the Morocco profile

Morocco's Casablanca Finance City grew to 200+ member companies since 2010 and topped the Global Financial Centres Index for Africa for years, but the EU put Morocco on its tax-haven grey list (2019-20) over CFC's tax regime before reforms secured its removal.

Casablanca Finance City — Africa's Leading Financial Hub

Details

Promoter
Casablanca Finance City Authority (CFCA)
Period
2010–present
Keywords
financial services hub, business attraction, investment promotion

Description

Casablanca Finance City was established in December 2010 under Morocco's Law No. 44-10 and is governed by the Casablanca Finance City Authority (CFCA). Built on the site of the former Casablanca–Anfa Airport and redeveloped into a modern business district, it grants qualifying international financial and non-financial services companies a special 'CFC Status' designed to position Casablanca as a gateway between Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The hub surpassed its initial target of 100 member companies by 2015, grew to 150 companies across 46 countries by 2018, and reached 226 member companies representing 24 nationalities and operating in 80 countries by 2024 — contributing, by various official counts, between roughly 5,500 and 7,000 direct jobs in the local market.

The Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), an independent ranking, placed Casablanca Finance City 1st in Africa and 33rd globally as early as its April 2016 edition (GFCI 19), a position it held through most editions to 2024; it briefly slipped to 2nd in Africa by September 2025 before the March 2026 edition (GFCI 39) showed it reclaiming Africa's top spot, ranked 49th of 120 centres worldwide.

The original CFC tax regime — a five-year corporate tax exemption followed by a reduced 8.75% rate on export sales and foreign-source capital gains — was judged a harmful preferential regime by the OECD's Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, leading the EU to keep Morocco on its tax-haven grey list through 2019–2020. Morocco was only removed after reforming the regime to align with fair-tax-competition principles, a reminder that part of CFC's company-attraction numbers reflected tax arbitrage rather than purely organic economic activity.

Read the full analysis: https://casablancafinancecity.com/

Implementation

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