Medical Device Advertising in Morocco: Visa, Declaration and Rules

1. Key takeaways

Articles 30 to 35 of Law No. 84-12 erect three gates for device advertising. Article 31: only devices holding a registration certificate may be advertised. Article 34: advertising aimed at the public requires a prior visa from the competent authority. Article 35: advertising directed at health professionals who may prescribe or use the device requires a prior declaration accompanied by the promotional material, to which the competent authority may object within 30 days of receipt. Article 32 requires advertising content to be true, up to date, verifiable and consistent with the registration dossier. Because promotional material is produced continuously — trade fair panels, brochures, website copy, social media posts — advertising is the most frequent recurring touchpoint between a manufacturer and Moroccan advertising law, and the penalty tier attached to it is correspondingly the one most likely to be encountered in practice. Unlike registration, which is a one-time project, advertising compliance is a recurring process that must be embedded in the marketing workflow itself.

2. Legal basis

3. Expert insights

Insight 1: the exclusion list in Article 30 is highly valuable. The provision expressly excludes four categories from the definition of advertising: the labeling and instructions for use of the device; necessary non-advertising correspondence attached to answers about a specific device; information on warnings, precautions for use and adverse reactions identified through materiovigilance, as well as sales catalogs and price lists containing no device information; and information on human health or disease that does not involve the device, even indirectly. These four categories can be published freely — but only if their content stays within the stated limits. The boundary is factual rather than formal: a price list that mentions a device, or a health-education article that so much as indirectly refers to one, loses its exclusion and becomes ordinary advertising subject to the full regime.

Insight 2: Article 33 sets three cumulative conditions for public advertising. Advertising aimed at the public may only be placed if all three are satisfied: the device is not a prescription device; its cost is not reimbursable under health insurance schemes; and the registration certificate contains no restriction on public advertising due to a possible public health risk. If any single condition fails, public advertising is off the table and the material must be confined to professional channels. Because the second condition depends on insurance practice and the third on what is written into the certificate itself, both should be re-checked periodically rather than assumed to be stable over the life of a campaign.

Insight 3: the 30 days of Article 35 mean that silence releases the material. The provision allows the competent authority to raise an objection within 30 days of receipt of the declaration if the promotional material does not comply with Articles 31 and 32. The structure mirrors the 90 days of Article 8: if no objection is raised in time, the material may be published — but the declaration itself must still have been made. Skipping the declaration removes the safe harbor entirely, and the publication schedule should therefore treat the filing date, not the campaign launch date, as the controlling milestone.

Insight 4: violations of the advertising rules fall under Article 42. Establishments that violate the advertising provisions of Articles 32 to 35 face fines of MAD 60,000 to 100,000. This is the lightest of the three penalty tiers, but also the most frequent one in practice — promotional material is generated almost monthly, and each item is a fresh compliance exposure. The fixed-amount range also means the fine applies to establishments of any size, so it weighs proportionally harder on smaller distributors and newer market entrants.

Insight 5: both the grant and the withdrawal of advertising visas sit with the committee. When Article 36 lists the functions of the national advisory committee, it expressly includes decisions on applications for advertising visas and the withdrawal of such visas. Article 34 additionally provides that an advertising visa may be withdrawn by the competent authority through a reasoned decision, so a visa once granted is not a permanent asset. A campaign plan should therefore include a step for checking that visas relied upon remain valid, particularly for long-running materials.

Insight 6: the authority’s own public-awareness campaigns need no visa. The third paragraph of Article 34 states that publicity campaigns conducted by the competent authority itself are not subject to the visa requirement — a narrow but clean carve-out worth knowing when mapping who must file what.

4. Practical recommendations

1. Pass three gates before any promotional material goes out. Does a valid registration certificate exist (Article 31)? Is the material aimed at the public (Article 34 visa)? Is it aimed at professionals (Article 35 declaration)?
2. Build an advertising content self-check list. Verify item by item against Article 32: true, up to date, consistent with the law in force, verifiable and sufficiently complete.
3. Keep the declaration and visa workflows separate. Professional promotion goes through prior declaration and a 30-day wait; public advertising goes through a visa application and may only run once the visa is granted.
4. Make full use of the Article 30 exclusions. Price lists and pure health-education content fall outside the advertising definition, provided they contain no device information.
5. Keep promotional material consistent with the registration dossier. Article 32 requires consistency with the dossier; when the dossier changes under Article 16, update the promotional material at the same time.

5. Verification checklist

• □ All devices covered by promotional material hold valid registration certificates (Article 31)
• □ The two workflows — public (visa) and professional (declaration) — are distinguished
• □ Public advertising has been checked against the three conditions of Article 33
• □ Professional advertising has been declared in advance with the promotional material attached
• □ The 30-day objection period is built into the publication schedule
• □ Promotional material has passed the Article 32 item-by-item self-check
• □ The penalty risk of MAD 60,000 to 100,000 under Article 42 has been assessed

Regulatory information verified as of October 30, 2026

Post-market support from GRZAN. GRZAN helps medical device manufacturers and importers in the Moroccan market manage post-market compliance, including the review and declaration of promotional material, advertising visa applications, and responses to competent-authority objections and inspections. If you need your promotional workflow mapped against Articles 30 to 35 of Law 84-12, contact info@grzanglobal.com.