Morocco Customs Tariff 2026: how sections and chapters work

The customs tariff reads like a tree, and most classification errors come from reading it horizontally: scanning wording for a familiar word, never going back up to see what the parent allows. Yet in this structure it is the upper levels that govern.

Twenty-one sections group ninety-nine chapters, themselves divided into headings then subheadings, and in Morocco into ten-digit national lines. Each level contributes something different, and each one on its own can exclude your goods.

The five storeys, and what each decides

Section XITextiles and textile articles — section notesNot in the code

61Chapter — knitted or crocheted apparel — chapter notes2 digits

6109Heading — T-shirts, singlets, knitted or crocheted4 digits

6109.10Subheading — of cotton6 digits

6109.10.00.00Moroccan national line — rate, unit, measures10 digits

Two observations are worth keeping. First, the section appears nowhere in the code, which makes it easy to forget — even though its notes apply to every chapter it contains. Second, chapter 61 does not depend on the material but on the process: it is the knitting that separates it from chapter 62. A woven T-shirt is not in 61.

The reading order that avoids dead ends

1. 01

   Section notes

   They state what the whole section does not cover. An exclusion here removes up to fifteen chapters at once — the biggest time saving in the whole exercise.

2. 02

   Chapter notes

   They define terms ("knitted", "parts", "set"), fix thresholds and exclude articles by name. They override the intuition a heading term gives.

3. 03

   Heading terms

   Read in full, including the qualifiers. "Other than" and "excluding" do the decisive work, and are often read too quickly.

4. 04

   Subheading notes

   Fewer in number, but they take precedence over chapter notes when separating subheadings from each other.

5. 05

   National wording

   Compared at the same level, between dashes of equal rank. A single dash is never compared with a double dash.

The reference text for the notes is the WCO HS Nomenclature; their legal force derives from the HS Convention. National wording and attached measures are consulted in the ADII integrated tariff and in ADIL.

Three reading traps that recur everywhere

An exercise on two branches

Open these two lines and each time work back up to the chapter notes. For the first, look for what separates knitted from woven; for the second, look for the note that defines an automatic data-processing machine.

6109100000Open the tariff record 8471300000Open the tariff record

The cost of stopping too early

Stopping at the four-digit heading because the wording "looks right" is comfortable and expensive. The table below costs the exposure on a single reference over twelve months.

Navigating without losing the hierarchy

Discipline for moving through the tree

• Always go back up to the parentA subheading term is always read as a continuation of its heading term.
• Respect the rank of the dashesCompare only lines at the same level. That is what GIR 6 requires.
• Record every note read and set asideA note read and judged inapplicable is useful information for the reviewer.
• Landing on a line by direct link with no contextBlocking: a search result does not show the parent's exclusions.
• Comparing Moroccan wording with foreign wordingBlocking beyond six digits: the nomenclatures diverge.

What statistics by heading can measure

Trade data by chapter and heading is used to size a control plan: which families concentrate value, which concentrate line count, where new flows sit. It classifies nothing. The series are published by Office des Changes statistics and the value and volume indices by the HCP foreign-trade indices.

Archive the tariff edition used

A classification decision is dated by construction: it holds for one HS edition and one version of the national tariff. So keep, alongside the code, the consultation date, the integrated tariff version, and the extract or stable link for the notes that settled it. Edition changes are tracked with the WCO correlation tables, and national texts on the Official Gazette portal.