Morocco Tyre Rules 2026: Atlas Snow, No Winter Law

Morocco has no winter tyre rule, no marking requirement and no stud category — and it has mountain passes that close for snow every winter. Both statements are true, and the gap between them is where visitors get caught.

The tread floor is 1.6 mm in the main grooves, the international reference set out in Council Directive 89/459/EEC.

Tyre Law Summary for Morocco

The Atlas is a winter mountain range

Anyone who pictures Morocco as uniformly hot has not driven the N9 in January. The High Atlas rises well above 4,000 metres, and the roads that cross it are high enough to be genuine winter roads:

• Tizi n’Tichka, around 2,260 metres on the Marrakesh to Ouarzazate route, is the main crossing and the one that closes.
• Tizi n’Test, to the west, is narrower, more exposed and less forgiving.
• Oukaimeden, above Marrakesh, is a ski resort — which settles the question of whether it snows here.
• Ifrane and the Michlifen area in the Middle Atlas hold snow through much of the winter.

Because there is no seasonal rule, the management is done by closure. Passes are shut or restricted during heavy snowfall and reopened when they are cleared, announced road by road rather than by calendar. Chains are sold near the passes for exactly this reason, and carrying a set for a winter crossing is the sensible precaution the law does not impose.

And then the south

The same set of tyres may spend the next week on Saharan routes where the surface temperature is punishing and the hazard is drifting sand rather than ice.

Two habits cover it. Set pressures cold, from the door sticker, because desert heat lifts running pressure far above the morning reading. And on soft sand, drop 0.2 to 0.3 bar for traction and put it back before returning to tarmac, because running under-inflated at speed on a hot road is how sidewalls fail.

The borders, including two with the EU

• Algeria: to the east. The land border has been closed since 1994, so there is no through route east by road.
• Mauritania: to the south, beyond Western Sahara, on the Atlantic route through the Guerguerat crossing. No winter tyre season; tread floor 1.6 mm.
• Spain: at Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish cities on the African coast. These are land borders with the European Union, and Spanish and EU rules begin at the gate — including a prohibition on studded tyres.

For speed limits, licence requirements and equipment rules, see the Driving in Morocco guide.