Morocco raises widow pensions to 100%, minimum to 1,700 DH

Morocco's Minister of Economy and Finance, Fouzi Lekjaa, announced that the government is preparing to send two bills to parliament in the coming days, the first of which raises the widow's pension from 50% to 100% of her deceased husband's pension. The announcement came on Monday as Lekjaa presented his ministry's sectoral budget to the Finance and Economic Development Committee of the House of Representatives, according to Al3omk.

The government aims to complete the legislative process for both bills before the end of December, allowing them to take effect from 1 January 2027.

Widow's pension doubles for 431,000 beneficiaries

The first bill raises a widow's share of her deceased husband's pension from 50% to 100% in full, a measure the government estimates will cost around 7.33 billion dirhams a year, benefiting 431,334 widows.

Minimum pension to 1,700 dirhams as a first step

The second bill raises the minimum retirement pension to 1,700 dirhams a month from 1 January 2027, up from roughly 1,000 dirhams currently in the private sector and 1,500 dirhams in the public sector. The measure will cover 557,472 retirees, including 389,287 beneficiaries of the National Social Security Fund (CNSS), at a total annual cost of about 3.3 billion dirhams.

The state covers the cost, not the pension funds

Lekjaa had already revealed both measures in earlier remarks reported by Akhbarona, saying the state budget, not the pension funds, would bear the full cost of the increase: "This is social support and a choice made by the state... the funds will not bear any burden." He defended the widow's pension increase by saying: "A husband's death does not mean household expenses drop by half."

Why this decision matters to Moroccan families

Doubling the widow's pension from half to the full amount means that a widow who previously received only half her husband's pension will, from 1 January 2027, receive the full pension — a direct improvement to the monthly income of around 431,000 households headed by widows. At the same time, setting the minimum at 1,700 dirhams raises the income of hundreds of thousands of retirees who were receiving the lowest pensions, especially in the private sector, where the floor did not exceed 1,000 dirhams a month.

A rising trajectory through 2030

The increase does not stop at 1,700 dirhams: the government's programme plans a gradual rise in the minimum pension over the coming years, reaching 2,000 dirhams in 2028, then 2,500 dirhams in 2029, and up to 3,000 dirhams a month in 2030, as the table below shows:

What comes next

The fate of both measures now depends on parliament passing the two bills in the coming weeks, after the government committed to completing their legislative process before the end of the current month.