After eight years, Morocco prepares to scrap GMT+1 on Sept 20

Morocco is preparing to return to its legal time zone, GMT, nearly eight years after the government made GMT+1 the country’s permanent standard time outside Ramadan.

Under draft decree No. 2.26.530 approved by the government, clocks are to be set back 60 minutes at 2 a.m. on Sept. 20, 2026. The decree would also repeal Decree No. 2.18.855, adopted in October 2018, which established the current system.

The planned change would bring to an end an eight-year experiment that has generated political, social and scientific debate over its effects on energy consumption, health, schooling and daily life.

How Morocco adopted GMT+1

On Oct. 26, 2018, the government adopted Decree No. 2.18.855, adding 60 minutes to Morocco’s legal time while retaining the possibility of returning to GMT during Ramadan.

The decision was introduced rapidly and prompted criticism from parts of Moroccan society, as well as debate in Parliament and the courts.

At the time, the government defended the move as a way to avoid repeated clock changes throughout the year and the negative effects it said had been identified in a government study.

The issue also reached the judiciary. A lawyer challenged the decree, while the Authenticity and Modernity Party submitted a bill seeking to repeal the additional hour and give Parliament authority over changes to the country’s legal time.

In March 2019, Morocco’s Constitutional Court ruled that the change was constitutional, saying the authority to determine the country’s legal time fell within the government’s regulatory powers rather than Parliament’s legislative domain.

The government subsequently said it would evaluate the impact of the new system.

In October 2019, then-Minister for Administrative Reform Mohamed Ben Abdelkader said a government study was nearing completion and would present the prime minister with three options: abolishing the additional hour, keeping it year-round or returning to a seasonal system.

The study examined the effects of permanent summer time on biological rhythms and health, as well as sleep, private and public life, transactions, security and energy consumption. It also considered the potential impact on students and school schedules.

According to preliminary findings cited by the government at the time, permanent summer time did not have negative health effects.

Energy savings under scrutiny

The energy rationale behind GMT+1 returned to the spotlight in Parliament in 2026.

In April, Energy Transition and Sustainable Development Minister Leila Benali told the House of Representatives that keeping the additional hour during winter did not produce the same energy-saving benefits observed during summer.

She also said there had been no significant reduction in electricity demand, which had increased in 2026, and acknowledged difficulties in assessing the overall impact of the policy.

Benali called for the earlier study to be updated, citing changes in consumer behavior and the complexity of measuring the effects of the additional hour.

Her comments revived a central question surrounding GMT+1 since its introduction: whether the energy savings used to justify the policy were actually being achieved.

The minister’s remarks effectively put one of the government’s original arguments for the additional hour back under scrutiny.

From online campaign to institutional pressure

Opposition to GMT+1 also developed into a broader civic campaign.

At the beginning of 2026, an online petition titled “We Want to Return to Natural Time” attracted tens of thousands of signatures before reportedly passing the 100,000 mark and later reaching more than 300,000 signatures on the platform.

The campaign subsequently sought to move beyond online activism by pursuing a formal petition under Organic Law No. 44.14, which governs petitions submitted to public authorities.

That effort introduced a more complicated challenge: converting large numbers of online signatures into signatures meeting the legal requirements for a formal petition.

A national committee responsible for the petition process became involved as campaigners sought to turn the demand for a return to GMT into an institutional initiative.

The decision to turn back the clock

The government ultimately settled the issue before the legal petition process was completed.

On June 25, 2026, Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch announced that Morocco would return to its legal time, with clocks scheduled to be set back by one hour on Sept. 20.

The announcement also prompted political interpretations, particularly because the scheduled date falls only three days before Morocco’s legislative elections.

The draft decree No. 2.26.530 formally provides for a return to the legal time corresponding to the mean solar time of the Greenwich meridian and repeals the 2018 decree that introduced the additional hour.

The decision therefore closes one chapter of Morocco’s long-running debate over legal time, but it does not necessarily settle the questions that accompanied GMT+1 since 2018.

What did eight years of GMT+1 achieve?

The planned return to GMT raises broader questions about the legacy of the eight-year experiment.

How much energy did the policy actually save? What were its economic and social benefits? What costs did it impose on health, sleep, schooling and daily routines? And could the issue have been resolved earlier through a more comprehensive assessment?

The government’s decision to return to GMT marks the end of the current system, but a full assessment of the policy’s eight-year impact remains necessary to determine whether the objectives originally used to justify GMT+1 were achieved.

For now, Morocco is preparing to turn its clocks back by 60 minutes on Sept. 20 — bringing an eight-year experiment to an end while leaving the debate over its costs and benefits far from settled.