Home › Guides › Schengen Visa from Morocco: Spain, BLS and the Main Destination Rule

Schengen Visa from Morocco: Spain, BLS, Main Destination

Spain handles short-stay Schengen applications in Morocco through BLS International, the official partner of the Embassy of Spain, at six centres: Agadir, Casablanca, Nador, Rabat, Tangier and Tetouan. The visa costs EUR 90 for adults and is charged in Moroccan dirham at the prevailing euro rate, non-refundable, collected by the consulate and never by Visakit. You must apply to the country where you will spend the most days, so a trip with six nights in Spain and four in France belongs at the Spanish centre, while the same trip reversed belongs at the French consulate, whatever centre has the earlier appointment. A correctly lodged application is decided within 15 calendar days.

This page covers the whole corridor for a Moroccan resident applying for a short-stay Type C Schengen visa, with Spain as the default destination. It gives you the rule that decides where you apply, the six centres, what the visa costs and who collects it, a document list, the three things that actually cause refusals on this corridor, and the timing you can hold the system to.

Visakit is not a government body, not a consulate and not a law firm. We do not file applications, we do not book BLS appointments, and we do not collect visa or service-centre fees. We prepare the document pack and the filled form data, and the consulate decides.

The rule that decides where you apply: Article 5

Article 5 of the Visa Code says the competent member state is the one whose territory is your main destination, meaning the longest stay. Where stays in different member states are equal, the state of first entry is competent. That is the whole rule. It has no exception for convenience, for the city you live in, for the consulate with the shortest queue, or for the country whose visa you have held before.

The most common Moroccan error on this corridor is applying at whichever consulate had an earlier slot. If your itinerary says six nights in Spain and four in France, the Spanish centre can take your file, but the file describes a trip whose main destination is Spain, so it holds together. If your itinerary says four nights in Spain and six in France and you hand that same itinerary to the Spanish centre because Rabat had a cancellation, you have handed the consulate written proof that Spain is not the competent state. That is not a technicality. It is a refusal ground, and we come back to it below.

A short table, because this is where most files go wrong:

Two practical consequences follow. First, build the itinerary before you book the appointment, not after. Second, if your plans change after you book, change the application, not the story: the consulate reads the itinerary, the flight reservation and the accommodation booking side by side, and they need to agree on which country holds your longest stay.

The same Article 5 logic is why the corridor is split in Morocco between the Spanish centres and the French ones. The next section deals with the centres. The French question gets its own section further down, because it is the real decision most applicants face.

Spain's six centres in Morocco

BLS International runs the Spanish application service in Morocco as the official partner of the Embassy of Spain. The published network is six locations: Agadir, Casablanca, Nador, Rabat, Tangier and Tetouan. That list is the citable content, and it is worth knowing before you start looking for a centre that does not exist.

Which of those six you attend depends on the consular district your place of residence falls into. The split between the Rabat and Casablanca consulates is.

One site problem is worth flagging because it wastes time. The BLS Morocco site is served in English, Arabic, Spanish and French, but the English city pages return 404 while the French ones load. If you follow an English link to a city page and get an error, you are not doing anything wrong. Switch the city segment to French or Spanish, for example /rabat/french/schengen-tourist.php, and the page loads. Our source links point at the French pages for that reason.

What the Schengen visa costs in Morocco

The fee structure comes from the Visa Code, and it is the same across the Schengen area. What changes is the currency and the exchange rate applied on the day you pay.

Three things about this table matter more than the numbers.

The visa fee is non-refundable. Article 16(7) says it is charged in euro or national currency and is not refunded except in the narrow cases in Articles 18(2) and 19(3). If your application is refused, or if you withdraw it, the EUR 90 does not come back. Neither does the BLS service fee for a booked appointment you do not attend.

The fee is set in euro and converted to dirham. BLS applies the prevailing rate, so the dirham amount can move between one month and the next even though the euro figure is fixed. The Commission reviews the EUR 90 every three years by delegated act under Article 16(9), so the euro figure itself can change; check the current amount before you pay rather than trusting a page written months ago.

Visakit never collects the visa fee or the BLS service fee. They are paid to the consulate and to BLS. Our revenue is affiliate commission on flights and hotels booked through partner links, at no extra cost to you, which is why the pack itself costs nothing. For a fuller breakdown, see Schengen visa cost from Morocco.

Document checklist for the Spanish centre

Two warnings before the list.

First, the list below is adapted from the document list BLS publishes for Spain in Egypt. We captured that list in full. We did not capture Morocco's own published list, so items marked are working assumptions built from the Visa Code requirements (Articles 12, 14, 15 and Annex II) rather than confirmed text from the Moroccan centre. Confirm each one on the Spanish consulate's page or the BLS Morocco French city page before you submit.

Second, Schengen states genuinely differ on the details. Spain asks for six months of stamped bank statements; other consulates ask for three, and some ask for a statement of account plus a tax record. France's list is not Spain's list. Read the list for the consulate you are actually applying to, which after Article 5 may not be Spain at all.

1. Application form, completed in English or Spanish, signed and dated at the centre. Mandatory.
2. Photograph, 3.5 x 4.5 cm, white background, taken within the last six months. Mandatory.
3. Passport, valid for at least three months beyond your intended departure, issued within the previous 10 years, with at least two blank pages (Article 12). Mandatory. Include copies of all non-blank pages.
4. Previous passports covering recent years, particularly any holding an earlier Schengen visa. Commonly requested.
5. Residence proof for non-Moroccan nationals: a residence card valid at least three months beyond departure, with a translation if it is not in Arabic, French, Spanish or English. Mandatory if it applies to you.
6. Proof of professional status: an employment letter on company paper giving your position, salary, start date and approved leave, signed and stamped; or a commercial registry extract plus current tax record if you are self-employed; or an enrolment letter if you are a student. Mandatory, because it establishes purpose and your reason to return.
7. Bank statements for the last six months, original, bearing the bank's stamp and signature, translated if needed. Mandatory.
8. A signed declaration authorising the consulate to confirm your accounts with the bank.
9. Where the account is not in your name: the account holder's identity document plus a signed declaration, or a bank-stamped authorisation allowing you to use the funds. Mandatory if it applies.
10. Where you hold no bank account: alternative proof of assets or income. Commonly requested.
11. Sponsorship or private accommodation proof, such as a host invitation or a letter of guarantee, where you are staying with someone rather than in paid accommodation. Commonly requested.
12. Return flight reservation, showing both directions, not fully paid before the visa is issued. Mandatory in practice, and the "not fully paid" part matters: a non-refundable ticket bought before a decision is money at risk.
13. Accommodation covering every night of the stay, in the form of a hotel booking, rental contract or host invitation. Mandatory, and a frequent cause of refusal when there is a gap. See below.
14. Itinerary if the trip touches more than one member state, showing dates and places. Mandatory on any multi-country trip.
15. Travel medical insurance with minimum coverage of EUR 30,000, valid across the whole Schengen area and for the entire stay, covering repatriation for medical reasons, urgent medical attention, emergency hospital treatment and death (Article 15). Mandatory, no exceptions for short trips.
16. Documents for minors under 18: birth certificate, parental consent, and the identity documents of the parents or guardians.
17. Family status documents, such as the livret de famille or an equivalent extract.

Four requirements in that list deserve their own paragraph, because they are the ones people fail on for reasons that have nothing to do with money.

Passport validity is cumulative. Three months beyond departure and issued within 10 years, both conditions. A passport with eight years of validity left but issued 11 years ago fails the second condition.

Insurance is checked as a document, not as a promise. EUR 30,000 minimum, the whole Schengen area, the whole stay. A policy that covers Spain only, or that starts the day after you land, or that is capped below the threshold, fails Article 15 and therefore Article 32(1)(a).

The lodging window is narrow at both ends. Under Article 9(1) you may not lodge more than six months before your visit, and as a rule not later than 15 calendar days before it. BLS applies this literally on the corridors where it publishes the rule, refusing files more than 180 days ahead or less than 15 days ahead.

The 90 days in any 180 is a ceiling, not an allowance per trip. A Type C visa lets you spend at most 90 days in the Schengen area in any rolling 180-day period. If you used 40 days in the spring, a 60-day summer trip will not fit, and the consulate can see the earlier stamps.

The three things that actually cause refusals on this corridor

Refusals are issued under Article 32. The first paragraph lists mandatory grounds, the second covers discretionary grounds such as reasonable doubts about the authenticity of documents, the veracity of their contents, the reliability of your statements, or your intention to leave before the visa expires. On the Morocco to Spain corridor, three patterns account for most of the avoidable ones.

1. Applying to a state that is not your main destination, and letting the itinerary prove it

This is Article 5 failing on paper. You apply at the Spanish centre because Rabat had a slot. Your flight lands in Barcelona, you spend two nights there, then eight nights in France, and your accommodation booking shows it. The consulate does not have to suspect anything: the file states, in your own documents, that another member state is competent.

The refusal cites the discretionary ground for reasonable doubts about the reliability of your statements, which is the second ground under Article 32(1)(b) in the order the refusal form uses. The practical effect is worse than the citation, because the refusal sits on record and the next application has to explain it.

There is no clever fix. Either apply to the competent state, or change the trip so that Spain genuinely holds your longest stay. Do not alter the itinerary after lodging to match the consulate you chose.

2. Statements showing a balance that arrived in one transfer

A six-month statement with a balance of 60,000 dirhams is not automatically strong evidence. If the statement shows 3,000 dirhams for five months and a single transfer of 57,000 dirhams eleven days before the appointment, the consulate reads a file prepared for the appointment rather than a household's ordinary finances. Two grounds apply at once: the means of subsistence ground under Article 32(1)(a), because the funds are not established, and the discretionary ground under Article 32(1)(b) for doubts about the veracity of the documents and the reliability of your statements. That second ground is the more damaging of the two.

What works instead is boring: statements in your own name, in the ordinary pattern of your income, over the full six months, stamped and signed by the bank. If a family member genuinely funds the trip, say so before the consulate finds it, with the relationship document, the sponsor's own statements and the signed declaration described in items 8 and 9 above. A declared sponsor is normal. An unexplained deposit is a question you have answered badly by not answering it.

3. An accommodation booking that does not cover the whole stay

Your file says nine nights. Your hotel booking covers six. The three missing nights might be a friend's flat in Granada, or a train to Madrid you had not booked yet, or nothing at all. The consulate cannot tell the difference, so it treats the gap as an unexplained period, which is a failure to prove accommodation under Article 14 and Annex II (the first paragraph of Article 32), and, if the itinerary and the booking were assembled to look complete, the same discretionary ground under Article 32(1)(b) as in the first case, evidenced differently.

The fix is not a second refundable booking invented to fill the gap. It is a booking that matches the itinerary night for night, including the nights you stay with family, which you evidence with an invitation rather than a hotel. Check the dates twice: the common error is a booking that starts on the arrival date and ends on the departure date, leaving the last night uncovered.

If a refusal arrives, Article 32(3) gives you a right of appeal against the member state that took the decision, in the form and within the deadline set by that state's national law. For a Spanish refusal issued in Morocco,. The refusal letter states the grounds and the remedy, and it is the document to read before deciding whether to appeal or reapply. More on this in Schengen visa refusals from Morocco.

Choosing between the French and the Spanish consulate

For most applicants in Morocco the real question is not "how do I apply" but "which of the two do I apply to". Both states are common destinations, both have consular networks in the country, and the two application services are separate operations with separate appointment queues and separate document lists.

The answer comes from Article 5 and from nowhere else: where you spend the most days. Not where you land, not where the cheapest flight goes, not which consulate is nearer your home city, not which one a friend used. Nights, counted per country.

Three cases cover almost everything.

Spain clearly longest. Apply through BLS at the Spanish centre for your district. This page's checklist applies.

France clearly longest. Apply to France, through whichever operator France uses in Morocco. Do not lodge with Spain on the strength of an itinerary that shows France holding the longer stay. That is refusal cause one.

Equal stays. Article 5 breaks the tie at the point of first entry. Four nights in France and four in Spain, landing in Paris, means France is competent. The entry point has to match what you wrote, so if you are relying on the tie-break, book the flight that supports it.

A multi-country tour with no single long stay is the awkward case, and it is worth planning around rather than applying through. Two nights in each of four countries gives no main destination, so the first entry point decides, and the file becomes an argument about a technicality rather than a holiday. If you can shift one or two nights so that one country clearly leads, do that before you book anything.

The two lists are not interchangeable either. Spain's published list for the corridors where BLS runs the service includes six months of stamped statements, a signed authorisation for the consulate to confirm the accounts, and a flight reservation that is not fully paid. France's list differs on the financial evidence and on the accommodation format. Until then, treat "France will accept what Spain asked for" as an assumption with no support.

One more asymmetry that catches people: the French consulate network and the Spanish one do not cover the same cities in the same way. A centre existing in your city for Spain does not mean a French application can be lodged there. Check the operator's centre list for the state you are actually applying to, not the one you are standing in.

For a side-by-side treatment, see Spain vs France for a Schengen visa in Morocco.

Appointment and timing reality

The law gives you two timing rights and one hard window. Use them, and expect the practice to be slower.

The appointment should come within two weeks of asking. Article 9(2) says an appointment "shall, as a rule, take place within a period of two weeks from the date when the appointment was requested". That is the sentence to quote when a centre offers you a date three months out. It is a rule, not a guarantee, and the phrase "as a rule" is doing real work in busy seasons.

The decision should come within 15 calendar days of lodging an admissible application, under Article 23(1). Admissible means the file is complete and accepted, not the day you started filling the form. Article 23(2) allows extension in individual cases, typically when the consulate needs to consult another member state or check documents;. Plan around 15 days, and do not book anything irreversible on day 16.

The lodging window is six months ahead at the earliest and, as a rule, 15 calendar days before travel at the latest, under Article 9(1). Applying earlier than the window simply gets the file turned away.

Then there is the part nobody official will put on a poster: the queue. BLS Morocco does not publish a waiting time in the material we captured, and any figure quoted by an agency, including us, would be a guess. What we can say is that the wait varies by centre and by month, that checking the calendar yourself costs nothing, and that the shortest available slot is not a reason to apply to the wrong country.

On the anti-intermediary point, BLS is explicit, and the wording matters more than any warning we could write. Appointments are booked only on the BLS site. BLS states that staff never ask for cash or payment to obtain an appointment, to expedite processing, to secure an earlier slot or to influence the decision, that buying an appointment from a third party is fraudulent, and that it does not recommend payments into personal bank accounts. The decision, BLS states, is made solely by the competent authorities and BLS has no role or influence in it.

So: nobody can sell you a slot, nobody can sell you an approval, and anybody who says otherwise is taking your money for nothing. If someone offers a "guaranteed appointment", the appointment is either a real one booked free on the site and resold to you, or a fiction. Report it, and book your own.

After submission, plan for your passport to be unavailable for a period. Do not schedule travel that needs the passport during that window.

What to do next

Start with the free visa check. It tells you, for your passport and destination, whether you need a visa at all, and it cites the destination's official policy for the answer. If you are applying for Spain as your main destination, the free Morocco to Schengen tourist pack gives you an eligibility pre-check, the exact document checklist for this corridor, your form data as a filled PDF, and an automated review before delivery.

What the pack does not do: it does not file your application, does not book a BLS appointment, and does not pay any fee on your behalf. You lodge the file yourself at the centre for your district, and you pay the consulate and BLS directly.

Two things to check before you go, because they change: whether the EUR 90 is still the current fee (the Commission reviews it every three years under Article 16(9)) and what the dirham equivalent is on the day you pay.

Verified on 8 November 2026 against the consolidated Visa Code (Regulation (EC) No 810/2009, CELEX 02009R0810-20240628) and the BLS International Morocco site for Spain. Rules change without notice, and appointments move daily. We log corrections and dated changes at the changelog. If this page is more than a few months old, re-check the fee before paying anything.

Visakit prepares documents. The consulate decides.

Visakit is a product of Mehyar Soft LLC. We are not a government body, not a consulate, not a visa application centre and not a law firm, and nothing on this page is legal advice. We cannot guarantee an appointment, a decision or a particular outcome, and no page on this site should be read as promising one.