Hello Sarah:

I can't give you any advice that is specific to exporting a motorcycle from Morocco, but I can give you some guidance based on 30+ years of work exporting aircraft and aircraft parts from many African countries.

The key issue for you is to understand what the Moroccans are trying to accomplish with their control of vehicles in and out of the country. I believe that they have two objectives, in this order of priority:

1) To ensure that vehicles temporarily imported to the country are actually exported again - in other words, to ensure that the vehicles don't remain in the country without the appropriate taxes and duties being paid.

2) To a lesser extent, to prevent stolen tourist vehicles (that have been temporarily imported) from being exported.

If you understand what the Customs folks are trying to accomplish, it then becomes much easier to figure out what you need to do to allow them to accomplish their objectives.

Based on the above, I think that the perfect solution (if it is possible) is what Tim suggested above: Speak to Moroccan customs officials at an inland office, ideally with you and the owner of the bike present, and explain what has happened and what you want to do. If you have all passports present, vehicle ownership and the vehicle import documents present, and all the associated people (you, the rider taking the moto out, the owner of the moto) present, then hopefully the Customs officials at the inland office will be able to verify that all is proper, and write an internal memo that you can then show to the officials at the Tanger Med port when you arrive with the bike.

If the inland customs people are not willing to write a memo, perhaps you can get the name and phone number of the Customs official you speak to and give that to the Customs official at the port of export.

Regardless of how the above turns out, I suggest you have the following documents with you when you show up at the port of export:

1) Photocopies of the data page of the passport of the owner of the bike, and also photocopies of the page in his passport that shows his most recent entry stamp to Morocco, and (if he has been to Morocco before on that same passport) photocopies of the page that shows the 'number' assigned to him on his first entry to Morocco.

2) Photocopies of a medical report or police accident report sufficient to prove that the owner is unable to ride the bike out of the country.

3) A letter from the owner authorizing the designated rider to take the bike out of the country.

Ideally, all of the above documents should be notarized by a person authorized to notarize documents in Morocco. Failing that, get those documents stamped by the inland Customs officer that you speak to.

Lastly, once the bike has been formally exported at the port, it would probably be prudent to scan and email a copy of the export document (the copy of the three-part form that you get to keep when you export the vehicle) to the owner, so that he can show that to Customs when he leaves the country without his moto. That will enable him to prove that the bike has been exported. He should also have copies of the three documents I mentioned above with him on his way out.

Hope this helps,

Michael