Morocco boosts defense budget by over 17 percent in 2026 finance bill

The 2026 finance bill has allocated 157.17 billion dirhams to defense, marking a 17.8% increase compared to the 2025 budget, which was 133.5 billion dirhams (13.5 billion dollars). This rise follows a trend observed in Morocco over several years: 11.5 billion dollars for defense in 2022, 12 billion in 2023, 12.4 billion in 2024, and 13.5 billion in 2025.

The 2026 finance bill also plans for the creation of 5,500 budgetary positions for the National Defense Administration, making it the third-largest department in terms of recruitment, just behind the Ministry of the Interior and the Health Ministry, which plan, respectively, to hire 13,000 and 8,000 new recruits next year.

Despite this significant budgetary effort under the leadership of Aziz Akhannouch's government, the Moroccan defense budget remains below the 24.6 billion dollars that Algeria has earmarked for its armed forces in its own 2026 finance bill.