Law 43-20: trust services and electronic signature in Morocco.

Law no. 43-20 on trust services for electronic transactions gives legal value to the electronic signature, the electronic seal and time-stamping in Morocco. It was enacted by Dahir no. 1-20-100 of 31 December 2020, then published in the Official Bulletin on 18 March 2021. It entered into force on 13 July 2023.

It repeals and replaces Law 53-05 of 2007 on the electronic exchange of legal data. The change is not merely cosmetic: Law 43-20 adds an advanced signature level, introduces new trust services, and transfers the certification authority from the ANRT to the DGSSI.

Law 43-20 answers a simple question: under what conditions does an electronically signed document carry the same force as one signed by hand? It is this legal equivalence that makes the online contract, the paperless public tender and, since 2026, the electronic invoice possible.

Law 43-20 covers five trust services: electronic signature, electronic seal, electronic time-stamping, electronic registered delivery and website authentication. Each can exist in a qualified version, the only one that benefits from a legal presumption of reliability.

The electronic signature binds a natural person. The electronic seal is its equivalent for legal entities: a company seals a document in its own name. Qualified time-stamping, in turn, links a date and time to data in a tamper-proof way, using a clock synchronized with universal time.

Electronic registered delivery brings the registered letter into the digital world, with proof of sending and receipt. Website authentication guarantees a domain's identity. The law also organizes the validation and long-term preservation of signatures and seals, so they remain verifiable years after they were created.

Law 43-20 recognizes three levels of electronic signature: simple, advanced and qualified. They differ in their technical requirements and evidentiary value. Only the qualified signature carries a presumption of reliability, meaning direct equivalence with a handwritten signature.

The novelty compared with Law 53-05 is the intermediate advanced level, inspired by the EU eIDAS regulation. It offers stronger legal recognition without imposing all the constraints of the qualified level. It is a useful compromise for many internal uses.

The right level depends on the legal risk of the act. An internal exchange is fine with a simple signature; a binding contract or an invoice submitted to the tax authority requires the qualified level. For the precise mechanics of the qualified signature — QSCD, XAdES, choosing a provider — our dedicated guide goes into detail.

In Morocco, a qualified electronic signature has the same legal value as a handwritten signature. It benefits from a presumption of reliability: in a dispute, the burden of proof shifts in favor of the party producing it. Simple and advanced signatures remain admissible, but without this automatic presumption.

Law 43-20 also sets a non-discrimination principle: a signature's legal effect cannot be denied solely because it is electronic or because it does not reach the qualified level. The judge then assesses its reliability case by case, based on the available technical evidence.

For legal entities, the qualified electronic seal plays an equivalent role: it establishes the origin and integrity of a document issued by the company. This is decisive for the electronic invoice, which is issued in the name of a company rather than an individual.

The national authority for trust services is the DGSSI (Directorate-General for Information Systems Security). It sets the requirement frameworks, accredits trust service providers (PSCo), publishes the official list of accredited providers and can audit their compliance.

Decree no. 2-22-687 of 16 November 2022 sets out the application framework: the composition of the accreditation file, providers' obligations, and the data that qualified certificates must contain. It was published in the Official Bulletin on 19 January 2023. Only an accredited PSCo can issue a qualified certificate that confers the presumption of reliability.

Africtrust was announced as the first provider accredited by the DGSSI; the official list, updated as accreditations are granted, is published on the DGSSI website. A qualified signature certificate costs around 1,200 MAD per year.

Law 43-20 is the legal foundation of mandatory electronic invoicing. The clearance model of Article 145-IX of the General Tax Code requires every invoice to be signed electronically, then validated in real time by the DGI platform. And that signature draws all its legal value from Law 43-20.

In practice, a compliant invoice is a structured document (UBL 2.1 or CII) bearing a qualified electronic signature, transmitted to the DGI platform, which assigns it a unique identifier. Without a valid qualified signature, the invoice has no legal value, even if it has been issued and sent.

Law 43-20 and Article 145-IX therefore work together: the first defines what a trusted signature is, the second makes it mandatory at the heart of the invoicing process. Understanding one sheds light on the other.

Complying with Law 43-20 means using the right signature level for each use, and turning to a DGSSI-accredited provider whenever the qualified level is required. For electronic invoicing, the qualified level is not optional: it is the only one the national platform accepts.

The process comes down to a few steps: list the documents to be signed and their risk level, choose a PSCo accredited for the service you need, obtain a qualified certificate for each authorized signatory, then integrate signing into your business tools — ERP, accounting software or invoicing platform.

For most SMEs, the challenge is not mastering cryptography, but relying on a solution that handles the qualified signature and submission to the DGI transparently. The law sets the framework; the tool applies it.