How to start an Airbnb property management company in Marrakech: a step-by-step guide

Starting an Airbnb property management company in Marrakech, often called an Airbnb concierge, means running short-term rentals on behalf of their owners: listings, prices, guests, cleaning, keys and accounts, in exchange for a commission or a fixed fee. Five things are settled before the first contract: your niche, your legal and tax frame, the content of your management agreement, how you get paid and how you organise the work on the ground.

Marrakech lends itself to it. The city's classified hotels recorded 10.1 million overnight stays in 2024 (+13%), and Menara airport handled nearly 10.2 million passengers in 2025. Your clients are owners who do not live locally or do not have time to host themselves, whether they live in Casablanca, in Europe or elsewhere.

This guide follows the real order of a launch, up to the plan for your first 90 days and the mistakes that cost the most.

Step 1: choose your niche in Marrakech

A management company that takes everything, everywhere, burns out fast. Marrakech offers three very different markets:

• Medina riads: sold by the room or as a whole, often with breakfast, guests met on foot in the derbs and a daily presence. Lots of added value, lots of legwork. The riad is also a regulated category of tourist accommodation (see step 2).
• Apartments in Guéliz and Hivernage: more standardised, often in buildings with a managing agent, easy to fit with a smart lock. They suit self check-in and can be run as a series.
• Villas in the Palmeraie: groups, longer stays, a pool and garden to maintain. Fewer turnovers, more recurring maintenance.

Pick one main segment and an area your teams can cover quickly, even at rush hour: a late arrival in the medina and a cleaning in the Palmeraie on the same afternoon do not work with the same team. Our page on short-term rentals in Marrakech details what each type of property needs day to day.

Step 2: set the legal frame and the agreement

What follows is general information, not legal or tax advice.

Your structure and your taxes

Trading as an individual or setting up a company, the tax regime for your commissions, VAT, invoicing owners: these choices depend on your situation and the volume you are aiming for. It is the first question to put to a chartered accountant, before you sign your first agreement.

The properties you manage

The status of each property shapes what you can do with it:

• Riads and guesthouses: these are tourist establishments under law 80-14. They need an operating authorisation issued by the governor; operating without one carries a fine of 50,000 to 500,000 MAD (art. 43).
• Homestays: a private individual hosting tourists in the home where they live applies to the local authority for an authorisation valid for five years (decree 2-23-441).
• Whole apartments: no category of law 80-14 clearly covers them, and the Ministry of Tourism acknowledged in 2024 that most of these rentals fall outside the tourism code. Specific rules were announced in 2025 and 2026, but no text had been published by early October 2026.
• Guest declaration: an authorised establishment declares its guests online on the day they arrive and keeps the signed form for one year (law 80-14, arts. 36 to 38). In Marrakech, a commission led by the wilaya asked owners of furnished apartments in January 2025 to have their occupants fill in a registration form and to pass on that data. Our article on the police registration form for short-term rentals explains the steps.
• Tourist tax: for the accommodation it applies to, it is paid per person per night, with under-12s exempt, at a rate set by the municipality within a legal range. Airbnb does not collect it in Morocco.
• Owners who are tenants: if they rent the property themselves, they need their landlord's written, dated consent to sublet (law 67-12, art. 39).

Ask every owner which situation their property is in, and write down in the agreement who handles what.

The management agreement

The management agreement is the contract that authorises you to run the property on the owner's behalf. Have yours drafted or reviewed by a lawyer. It must settle, without ambiguity:

• the scope: listings, prices, messages, check-in, cleaning, linen, maintenance, statements;
• your powers: setting prices, accepting bookings, committing to an expense up to a given amount without prior approval;
• your fee: the rate or the flat fee, and above all what it is calculated on;
• the money: who receives platform payouts, how quickly the balance is paid to the owner, with which statement;
• expenses: receipts, recharging, advances;
• owner stays: how the owner blocks dates, and with how much notice;
• administrative duties: authorisation, guest declaration, tourist tax, insurance;
• term and exit: notice period, what happens to existing bookings, handing back listings and access.

The agreement can be signed remotely: law 43-20 recognises electronic signatures, which makes things easier when the owner lives abroad.

Step 3: set your commission

There are two main models, which can be combined:

• A percentage of the property's revenue: your interests are aligned with the owner's, and your income follows the season, both ways.
• A flat fee, monthly or per stay: predictable for both sides, suited to long stays or limited services, such as check-in and cleaning only.
• A hybrid: a small fixed fee that covers your fixed costs, plus a percentage.

Rates vary with the city, the type of property and the scope of service, and we know of no reliable public benchmark for Marrakech: set yours from your own costs, not from what the company next door charges.

What the fee is calculated on matters as much as the rate. Take an apartment in Guéliz at 600 MAD a night, booked for 20 nights in the month: 12,000 MAD paid by guests. With platform fees assumed at 15% for the example, 10,200 MAD remain. At a rate of 20%, also chosen for the example, your commission is 2,400 MAD on the gross, or 2,040 MAD on the net. Write down in the agreement which base applies, and whether the cleaning fees paid by guests are included.

Then measure your real cost per property: check-ins, cleanings coordinated, messages, travel. An agreement that looks profitable may stop being so once your time is counted.

Step 4: run operations and report to owners

Cleaning and linen

• A checklist per property, photos at the end of each cleaning, and a cleaning created at every check-out.
• At least two sets of linen per bed, so one is in the wash while the other is in use. Decide early between a partner laundry and washing in-house.
• A cost per job, charged to the right property, so it shows up on the owner's statement.

The cleaning and tasks module creates these jobs from bookings and sends them to the right provider, who ticks them off from their phone without paying for an account.

Check-ins and keys

In the medina, taxis stop at the gates: plan a meeting point, a photo of the door and directions sent before arrival. For apartments, smart locks remove the key handover: one code per stay, valid for the booking dates and removed at check-out. Always keep a backup way in if the lock goes offline.

Collect ID documents before arrival with an online check-in: the management company does the welcoming, so it needs that information in hand.

Statements and the owner portal

Every month, on a fixed date, the owner wants to see the stays, the revenue, the platform commissions and yours, the expenses with receipts, and the balance due to them. These statements also help them declare their rental income, which is taxable in Morocco even when they live abroad.

A read-only owner portal gives them their calendar, bookings and statements without calling you, and without seeing anything of your other contracts.

Step 5: get equipped and make your first 90 days count

The minimum tool stack

• a channel manager connected by API to Airbnb and Booking.com;
• a calendar and an inbox shared across all properties;
• contracts and online check-in for guests;
• cleaning and tasks, with access for providers;
• statements and a portal for owners;
• bookkeeping kept with your accountant.

Five apps that do not talk to each other means the same booking typed in five times. Our article on automations for an Airbnb management company shows what a single tool takes off your hands.

The 90-day plan

1. Days 1 to 30, prepare: niche and area chosen, structure validated with your accountant, template agreement reviewed by a lawyer, commission grid, one cleaning team, linen and tools set up.
2. Days 31 to 60, launch: your first two or three properties, new photos and listings, prices and minimum stays set, scheduled messages, first check-ins followed closely.
3. Days 61 to 90, prove it: first statements sent on a fixed date, owner feedback collected, real cost per property calculated. Add new properties only when every step runs without you.

Costly mistakes

• Starting without a written agreement, or with a vague commission base.
• Taking on every property, too spread out or poorly maintained: they drag down your reviews and your reputation with other owners.
• Underestimating late arrivals in the medina and weekend emergencies.
• Mixing owners' money with your own, with no record of who paid what.
• Ignoring authorisations and guest declaration and counting on today's grey zone.
• Sending statements late: nothing erodes an owner's trust faster.
• Growing faster than your teams: a missed cleaning costs a review, and a review costs bookings.

RentDari is built for this job: every property you manage in one back office, an API channel manager, cleaning and providers, smart locks, online check-in, a commission set property by property and statements generated for each owner, with their own portal. All thirteen modules are included in every plan, and the Free plan lets you test the full workflow on a first property, with no credit card. Our page on Airbnb property management software explains how it works.

In short

• Choose a niche (riads, apartments or villas) and an area your teams can cover.
• Validate your structure with an accountant and check each property's status.
• Sign a written agreement that settles scope, powers, money, commission base and exit.
• Set a rate or a flat fee from your real costs, not from market rumours.
• Organise cleaning, linen, keys and ID documents before the first arrival.
• Send statements on a fixed date and open a portal so owners do not need to call you.

This article is general information and does not replace advice from a lawyer or an accountant.