Morocco ICE number: find it, get it, use it right

The ICE (Identifiant Commun de l'Entreprise, the common business identifier) is a 15-digit number that identifies your business the same way to every administration. You will find it on your certificat négatif (for a company) or your IF/TP bulletin (for a sole trader), and otherwise on the official platform ice.gov.ma. It must appear on your invoices and your tax returns, and since 2019 so must your business customer's.

The rest of this article goes through each point: what the number is made of, how it differs from the IF, the RC or the CNSS number, how to find yours or a customer's, and how to avoid the fine on invoices.

What exactly is the ICE?

Before the ICE, each administration knew your business under its own number: one for tax, one for the trade register, one for the CNSS. The ICE was created to link these identifiers together, so that administrations can talk to each other without asking you for the same papers again.

The number has 15 positions, split into three parts:

• 9 digits for the business — the part that never changes, whatever the shop or the depot.
• 4 digits for the establishment — the head office, a branch, a second depot. In the official leaflet's examples, the first establishment is 0000 and the next one 0001.
• 2 check characters — a key that catches a mistyped number.

In practice: if you have two declared points of sale, the first 9 digits are the same and only the following ones change. Establishments are declared on the same platform, under « Déclarer vos établissements » (declare your establishments).

ICE, IF, RC, patente, CNSS: who does what

This is the most common confusion, and the official answer is clear: the ICE adds to the other identifiers (IF, RC, CNSS number), it does not replace them. They remain mandatory.

• IF (identifiant fiscal, tax ID) — your number with the DGI, the one on your tax returns. When people search for « identifiant fiscal Maroc », this is the number they mean, not the ICE.
• RC (registre de commerce) — your registration number in the trade register.
• TP (taxe professionnelle, formerly the patente) — your assessment number for this business tax, which must also appear on your invoices; many still call it the « patente ».
• CNSS — your social security registration number.
• ICE — the common number that links all of the above.

So on an invoice you will often see all five side by side in the footer. That is not overkill: the ICE did away with none of the others.

Where to find your own ICE

In most cases you already have it on a document you hold. Where depends on the legal form of your business:

• Company (SARL, SA…) — the ICE is assigned by the OMPIC when you apply for the certificat négatif, and it is written on it.
• Sole trader — the ICE is assigned by the DGI and appears on the « Bulletin IF/TP ».
• Older business, created before the ICE — it can be retrieved on the ice.gov.ma platform, option « Récupérer votre ICE » (retrieve your ICE).

The official site says so itself: only apply for an ICE if your certificat négatif or identification bulletin does not carry one. Otherwise, you already have your number.

Getting the ICE certificate

The ICE certificate (attestation ICE) is the document that proves your number. A customer or a supplier may ask for it before opening your account. According to the official leaflet, an existing business goes through ice.gov.ma:

1. Choose « Récupérer votre ICE ».
2. Enter the requested information: business name, existing identifiers (IF, RC, CNSS) and an e-mail address.
3. After checks, the ICE is assigned and activated.
4. You access your identification details and download the ICE certificate.

If a displayed detail is wrong (address, activity, business name), the platform lets you report the anomaly directly. For questions, the contact address given on the site is ice@tax.gov.ma.

ICE lookup: finding a customer's or a supplier's number

It happens every day at a wholesaler's counter: a business customer wants an invoice, and you need their ICE. The ice.gov.ma platform is for managing your ICE; it is not a directory of other businesses. Here are the reliable ways, from simplest to most formal:

1. Ask the customer. That is the normal route. A business is in principle required to put its ICE on its own invoices, so they have it to hand — on their stamp, their letterhead or an invoice they issued.
2. Ask for their ICE certificate. For a new customer you will sell volume or credit to, a copy of the certificate rules out any typo.
3. Check the business in the OMPIC register. The OMPIC keeps the central trade register, available through its Directinfo service (some services are paid). Useful to check the business name and RC the customer gave you.

Be wary of private « ICE search » sites: they are not official services and their data may be out of date. A number copied from such a site that turns out wrong on your invoice is still an error on your invoice.

Ask for the customer's ICE when you open the account, not on the day they want their invoice.

The ICE on invoices: what the tax code says

Two obligations stack up, introduced by two different finance laws.

• Your ICE — article 145-VIII of the CGI (General Tax Code). Since the 2016 finance law, you must show your ICE on the invoices, or documents standing in for them, that you give your customers, and on all your tax returns. A DGI circular of January 2016 allowed until 30 June 2016 to comply.
• The customer's ICE — article 145-III of the CGI. The 2018 finance law added the buyer's ICE to the invoice details, next to their name and address, for transactions in financial years starting from 1 January 2019.

The text does not distinguish between customers, but a private individual has no ICE: in practice, it is your business customers' ICE that you must carry over. These obligations do not apply to individuals under the single professional contribution (CPU) or the auto-entrepreneur scheme (article 145-XI).

As for penalties, article 198 ter of the CGI punishes any breach of article 145-VIII — that is, a missing or wrong own ICE — with a fine of 100 DH per omission or inaccuracy found, with no cap set by the text. A hundred dirhams looks small; multiplied by a wholesaler's number of invoices over a year, it no longer is. The customer's ICE is not covered by this article, but it remains a mandatory invoice detail.

For the full list of invoice details and a ready-to-fill document, start from our free invoice template with ICE. And for where the invoice sits in the quote, purchase order, delivery note chain, see the article on a wholesaler's business documents.

The ICE mistakes we see most often

• One digit missing. An ICE has 15 digits, not 14. Count them before saving a customer; the zeros in the middle are the ones people drop.
• The IF written instead of the ICE. Both numbers appear on the same papers and are easily mixed up. An ICE always has 15 digits: a shorter number is not one.
• The wrong establishment. A customer with several sites has several ICEs sharing the first 9 digits. Use the one for the establishment you are invoicing.
• The customer's ICE forgotten on a redone invoice. An invoice corrected by hand often keeps the header but not the customer's details.
• The number retyped on every invoice. Every entry is a chance for a typo. The number should be entered once in the customer record, then reused automatically.

Stop thinking about it: the ICE printed automatically

The real fix is not to proofread better, it is to stop copying. With Gestio invoicing software, your business's ICE, RC, IF, patente and CNSS are printed on every invoice, and the customer's ICE is taken from their record. Invoices are numbered in sequence (FAC-YYYY-NNNN), with excl. tax, VAT and incl. tax totals and the amount in words.