Moroccan Bac

Overview

The Baccalauréat, usually called the "bac," is Morocco's national secondary-school-leaving exam and the main gateway to higher education. It is run by the Ministry of National Education, Preschool and Sports (Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale, du Préscolaire et des Sports). The bac cycle spans two years of lycée: a first year ("1ère Bac" or "tronc commun" depending on the track) ending in a regional exam, and a final year ("2ème Bac") ending in a national exam. For the 2026 session, close to 500,000 candidates registered to sit the exam.

Who can apply

Two groups of candidates sit the bac each year:

• School-enrolled candidates (candidats scolarisés): registered automatically by their lycée as part of normal enrolment in the bac cycle.

• Free candidates (candidats libres): register themselves directly through the Ministry's online platform. A free candidate who has never previously obtained the bac must normally have finished the collège (middle-school) cycle at least two years before the year they apply.

Exam pattern

Students choose a stream (filière) during the first year of the bac cycle, and the subjects and coefficients at the national exam depend on that stream. The main streams include Sciences Mathématiques (A and B), Sciences Physiques (PC), Sciences de la Vie et de la Terre (SVT), Sciences Économiques et Gestion, Sciences et Technologies (électrique or mécanique), Arts Appliqués, Lettres, Sciences Humaines, Langue Arabe and Sciences de la Chariaa.

There are two separate exam components in the bac cycle:

• Regional exam: sat at the end of the first bac year, on a subject list set by the regional education academy, and contributing 25% of the final mark.

• National exam: sat at the end of the final bac year, on a nationally set paper for the student's stream, and contributing 50% of the final mark.

The remaining 25% of the final mark comes from continuous assessment (contrôle continu) recorded by the student's school across the final year.

Marking and results

Each subject is marked out of 20. A candidate's overall bac mark out of 20 combines the national exam (50%), the regional exam (25%) and continuous assessment (25%), each weighted by the subject coefficients for the student's stream. The pass mark is 10/20.

For the 2026 session, 262,442 candidates passed the regular June session, a pass rate of 64.8%, up from 250,075 in 2025. After the July makeup session for candidates who fell short, the combined pass rate across both sessions reached 81.6%, with 337,192 candidates earning the bac in total. The pass rate among girls (84.5%) was higher than among boys (78.6%); free candidates passed at a lower rate than school-enrolled candidates across both sessions.

Important dates

For the 2026 session:

• Free-candidate registration: 10 November 2025 to 10 December 2025, online via candidaturesbac.men.gov.ma.

• Regional exam (first bac year), regular session: 1–2 June 2026, for all streams.

• National exam (final bac year), regular session: 4–6 June 2026, for all streams and options.

• National exam results (regular session): 17 June 2026.

• Regional exam results: 9 July 2026.

• Regional exam, makeup session: 29–30 June 2026.

• National exam, makeup session: 2–4 July 2026.

• National exam results (makeup session): 11 July 2026.

Fees

Registering for the bac through a school carries no exam fee for the student. Registration for free candidates (bac libre) through the Ministry's online platform is also reported as carrying no significant exam fee, though candidates may still face minor administrative or travel costs, for example when visiting a regional delegation in person.

How to apply

School-enrolled candidates are registered for both the regional and national exams by their own lycée as part of normal enrolment; no separate action is needed from the student.

Free candidates register themselves during the published window on the Ministry's platform (candidaturesbac.men.gov.ma). For 2026, this meant downloading the "Mon Identité Numérique" digital-identity app, creating a free-candidate account, verifying identity against the national electronic ID card, and entering personal details online. The process is fully digital, with no physical paperwork required except a medical exemption certificate for candidates requesting exemption from the physical-education component.

After the exam

A bac pass is the entry qualification for Moroccan higher education, and candidates follow one of two main paths:

• Open-access faculties (accès ouvert): most bac holders enrol directly in a public faculty such as law, economics, letters or science (for example FSJES, FLSH or FS faculties), after an online pre-registration followed by submitting a physical file to the chosen faculty.

• Selective tracks: entry to engineering schools (ENSA, ENSAM), business schools (ENCG), medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, architecture (ENA) and military academies is by competitive entrance exam (concours), most of which are now coordinated through the national platform cursussup.gov.ma. A student's stream and bac marks affect which concours they are eligible to sit.

Preparation tips

• Choose a stream that matches both your strengths and your post-bac plans, since each stream's subject coefficients are set well in advance and are hard to change once you commit to a track.

• Take continuous assessment (contrôle continu) seriously throughout the final year: it is 25% of the final mark, not just a formality alongside the exams.

• Practise past regional and national exam papers for your stream's subjects, since the paper format and coefficient weighting repeat from year to year.

• If registering as a free candidate, complete the online registration within the published window and keep your Massar code and digital-identity account details, since late registration is not accepted.