Morocco Train Prices: What the Same Seat Costs Two Days Out and Three Weeks Out

Morocco train prices swing 66% on booking date alone: Casablanca to Marrakech is 49 dirhams three weeks out and 145 two days out. Fares read from ONCF.

Last verified: August 28, 2026. Moroccan train fares are demand-priced and move without notice, so every figure below carries the date I read it. I re-read the ONCF booking system and re-run both booking horizons every 60 days, and update the date above each time.

A second-class seat from Casablanca to Marrakech costs 49 dirhams or 145 dirhams. Same train, same seat, same day of travel. The only thing that changed was when I asked, and that is the first thing to understand about Morocco train prices.

Morocco train prices: Casablanca to Marrakech second class costs 49 dirhams booked three weeks ahead and 145 dirhams booked two days ahead

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Search for Morocco train prices and you get numbers with no date attached, most of them copied between blogs, several of them on sites that look official and are not. So on 28 August 2026 I priced twelve routes myself, eight by train and four by coach, straight out of the booking system ONCF runs. Same afternoon, two booking distances each.

The spread is bigger than anyone writes down. It is also not universal, which is the part that actually matters: on half of those twelve routes, booking early saves you nothing at all. Knowing which half you are on is worth more than any single fare.

Key Takeaways

  • Casablanca to Marrakech, second class, was 145 dirhams for travel in two days and 49 dirhams for travel in three weeks, read from ONCF’s booking system on 28 August 2026. That is 66% off for planning ahead
  • The saving is real on every long-distance route I priced, from 33% between Fes and Meknes up to that 66%
  • On the Casablanca to Rabat shuttle and the airport line, booking ahead saved nothing. Those fares did not move between the two dates
  • Supratours coach fares did not move either. Four coach routes came back at identical prices two days out and three weeks out
  • First class booked ahead often beats second class booked late. Tangier to Casablanca was 129 dirhams in first three weeks out, against 270 in second two days out
  • The booking window is shorter than the standard advice. ONCF’s stated limit is three months, but on 28 August nothing was bookable beyond 31 October, which is 64 days

How much does a train ticket cost in Morocco?

Second-class fares on the routes travellers actually use run from 22 dirhams to 295 dirhams, depending on distance and on how far ahead you book (ONCF Voyages, fares read 28 August 2026). Short hops are trivially cheap. The long north-south runs are where the booking date starts to matter.

Here is the whole round. Every figure is the cheapest bookable fare on a direct service that day.

Route2 days ahead3 weeks aheadCheaper by
Casablanca to Marrakech145 Dh49 Dh66%
Casablanca to Fes155 Dh59 Dh62%
Tangier to Rabat Agdal205 Dh89 Dh57%
Tangier to Casablanca270 Dh129 Dh52%
Rabat Agdal to Fes115 Dh59 Dh49%
Fes to Meknes33 Dh22 Dh33%
Casablanca to Rabat Agdal40 Dh50 Dhnone
Casa Port to Mohammed V Airport60 Dh60 Dhnone
Second class, one adult, no discount card. Cheapest direct service on each date. Read from ONCF’s booking system on 28 August 2026.
The platform and station building at Marrakech, the southern terminus of Morocco's classic rail network
Marrakech station, the southern end of the network until the high-speed line arrives. Photo: Stolbovsky, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Two names catch people out when they book. Rabat’s main intercity stop is Rabat Agdal, not Rabat Ville. Casablanca’s is Casa Voyageurs, not Casa Port, except for the airport shuttle, which runs from Casa Port.

Why do Morocco train prices change from day to day?

ONCF prices most long-distance trains by demand, so the fare rises as the train fills and the departure gets closer. Across the six long-distance routes I priced, booking three weeks out instead of two days out cut the fare by between 33% and 66%.

The cheap buckets are not a discount you apply. They are a limited number of seats that sell first, and once they are gone the price steps up. That is why the same route quoted twice in one afternoon gave me two honest answers.

What booking three weeks ahead saves Cheapest second-class fare, dirhams. Gold = 3 weeks ahead, grey = 2 days ahead. 50100150 200250300 Tangier – CasablancaTangier – Rabat Casablanca – FesCasablanca – Marrakech Rabat – FesFes – Meknes 1298959 495922 270205155 14511533
Cheapest bookable second-class fare per route, read from ONCF’s booking system on 28 August 2026 for travel on 30 August and 18 September.

There is a practical trick buried in that chart. Booking first class early is repeatedly cheaper than booking second class late. Tangier to Casablanca in first class three weeks out was 129 dirhams, against 270 for second class two days out. Casablanca to Marrakech was 89 in first, against 145 in second.

So if your dates are fixed, the question is not which class you can afford. It is whether you are booking early enough to make the class question moot.

Which Moroccan train fares never move?

Two of the eight routes I priced were completely flat: the Casablanca to Rabat shuttle and the Casa Port to airport line. Booking three weeks ahead bought exactly nothing on either, and on the Rabat shuttle the cheapest advance fare was actually 10 dirhams higher than the two-day fare.

That is not a glitch. These are turn-up-and-go commuter services running several times an hour, and they are priced like a bus ticket rather than like a plane seat.

Which means the single most repeated piece of Morocco rail advice, book early to save money, is true on some routes and irrelevant on others. Nobody writing it seems to have checked. If you are hopping Casablanca to Rabat for the day, buy at the machine on the morning and lose nothing.

The airport line makes the same point. Casa Port to Mohammed V Airport was 60 dirhams in second and 80 in first on both dates. That is a fixed fare, and it is the number to hold in your head when a driver at arrivals quotes you something else. The taxi rulebook, including the airport zonal tariff, sits in the petit and grand taxi rulebook, meters and the airport run.

What do Supratours coaches cost?

Supratours coach fares did not move between the two booking dates on any route I checked. Tangier to Chefchaouen was 60 dirhams on both, Marrakech to Essaouira 100, Marrakech to Ouarzazate 110, and Marrakech to Agadir 135 (ONCF Voyages, read 28 August 2026).

Coach route2 days ahead3 weeks ahead
Tangier to Chefchaouen60 Dh60 Dh
Marrakech to Essaouira100 Dh100 Dh
Marrakech to Ouarzazate110 Dh110 Dh
Marrakech to Agadir135 Dh135 Dh
Cheapest bookable coach fare, one adult. Read from ONCF’s booking system on 28 August 2026.
A CTM intercity coach at a Moroccan bus stop
Intercity coaches reach the towns the railway does not. Photo: Bisel91, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Here is the thing almost nobody tells you: you can buy Supratours coach tickets in the same place you buy train tickets. Supratours is ONCF’s own road arm, and its destinations sit in the same booking system, which is how Essaouira, Chefchaouen, Ouarzazate, Agadir, Merzouga and Zagora appear in a railway search at all (ONCF, Supratours).

That matters for the towns with no station. Essaouira and Chefchaouen have no railway, so the coach is not the cheap option there. It is the only scheduled option.

One honest gap. These are Supratours fares, not CTM’s. CTM is the other national operator and its prices sit behind its own booking portal at ctm.ma, which I could not get a fare out of on 28 August. I would rather leave that blank than fill it with a number copied off a blog, and it is first in the queue for the next update.

Train or coach: which should you book?

On routes where both run, the train wins if you book ahead and the coach wins if you book late. That falls straight out of the two pricing regimes: one fare moves and one does not, so the answer flips depending on when you are standing there.

Marrakech to Agadir is the clean example, because there is no train at all and the 135-dirham coach is simply the price. Where a train exists, compare it against a coach fare you already know will not change.

Who rewards you for booking early Percent saved by booking 3 weeks ahead instead of 2 days ahead. 20%40%60%80% Casablanca – Marrakech Casablanca – Fes Tangier – Rabat Tangier – Casablanca Rabat – Fes Fes – Meknes Casa – Rabat shuttle 4 Supratours coach routes 66%62%57% 52%49%33% nothingnothing
Computed from cheapest bookable fares read on 28 August 2026 for travel on 30 August and 18 September. Coach routes: Tangier to Chefchaouen, Marrakech to Essaouira, Marrakech to Ouarzazate, Marrakech to Agadir.

Cost is only part of the decision, and this post is deliberately only about the money. Comfort, luggage and journey time change the answer on some of these routes, and none of that shows up in a fare table. Which mode to take on a given leg, and what the rail network actually reaches, is answered in how to get around Morocco.

What about intercity grand taxis? They run the routes buses skip and they are priced per seat, six seats to a car, but no published tariff exists and I have not run a collection round on them. I am not going to invent a band. Paying for any of this in cash is covered in paying in cash and the 35-dirham ATM fee.

One number worth keeping in view: transport is Morocco’s fastest-rising consumer price category, up 6.7% year on year (HCP data via CountryEconomy, June 2026). Fares here move upward over time, which is exactly why an undated fare is worthless to you.

How far ahead can you actually book?

Buy direct at oncf-voyages.ma, which is ONCF’s own booking site and the source of every fare above. Three weeks of notice was enough to reach the cheapest fare on every long route I tested, so you do not need to plan far out to get the low price.

You do need to know that the booking window is shorter than the standard advice says. The Man in Seat 61, the best independent rail reference there is, states that ONCF booking opens three months before departure (Seat 61). When I tested it on 28 August 2026, no train was bookable beyond 31 October, on any route I tried. The last day sold normally and the next day returned an error.

That is 64 days, not three months. The likely explanation is that the policy and the loaded timetable are different things: schedules appear to run only to the end of October, which is when the winter timetable takes over. Coaches were not affected and sold straight through into November. So check, rather than assume you have a quarter of runway.

The main concourse and ticketing hall at Casa Voyageurs station in Casablanca
The ticket hall at Casa Voyageurs, where the fares above are also sold. Photo: Andrew Nash, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

One thing to watch when you go looking for these fares. Several sites that rank well for Moroccan rail queries are third-party resellers rather than the operators, and a reseller’s price is the operator’s price plus a margin. The operator domains are oncf-voyages.ma and oncf.ma for trains, supratours.ma for Supratours coaches, and ctm.ma for CTM. ONCF links the first three itself from its own footer.

Paying is a separate problem from pricing, and it has its own answer: what to do when a foreign card is declined at the payment step.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the train from Casablanca to Marrakech?

Second class was 145 dirhams for travel in two days and 49 dirhams for travel in three weeks, read from ONCF's booking system on 28 August 2026. First class was 215 and 89 on the same two dates. The journey takes just under three hours, with roughly eleven direct services a day.

Is the bus or the train cheaper in Morocco?

It depends entirely on when you book. Supratours coach fares held identical at two days and three weeks out on all four routes I priced, while train fares fell by 33% to 66% over the same gap. Book early and the train usually wins. Book late and the coach often does.

Do Moroccan train prices change by day?

Yes, on long-distance routes. ONCF prices them by demand, so cheap seat buckets sell out and the fare steps up as departure approaches. On the Casablanca to Rabat shuttle and the Casablanca airport line, fares did not move at all between my two booking dates.

How far ahead can I book a Moroccan train ticket?

Less far than you are told. ONCF's policy is three months, but on 28 August 2026 no train on any route I tried was bookable beyond 31 October, which is 64 days. Three weeks was enough to reach the cheapest fare anyway, including 49 dirhams to Marrakech and 89 to Tangier.

Can I buy Supratours coach tickets with train tickets?

Yes. Supratours is ONCF's road arm and its coaches sit in the same booking system, which is why Essaouira, Chefchaouen, Ouarzazate, Agadir, Merzouga and Zagora come back in a search on a railway site. For towns with no station, the coach is the only scheduled public option.

The short version

Morocco train prices run on two different systems, and telling them apart saves you real money.

  • Long-distance trains move. Casablanca to Marrakech, Casablanca to Fes, both Tangier routes, Rabat to Fes and Fes to Meknes all got cheaper by a third to two thirds when I booked three weeks out
  • Shuttles and coaches do not move. The Casablanca to Rabat service, the airport line and every Supratours coach cost the same on both dates, so buy those when you need them
  • First class booked early beats second class booked late on the long routes, which is worth checking before you assume you cannot afford it
  • Buy from the operator. oncf-voyages.ma for trains and Supratours, ctm.ma for CTM. A reseller’s price is the operator’s price plus a margin

Every fare here was read on 28 August 2026 and I re-run the whole round every 60 days. If you are pricing a whole trip rather than one leg, the full breakdown is in what a Morocco trip actually costs, and the route these legs usually belong to is in the 10-day Morocco route.

Marco Delgado
Marco Delgado

I'm a travel writer and digital nomad practicing slow travel, weeks-long stays that get me past the postcard version of a place. I write practical guides on visas, budgeting, and remote work, paired with on-the-ground storytelling for readers planning their own extended trips.

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