How Marrakech and Lisbon compare on cost, visas, working hours, weather, internet and safety. Every figure comes from our city guides and tools, checked and dated there.
Dollars and pounds at today's exchange rate. Download speeds are the typical figure from each guide, which says where it comes from: some are for the city, some for the whole country, so treat a small gap as no gap.
Rent, a coworking desk, a cheap lunch on each of 22 working days, and getting around: the same four costs our budget calculator uses. The rent figures aren't always the same kind of figure (some are furnished one-beds, some are averages across every size of flat), so read the note under each.
$884 to $1,350£664 to £1,020 a month
$1,490 to $2,520£1,120 to £1,890 a month
No remote work visa
The catch. There is no digital nomad or remote work visa. Longer stays need a residence card (carte d'immatriculation) as a "visiteur" under Law 02-03: one to ten years, renewable, for anyone who can live on their own resources. The law sets no income figure, and you promise not to work in Morocco without authorisation. The 90 days are for tourism. Overstay without a police extension and you must appear before a judge before you are allowed to leave.
D8 digital nomad visa
The catch. The bar is four times the minimum wage, so it rises every January. And a partner can now join you only once you have held the permit for two years.
See where your own income stands in every country. Check your income
A 9am to 5pm day in the employer's city, shown in local time, for today's date, so it allows for the clocks changing.
Different hours or another employer city? Use the time-zone planner
The average high in °C each month, coloured by the rule on our best-time page: green is a high of 20 to 32°C with under 150mm of rain; red is a high of 38°C or more or under 12°C, 250mm of rain or more, or 33°C or more with 150mm of rain or more. Hover over a month for its rain.
| City | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marrakech | 19° | 21° | 24° | 26° | 29° | 34° | 38° | 37° | 33° | 29° | 23° | 20° |
| Lisbon | 15° | 16° | 19° | 20° | 23° | 26° | 28° | 29° | 27° | 23° | 18° | 15° |
Level 2: increased caution
Level 1: normal precautions
The US level is for the whole country, as the State Department sets it, and some countries have stricter advice for particular regions.
From each city guide, word for word.
Someone doing a two or three-month winter or spring stint inside the visa-free window, who wants sun and a clock that matches the UK's in winter and is an hour behind it in summer, for easy UK and EU calls. Best if you speak some French, are happy working from a paid desk, and treat the medina as somewhere to visit rather than live.
Anyone wanting a legal long-term remote work status: there isn't one, and a residence card is police-station paperwork with no published income figure. Same-sex relations are a crime, with up to three years in prison. The US government says women travelling alone are particularly vulnerable to harassment and assault. July and August have average highs of 37 to 38 degrees. Alcohol is legal only in licensed venues. In the medina you will be hustled on your way home. If you need things to work in English without negotiation, this is the wrong city.
You want a European base that works for a London or New York working day, you would rather eat in a tasca than a restaurant, and you are coming for at least a season rather than a fortnight. It rewards staying: the third month is better than the first, because by then you have a market, a cafe and a couple of people, and you are no longer paying tourist prices for anything.
You are on a tight budget, or you want to work from cafes all day. Lisbon is no longer cheap — rents have gone up faster than almost anywhere in Europe and you are competing with people earning in dollars. And it is not a laptop city: the cafes tolerate you, they do not want you. If you cannot afford a desk somewhere, you will have a worse time here than the internet suggests. Come for the winter and the flat will be colder than you think.
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