Riad rental yield in Marrakech: 6% or 20%?

It is the first question an owner asks us, and the honest answer does not begin with a percentage. It begins with the house itself: how many bedrooms, in which district, open how many weeks a year, and above all held by whom, how often. Two neighbouring riads, bought for the same price and let at the same rate, do not leave their owners the same income after twelve months.

We manage villas and riads in Marrakech. What follows is what that practice has taught us: what really decides a riad’s income, what the running of it takes out along the way, and how to read the yields you will find elsewhere. You will find no Villas Ambar rate here, and the last section explains why. You will find what you need to test the ones you are shown.

What decides what a riad in Marrakech earns?

Three terms, and the third is the one nobody discusses. The first is the number of nights sold in a year. The second is the average price of those nights, which depends on the district, the number of bedrooms and the standard of the house. The third is what running the property takes out between the two: staff, upkeep, energy, linen, commissions, tax.

The first two are negotiated and worked at; they are visible, and everyone talks about them. The third is simply endured when it has not been organised, and it is the only one that explains why two comparable riads, let at the same rate and filled as often, do not leave the same income to their owners. It is also the one no listing, no brochure and no advertised yield ever sets out. So that is where to begin.

Why does a riad cost more to hold than a flat?

Because a riad cannot be held from a distance, and in Marrakech the medina adds a bill of its own. A riad shares walls on three sides and opens onto a courtyard: water that gets in at the neighbour’s often ends up showing at yours, and a leak is repaired while it is still a stain on the plaster. That assumes somebody climbing onto the roof before the rains, not a visit every quarter.

The fabric of the building sets its own rhythm. Medina mains water runs at 33 French degrees of hardness — analyses by El-Fadeli and colleagues, Journal of Materials and Environmental Science, 2015 — and that limescale invites descaling, while descaler kills tadelakt. Old zellige has to be cleaned without attacking its joints, or one tile works loose and its neighbours follow. These are a craftsman’s gestures, not a cleaner’s — we set them out in our article on maintaining tadelakt and zellige.

How many nights does a Marrakech riad actually let in a year?

The only series measured by a public source gives 72% occupancy for the year to end May 2026 in the city’s classified tourist accommodation, flat year on year, with a peak of 78% for the month of May alone; it gave 68% to end March, and around 71% for March on its own. Nationally, 56%. These are the Observatoire du Tourisme figures, recorded on 4 September 2026.

Two qualifications on scope apply, and they cut both ways. These rates cover establishments classified under law no. 80-14, which riads and kasbahs fall within — so not a riad let without classification. And a city average forbids nobody from exceeding it: it does not settle the case of one house, and it is not a promise for yours. It places the assumption you are building on, and nothing more.

The gap between March and May, seven points in two months, says the essential thing: the Marrakech year is not flat. A budget built on an annual average is wrong twice over, in high season and in low.

Is the official figure corroborated anywhere else?

Yes, by two measures on different scopes, and both stay below the rates usually quoted. The hotel group RISMA, in its analyst presentation of 23 April 2026, records 73% occupancy in Marrakech in 2025, up two points, against 58% nationally — citing the Observatoire. AirDNA, which measures short-term letting rather than classified hotels, publishes 49% average occupancy on June 2026 data, for a RevPAR of 63 dollars. Both were recorded on 4 September 2026.

Forty-nine per cent in short-term letting, seventy-three in classified hotels: the gap is not a contradiction, it is a change of scope. Keep the one that resembles your property. A six-bedroom riad run all year does not compare with a flat let for twelve weekends, and neither of them compares with the 80% figure that is sometimes put about on this market.

Why do advertised yields run from 6% to 20%?

Because the authors are not dividing the same terms. Seven public figures circulate on this question, from 6% to 20% — a factor of 3.3 on the same kind of asset, in the same city — and only two say what they divide. The gap does not describe seven markets: it describes seven calculation conventions, five of which are never spelt out. Nobody is lying; nobody says what they are counting.

A yield may set income received against the purchase price, profit after operating costs against the total investment, or profit after costs and tax against the capital actually tied up. Those three calculations, applied to the same house, diverge by a factor of two to three. The table below ranks nobody and holds back no average: it puts to each of these seven figures the one question that makes it usable for your house.

Two lines out of seven answer. They are the only two rates in the table an owner can rebuild without help — and therefore the only two he or she can test against a particular house.

What is a yield worth when you do not know what it divides?

Nothing, until you have opened it up. The clearest example is KNA Immobilier, recorded on 4 September 2026: “a riad bought for €500,000 can generate €60,000 a year in short-term letting, a ROI of 12%”. The arithmetic is right — 60,000 divided by 500,000 does give 12% — but it sets income against a purchase price. Not one cost is deducted, neither staff, nor commission, nor upkeep, and the denominator ignores the renovation work as well as the completion fees.

The useful reflex is a single operation. Take the gross amounts the page publishes and redo the division yourself. On the Luxurious Properties Marrakech comparison, the exercise gives 8.9% for the riad to renovate and 12.3% for the turnkey one, where the page announces 11.5% and 8.2%. The ranking reverses, with no indication of the formula used.

The four questions we put to a yield figure

When an owner brings us a projection, we ask four questions before discussing its substance. Numerator: that amount, is it income received, profit after operating costs, or profit after costs and tax? Denominator: divided by the purchase price alone, by the price plus renovation, or by the total investment including completion fees? Cost base: does the management commission apply to the platform payout, to the gross nightly rate, or to income excluding cleaning? Occupancy assumed: which rate, over which year, and against which scope?

None of these questions calls for any particular financial skill. They ask only that whoever produced the figure agrees to open it. If they answer all four, the projection can be checked against your own house. If they answer none of them, it is not a yield: it is a brochure.

Where does the management commission come into this?

After the costs, and its base weighs as much as its rate. A net operating yield is calculated with the commission deducted; leaving it out inflates the percentage mechanically. But two commissions of 20% do not cost the same, depending on what they apply to, and that is the point most owners discover too late.

Five distinct bases coexist in Marrakech: the platform payout, so after its own commission; accommodation turnover before any commission; the gross nightly rate; income excluding cleaning fees; income with cleaning rebilled at cost. Between the first and the second, the gap reaches the order of magnitude of the platform commission itself. The detail, company by company, is in our survey of what Marrakech concierge companies charge and in our comparison of concierge companies.

What a percentage never tells you: who opens the house in February

A yield, even correctly calculated, assumes a house that is occupied, maintained, repaired when it needs to be, and accounted for by somebody who is on site. It says nothing about what happens when a pipe gives way in February, when a caretaker leaves, or when nobody has opened the house for three weeks.

The costs that create the whole gap between two yields are not spreadsheet lines: they are call-outs decided quickly, quotes arbitrated from a distance, and follow-ups. For a medina riad, holding that gap takes a visit every week and a full technical inspection every month. The useful question is therefore not only what a riad returns, but what you receive as a report: how often, with what supporting documents, and verifiable by whom. That is the subject of our property management page.

Why do we publish no yield figure of our own?

Because we do not hold a series of operating results wide enough or long enough for an average to mean anything, and a rate built on a handful of houses would be exactly the eighth unverifiable figure this article teaches you to read. It is not caution for show: it is precisely the standard we have just applied to the other seven.

What we do publish can be checked. Our commission and the exact sum it applies to are set out on our pricing page, and the annual cost of holding a riad is detailed in our article on what a Marrakech riad costs. If you own a riad, with a trading history and a question about what is really left, write to us: we go back through your figures, line by line, without publishing a single one of them.

Would you like to know what your riad actually leaves you, once the costs and the commission base have been laid out in full? We provide a free assessment within 48 hours, with no commitment.