Morocco multiplies its olive oil sales in Spain by 100: is it flooding the market?
In just 12 months, Morocco has become a much more visible supplier of olive oil to the Spanish market, according to the latest DataComex figures (source in Spanish), a database run by the Ministry of Economy,...
In just 12 months, Morocco has become a much more visible supplier of olive oil to the Spanish market, according to the latest DataComex figures (source in Spanish), a database run by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise. Between January and April 2025, Spain bought 103 tonnes of olive oil from its neighbour; in the same period of 2026, the figure reached 10,384.7 tonnes. The increase of 9,979% is accurate and verifiable, but it needs some context to understand what it really means.
Why such a high percentage is not a mistake
The jump is explained largely by the starting point: when the initial figure is so small, any moderate rise in absolute terms turns into an explosive percentage. Going from 103 to just over 10,000 tonnes multiplies the figure by 100, and that multiplication, expressed as a percentage, comes close to five digits. The same pattern appears in the economic value of those purchases: from 340,000 euros to 32.76 million, an increase of 9,535%.
Put into perspective, Moroccan olive oil still accounts for only a small share of the Spanish market. Using data up to February 2026, Morocco supplied 7.48% of Spain’s olive oil imports, compared with 2.01% a year earlier: a notable increase, but still far from a dominant position. Spain also produces around 1.295 million tonnes of olive oil in the 2025-2026 season, a figure far higher than the little more than 10,000 tonnes imported from Morocco in the first four months. Moroccan growth is real and rapid, but on its own it does not change the weight of domestic production.
A shift in Spanish exports as well
The other side of the trade balance has also moved. Spain sold 2,721 tonnes of olive oil to Morocco between January and April 2025, a figure that fell to 673.72 tonnes in the same period of 2026, a drop of 75.2%. In value terms, Spanish exports went from 11.11 to 2.44 million euros, almost 78% less. The result is a reversal in the trade relationship: whereas in 2025 Spain sold more olive oil to Morocco than it bought, in 2026 the situation is exactly the opposite.
What is behind Morocco’s advance
Behind these figures lies an especially good Moroccan harvest: the Moroccan Interprofessional Olive Federation has estimated production close to 200,000 tonnes for 2025-2026, more than double the previous year, thanks to the recovery of olive groves after several years of drought. On top of that comes a lower price, helped by the preferential trade conditions that the European Union grants Morocco. Across the EU, purchases of Moroccan olive oil rose by 712.6% between October 2025 and March 2026, although Tunisia remains by far the main non-EU supplier, with 81% of those imports.
At the same time, Spanish production is going through a somewhat weaker season: the Ministry of Agriculture is forecasting a 9% drop compared with the previous year, which helps explain why the market has relied more on imported oil. Taken together, the data point to a shift in trade trends between Spain and Morocco that is worth monitoring, but they do not yet support the idea that Moroccan olive oil is replacing Spanish oil.
The rest of the picture: who else sells olive oil to Spain
Morocco is not competing alone. In the first two months of 2026, Spain imported a total of 39,624.61 tonnes of olive oil, and the Maghreb country ranked fourth among suppliers, behind Tunisia (15,861.10 tonnes), Portugal (13,174.47) and Italy (4,257.19). Tunisia remains by far Spain’s main external supplier, with a volume four times that of Morocco over the same period.
The same comparison holds at European level: between October 2025 and March 2026, EU imports of Moroccan olive oil rose by 712.6%, going from 1,269 to 10,312 tonnes. Even so, Tunisia accounts for 81% of all the olive oil the EU buys from non-member countries, compared with a still much smaller Moroccan share. The European Commission’s own report also shows steep declines for other traditional suppliers, such as Turkey (-95.1%), Syria (-83.1%) and Argentina (-53.4%), placing Morocco’s advance within a broader reshuffle of suppliers that is being driven by changes on several fronts, not just in Morocco.
