A 12-year-old boy returned from a summer holiday in North Morocco with a slowly progressive erythematous, infiltrated plaque with a central crust on his right cheek. We diagnosed this as cutaneous leishmaniasis. Treatment for Leishmania major infection failed; subsequent PCR species typing revealed Leishmania infantum. This case shows the importance of recognition of parasitic skin diseases in travellers to the nearby subtropics and the value of leishmania species typing.