Maryland pay transparency law: wage range transparency explained

Maryland requires every employer, with no minimum number of employees, to disclose a wage range and a general description of benefits in each job posting for a position that will be performed at least in part in the state. The rule is Labor and Employment section 3-304.2, in effect since October 1, 2024, and it is one of only two states in this series, alongside Colorado, with no employer-size threshold at all.

The statute and who enforces it

The requirement is Labor and Employment Article § 3-304.2, added by House Bill 649 and Senate Bill 525 of the 2024 session and in effect since October 1, 2024. The Employment Standards Service, part of the Division of Labor and Industry within the Maryland Department of Labor, enforces the statute and publishes guidance at labor.maryland.gov, including a set of frequently asked questions issued after the law took effect.

Which employers are covered

There is no headcount minimum. Any employer with a position that will be physically performed, at least in part, in Maryland is covered, regardless of how many people the business employs anywhere. The Maryland Department of Labor's FAQs confirm this extends to a remote position: a company headquartered outside Maryland that is seeking a worker who will be based in Maryland, even to work entirely from home, is covered by the disclosure duty for that posting.

This is a meaningfully broader test than a headcount threshold. A two-person consulting firm hiring its first Maryland-based analyst has the same posting duty as a national employer with thousands of workers; the statute never asks how big the employer is, only whether the job itself touches Maryland. Recruiters used to checking a company's total headcount before worrying about pay transparency should treat Maryland, along with Colorado, as an exception to that habit: the only question that matters here is where the work will be done.

What must appear in the posting

Every public or internal job posting must include:

• The wage range the employer expects, in good faith, to pay for the position.
• A general description of benefits the employer expects to offer.
• Any other compensation, such as bonuses or commission, the employer expects to offer for the position.

The Maryland Department of Labor's guidance defines "posting" broadly: it includes newspaper advertisements, printed flyers, social media posts, an email sent to more than one applicant or through a mailing list, and advertisements published through any other medium, not just a listing on the employer's own careers page or a job board.

If a job recruiter, staffing agency or listing site posts on the employer's behalf, that posting still has to include the wage range and benefits information. The employer's own responsibility for compliance does not go away because someone else is handling the mechanics of publishing the ad; the Department of Labor's FAQ specifically names third-party recruiters and listing sites like the major job boards as included in this duty.

The wage range itself has to be set in good faith, meaning it should reflect what the employer would actually offer a qualified candidate rather than a number chosen to look competitive. Maryland's statute does not give a separate test for what "good faith" means the way Colorado's regulations spell one out in detail, but the Department of Labor's FAQ points employers toward the same basic practice used across this series: build the range from an existing pay scale, a budgeted amount for the position, or what people already doing equivalent work are paid, and be ready to explain where the number came from if it is ever questioned.

What a candidate or employee may ask for, and when

If a public or internal posting was not made available to a particular applicant, the employer must still disclose the wage range and the other required information before any discussion of compensation with that applicant, and again at any other time the applicant requests it. An employer may not refuse to interview, hire, employ, promote or transfer an applicant or employee, and may not retaliate against them, because they did not provide their wage history, because they requested the wage range, or because they exercised any right under this section.

Maryland's law also restricts salary history the way several states in this series do: an employer may not rely on an applicant's wage history when screening or considering them for employment or when setting wages, except in narrow circumstances the statute defines separately, and may not seek that history from the applicant, an agent, or a current or former employer. An applicant may still volunteer their wage history without being asked, and the statute does not stop the employer from considering information volunteered that way.

Records the employer must keep

The statute and the Department of Labor's published FAQ do not set out a wage-range-specific document retention period the way Colorado's, California's or Illinois's laws in this series do. The safer practice given that gap is to keep whatever you used to build the wage range, whatever pay-scale documentation, benchmarking or budget line supported the number, for at least as long as you would need it to answer a Department of Labor inquiry or a compensation-discrimination claim under Maryland's separate equal pay statute, since the wage range itself is evidence of what the employer represented it would pay.

Penalties and who enforces them

Maryland's approach is noticeably softer on a first violation than most states in this series: the statute gives every employer one compliance letter before any fine attaches, rather than a per-posting penalty from the first finding the way California, Colorado or Illinois impose. The penalties that do apply are calculated per affected employee or applicant, not per posting, which can still add up quickly if a single noncompliant posting drew many applicants.

That per-person calculation is worth sitting with for a moment, because it changes how risk scales with a posting's reach. A range missing from a low-volume, specialized role that draws a handful of applicants is a small exposure even at a second violation. The same missing range on a high-volume role, a call center opening or a seasonal retail posting that draws hundreds of applicants, multiplies the $300 or $600 per-person figure by everyone the Department of Labor treats as affected, which can turn a single overlooked posting into a much larger number than the flat per-posting fines used elsewhere in this series.

What it means for a staffing agency posting a client's role

Because Maryland's law has no size threshold and explicitly reaches third-party recruiters and listing sites, a staffing agency posting a Maryland client's role cannot rely on the client being too small to be covered, and cannot rely on the agency itself being a separate legal entity from the client to avoid the duty. The Department of Labor's own FAQ names recruiters and job boards directly, which puts the burden on the agency to get the wage range and benefits from the client before the posting runs, the same as it would confirm a job title. Because the first violation draws a compliance letter rather than a fine, an agency that misses this on an early posting has a real opportunity to fix its intake process before the penalties in the table above start to apply, but that grace period is a reason to build the habit early, not a reason to treat the requirement casually.

An example compliant posting

The following is an invented example for illustration, not a real job order.

Property Claims Adjuster — Baltimore, MD (remote within Maryland)
Example Harborline Insurance Partners (invented company, for illustration only)

Wage range: $58,000–$74,000 per year, based on licensure and
years of claims experience. This is the full range we expect to
pay for this role.

Benefits: medical, dental and vision plans; paid holidays; 401(k)
with a 3% employer match; mileage reimbursement for field visits.

Other compensation: quarterly performance bonus of up to $1,500,
based on caseload accuracy and turnaround time.

How Maryland compares with the rest of this series

Maryland shares Colorado's no-size-threshold approach but is considerably lighter on enforcement, with a compliance letter rather than a fine for a first violation and no application-deadline, internal-notice or post-selection disclosure duties layered on top the way Colorado's statute has. For the full state-by-state comparison, see pay transparency laws by state. For phrasing that asks about pay expectations without crossing into a history question, see salary expectation questions, and for the broader list of topics to avoid in an interview, see illegal interview questions.