Maryland Pay Transparency Law: Postings, Salary History, and Penalties

Maryland’s pay transparency law took effect on October 1, 2024, and it does two main things: it requires employers to publish a wage range and a benefits description in every job posting for work performed in Maryland, and it bars employers from asking applicants about their salary history. Enforcement runs through the Maryland Commissioner of Labor and Industry, with civil penalties that climb for repeat violations.

Which Employers and Jobs Are Covered

Coverage is broad. Every Maryland employer must comply, including small businesses, nonprofits, churches, household employers, and state, county, and local governments.¹ There is no employee-count threshold.

What matters is where the work happens or who supervises it. The disclosure rules apply to any position where the work will be performed, at least in part, in Maryland. They also apply to positions performed entirely outside Maryland if the employee reports to a supervisor, office, or work site physically located in the state.² That second category sweeps in a lot of remote work. If the hiring manager sits in Baltimore, the role is covered even when the person filling it lives elsewhere.

What Every Job Posting Must Include

Every public or internal posting for a job, promotion, transfer, or other employment opportunity must contain two things: the wage range and a general description of the benefits and other compensation offered for the position.²

The wage range is the minimum and maximum hourly rate or salary for the position. The employer must set it in good faith, drawing on whichever of these reference points applies: an internal pay scale, a previously established range for the position, the pay of a person currently in a comparable role, or the budgeted amount for the position.³ Open-ended ranges or figures the employer has no intention of honoring fall short of good faith.

A “posting” means any solicitation intended to recruit applicants for a specific available position, whether the employer handles recruiting directly or hires it out.³ Online job boards, social media ads, and printed flyers all count. Using a staffing agency or third-party recruiter does not shift the disclosure obligation off the employer.

The Maryland Commissioner of Labor and Industry has published a standardized form employers can use to satisfy the requirement. The form is optional; the disclosure just has to appear in the posting or otherwise reach the applicant.²

When There Is No Posting

Not every job gets advertised. When an employer fills a position without making a posting available to a particular applicant, the employer still has to disclose the wage range and benefits information to that applicant before any discussion of compensation, and again any time the applicant asks.² Skipping the ad does not skip the disclosure.

Salary History Ban

The same statute prohibits employers from asking about an applicant’s past pay. Employers cannot seek an applicant’s wage history orally, in writing, through an employee or agent, or from a current or former employer, and they cannot use salary history to screen applicants or set starting pay.²

There is one narrow exception. After the employer makes an initial offer with a specific compensation figure, the employer may rely on wage history the applicant voluntarily provides, and only to justify raising the offer above what was first proposed. Even then, the higher wage cannot create a pay differential based on sex, gender identity, or other characteristics protected under Maryland’s Equal Pay for Equal Work law.² In practice, an employer can use volunteered salary history to pay you more, never to pay you less.

Nothing stops an applicant from sharing salary history voluntarily. The restriction runs one way: employers cannot ask for it or dig it up on their own.

Retaliation Protections

An employer cannot retaliate against an applicant or employee for exercising rights under the law. That means no refusing to interview, hire, promote, or transfer someone because the person declined to provide wage history or asked for the wage range for a position.² If you ask a hiring manager what a role pays and your application disappears, that is a violation.

Once you are on the job, a separate federal protection covers wage discussions with coworkers. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act gives most private-sector employees the right to talk about their pay, and workplace policies that forbid those conversations can be challenged through the National Labor Relations Board.⁴⁵ Maryland’s law covers the hiring process; the NLRA covers wage talk among employees.

Penalties for Noncompliance

The Maryland Commissioner of Labor and Industry enforces the law. It does not create a private right of action, so applicants and employees cannot sue an employer directly in court over a missing wage range. Complaints go to the Commissioner’s office.

Penalties escalate with each violation:

First violation: the Commissioner issues an order compelling compliance. No fine.
Second violation: a civil penalty of up to $300 for each affected employee or applicant.
Third or later violation, if it occurs within three years of a prior determination: up to $600 for each affected employee or applicant.¹

The structure gives employers a chance to correct course before any money is on the line. But because the second- and third-violation fines run per affected person, an employer with dozens of noncompliant postings can face a calculation based on every applicant who saw them, not one flat sum.

Record-Keeping Requirements

Employers must keep records showing compliance with the wage range disclosure requirement for at least three years. The clock starts when the position is filled or, if the position is never filled, when it was first posted.³ The records should include the wage ranges and benefits descriptions used in each posting and the associated job descriptions.

1
Maryland Department of Labor. Equal Work for Equal Pay – Wage Range Transparency Frequently Asked Questions
2
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Labor and Employment 3-304.2
3
Maryland General Assembly. Chapter 272 (Senate Bill 525) – Labor and Employment – Equal Pay for Equal Work – Wage Range Transparency
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 157 – Right of Employees as to Organization, Collective Bargaining, Etc
5
National Labor Relations Board. Your Rights