Maryland PE License Renewal: Fee, 16 PDH, and Deadlines

A Maryland PE license renewal is a biennial, online process through the Maryland Department of Labor’s licensing portal: the renewal window opens about 60 days before your expiration date, the fee is $86, and you must certify 16 Professional Development Hours (PDH), including at least one hour of ethics content, completed before your license expires.¹

When You Can Renew and When You Must

Your license runs on a two-year cycle tied to your original date of licensure, not the calendar year. The Board for Professional Engineers opens the online renewal system roughly 60 days before your expiration date and sends courtesy reminders by email or mail around the same time. You cannot renew earlier than that 60-day mark.¹

Tracking the deadline is your responsibility. Miss it by a single day and your license is expired, which pushes you into reinstatement with higher fees and extra paperwork.

The Renewal Fee

The biennial renewal fee is $86 under the fee schedule the Board adopted in August 2024.² If your license has already expired when you try to renew, the system automatically adds a $112 reinstatement fee on top of the $86.¹ Paying late does not buy you extra time either, because your next expiration date is still measured from your original licensure date.

The 16-Hour Continuing Education Requirement

Under COMAR 09.23.06, Maryland requires 16 PDH per two-year renewal term. At least one hour must cover ethics-related content, which the Board defines broadly to include ethical concerns in engineering practice, the professional code of conduct, standards of care, and Maryland engineering laws and regulations.³ A course on Maryland’s own licensing statutes counts toward that ethics hour.

Earn more than 16 hours in a cycle and you can carry up to 8 excess hours into the next term.³ Banking a cushion is worth doing if a busy stretch ahead might eat into your course time.

What Counts as a PDH

Qualifying activities must relate to engineering practice and cover technical, ethical, or managerial content.⁴ They include:

College and continuing education courses, degree or non-degree, including correspondence, televised, and online formats
Attending or presenting at seminars, workshops, conferences, and in-house training sessions
Teaching any of the qualifying course types
Authoring papers, articles, or books, and obtaining patents
Active participation in professional or technical engineering societies

A project management seminar aimed at engineers qualifies. A general marketing webinar likely does not.

Who Is Exempt From the Hours

Not every licensee has to hit 16 hours every cycle. Exemptions include:

New licensees are exempt from CPC requirements for their first renewal period, whether they came in by examination or comity.
Engineers on temporary active military duty exceeding 120 consecutive days during a renewal period are exempt for that cycle.
You can mark your license inactive on the renewal form and certify that you are not performing engineering work, which skips the hours. If you return to active practice, you’ll owe hours for each year of inactivity, capped at two years’ worth.
You can request retired status from the Board, which exempts you from CPC entirely.
Physical disability, illness, or other extenuating hardship may qualify for an exemption with Board approval and supporting documentation.

Records You Must Keep

Keep documentation of your claimed PDH credits for at least three years. The Board can request those records for audit at any time, and if selected you have 30 days to produce them. Failing to respond means your application gets rejected.¹

Your records should include a log capturing the activity type, sponsoring organization, location, duration, instructor or speaker name, and PDH credits earned, along with attendance certificates or other completion evidence. Keeping a running log through the cycle is far easier than reconstructing one at renewal time.

Submitting the Renewal

Once the window opens, log in to the Maryland Department of Labor’s electronic licensing portal. You’ll enter your professional development hours, confirm the ethics requirement is met, and attest on the renewal form that you’ve completed all applicable CPC requirements before your expiration date.⁵ That attestation carries legal weight, so your hours need to be genuinely complete before you click through.

After you submit and pay the $86, the Board’s online licensee search database typically updates within a few business days with your new expiration date.² Gather your PDH log, certificates, and license number before you start the application.

If Your License Has Already Expired

The $112 reinstatement fee applies from day one past expiration.¹ Along with the fee, you must submit:

A written explanation of why you did not renew on time
A certified statement that you did not sign or seal engineering documents in Maryland during the lapse
Disclosure of whether you held a valid license in any other state during the lapse period, naming that state

CPC requirements scale with how long you’ve been lapsed. If your license has been expired for two or more renewal periods (four-plus years), you need 32 PDH credits, all earned within the two years before your reinstatement application, with no carryforward credits allowed. If you have been lapsed for more than three renewal periods (six-plus years) and were not continuously licensed somewhere else in the U.S. or its territories, you must contact the Board at dloplcpcaudit-labor@maryland.gov before applying.¹

One detail catches people off guard. Your expiration date does not reset when you reinstate; it stays tied to your original licensure date. A license that expired in March 2025 and is reinstated in September 2025 still has to be renewed again by March 2027.

Penalties for Practicing on an Expired License

Consequences for engineering without a valid Maryland license run on two tracks. Criminally, violating any provision of Title 14 of the Business Occupations and Professions Article is a misdemeanor carrying a fine up to $500, up to six months in jail, or both. Administratively, the Board can impose civil penalties up to $5,000 per violation and weighs factors including the seriousness of the violation, the harm caused, the engineer’s good faith, and any history of prior violations.⁶

Those penalties apply whether you knowingly practiced while expired or simply lost track of the date. The Board also has authority to reprimand, suspend, or revoke a license for disciplinary violations. Signing or sealing documents during a lapse is the kind of conduct that draws the hardest look at reinstatement, which is why the Board requires a certified statement that you didn’t do it.

1
Maryland Department of Labor. Renew or Reinstate a License – Board for Professional Engineers
2
Maryland Department of Labor. Fees – Professional Engineers
3
Legal Information Institute. Maryland Code of Regulations 09.23.06.03 – Requirements
4
Maryland Department of Labor. Continuing Education Requirements (Number of Hours and Course Content Required) – Professional Engineers
5
Legal Information Institute. Maryland Code of Regulations 09.23.06.09 – Reporting Requirements for License Renewal
6
Maryland Department of Labor. Maryland Business Occupations and Professions – Title 14 Engineers Act