Does Maryland preempt local rent control ordinances?

Maryland law does not preempt local rent regulation, and Takoma Park, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County each operate rent stabilization programs under local home-rule powers.

Can a landlord raise the rent during a fixed-term lease in Maryland?

Section 8-209 sets the notice a landlord must give before any increase; it does not itself allow an increase during a fixed term. For tenancies with a term LONGER than one month, including year leases rolling over, § 8-209 requires at least 90 days' advance notice of an increase.

How much notice is required to raise the rent in Maryland?

Verified October 1, 2026 All Maryland topics →

Check your municipality. Maryland does not preempt local rent regulation — city or county ordinances may impose rent caps, notice periods, and fee limits that are stricter than the state law on this page. Verify your municipality's ordinances before relying on any figure below. Verified local pages: Montgomery County, Prince George's County, Takoma Park.

What the state record says

Maryland does not preempt local rent control, and three sizable programs are active: Takoma Park (rent stabilization since 1981, CPI-based annual allowance), Montgomery County (cap of CPI+3% up to a 6% maximum), and Prince George's County (cap of the lower of 6% or CPI-U+3%). There is no statewide rent control. Montgomery County's program is Bill 15-23, effective 2024-07-23, and exempts buildings under 23 years old; Prince George's County's is the Permanent Rent Stabilization and Protection Act of 2024, effective 2024-10-17. RP § 8-209.1 acknowledges local rent-limit laws and imposes state reporting duties on jurisdictions that adopt them, while its subsection (e) says the section itself may not be construed to AUTHORIZE local rent caps — a no-new-authorization clause, not a preemption. Local ordinances are outside the scope of this page but are flagged here.

Maryland requires true statewide advance notice of rent increases — since October 1, 2023, RP § 8-209 makes a landlord give a month-to-month tenant at least 60 days' written notice of any increase, and tenants on terms longer than a month get 90 days; only weekly tenancies drop to 7 days (21 without a written lease).

Cited to RP § 8-209 and 3 more cited sources · Verified October 1, 2026

Notice travels by first-class mail with a certificate of mailing, or electronically (email, text, or portal with proof of transmission) if the tenant opts in — and a landlord may not condition accepting an application on that election. The section yields where the landlord has already given a termination notice, and it expressly preserves stricter local laws. Maryland has no statewide rent cap, and it does not preempt local rent control: Takoma Park, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County all run active rent-stabilization programs, so the county code matters as much as the state code here. Any pre-2023 source saying Maryland has no rent-increase notice statute is out of date.

Maryland rent increase notice at a glance

Notice — month-to-month	60 days
Varies by increase size	Not addressed by statute
Fixed-term leases	Section 8-209 sets the notice a landlord must give before any increase; it does not itself allow an increase during a fixed term. For tenancies with a term LONGER than one month, including year leases rolling over, § 8-209 requires at least 90 days' advance notice of an increase. Shorter periodic tenancies use 60 days (over a week up to a month), 7 days (a week or less, written lease), or 21 days (a week or less, no written lease).
Statewide rent control / stabilization	No
Rent control details	Maryland does not preempt local rent control, and three sizable programs are active: Takoma Park (rent stabilization since 1981, CPI-based annual allowance), Montgomery County (cap of CPI+3% up to a 6% maximum), and Prince George's County (cap of the lower of 6% or CPI-U+3%). There is no statewide rent control. Montgomery County's program is Bill 15-23, effective 2024-07-23, and exempts buildings under 23 years old; Prince George's County's is the Permanent Rent Stabilization and Protection Act of 2024, effective 2024-10-17. RP § 8-209.1 acknowledges local rent-limit laws and imposes state reporting duties on jurisdictions that adopt them, while its subsection (e) says the section itself may not be construed to AUTHORIZE local rent caps — a no-new-authorization clause, not a preemption. Local ordinances are outside the scope of this page but are flagged here.
Local rent regulation	Maryland law does not preempt local rent regulation, and Takoma Park, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County each operate rent stabilization programs under local home-rule powers.
Frequency limits	Not addressed by statute

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Maryland Rent Increase Notice Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/rent-increase-notice/maryland/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Create a Maryland rent-increase notice — free, no signup, built on the same verified Maryland law as this page.

Notes and caveats

60 days comes from a true rent-increase statute, not a derivation — The 60-day figure is § 8-209, an actual rent-increase notice statute, not a number derived from termination law. The month-to-month bucket covers terms over one week up to one month; the 90-day tier for terms longer than a month is carried under the fixed-term rules.
A termination notice takes the place of the increase notice — Section 8-209 does not apply to a landlord who has given written notice of intent to terminate the tenancy under § 8-402(c)(2) (§ 8-209(a)(2)). The termination periods are 60 days for a written lease for a stated term over one week or a month-to-month tenancy, 90 days for a year-to-year tenancy, and 7 or 21 days for a week-to-week tenancy (§ 8-402(c)(2)). For a stated term longer than one month, the 60-day termination notice is shorter than the 90-day increase notice.
Baltimore City variance and stale pinpoints — § 8-402's tenant-side 30-day notice does not apply in Baltimore City, and old sources citing § 8-402(b)(3) are using pre-renumbering pinpoints.
Maryland does not preempt local rent control — No Maryland statute preempts local rent regulation, which is why local rent-stabilization programs operate here. Section 8-209.1 requires a county or municipality that adopts a rent-increase limit to report to the General Assembly, and says it does not itself authorize one.
The good-cause eviction bill died again in 2026 — The 2026 local-option good-cause eviction bill (SB 462/HB 774) died again in the Senate. It is adjacent to this topic but is an eviction measure, not a rent measure.

Common questions: Maryland rent increase notice

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

How many days' notice must a landlord give before raising rent in Maryland?: 60 days.
Does Maryland have rent control?: No — Maryland has no statewide rent control or stabilization. Maryland does not preempt local rent control, and three sizable programs are active: Takoma Park (rent stabilization since 1981, CPI-based annual allowance), Montgomery County (cap of CPI+3% up to a 6% maximum), and Prince George's County (cap of the lower of 6% or CPI-U+3%).
Does Maryland preempt local rent control ordinances?: Maryland law does not preempt local rent regulation, and Takoma Park, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County each operate rent stabilization programs under local home-rule powers.
Can a landlord raise the rent during a fixed-term lease in Maryland?: Section 8-209 sets the notice a landlord must give before any increase; it does not itself allow an increase during a fixed term. For tenancies with a term LONGER than one month, including year leases rolling over, § 8-209 requires at least 90 days' advance notice of an increase.
How often can a landlord raise the rent in Maryland?: Not addressed by statute.

Citations

RP § 8-209 (verified 2026) Official source
HB 151 (2023), Ch. 146 (verified 2026) Official source
RP § 8-209.1 · (c)-(e) (verified 2026) Official source
RP § 8-402 · (c)(2) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the Maryland General Assembly site (mgaleg.maryland.gov). October 1, 2026: every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction answers rest on was read there in the text in effect that day. The site's default view prints the text in effect on January 1, 2026, so each section a later act amended was read in the view that includes those enactments. The sections: Real Property §§ 8-203, 8-203.1, 8-208, 8-209, 8-209.1, 8-210, 8-213, 8-216, 8-221, 8-401, 8-402, 8-402.1, 8-406, 8-407 and 8-901 to 8-905; for mobile home parks, §§ 8A-404, 8A-704 and 8A-1001; Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 7-301; and General Provisions § 1-302. The chapter laws behind them were read on the same site, each passage the act strikes settled on the code page: 2023 ch. 146, 2024 ch. 124, 2025 chs. 564 and 580, and 2026 chs. 494 and 754. Interest mechanics were read on the Department of Housing and Community Development's deposit-interest calculator page, and the local rent-stabilization programs on the Takoma Park, Montgomery County and Prince George's County government pages.