How much is a trader's license in Maryland?

It depends on the value of your inventory (stock-in-trade) and your county. Outside Baltimore City and Baltimore County, the fee runs from $15 for stock worth $1,000 or less to $800 for stock over $750,000. Baltimore City's scale tops out at $2,125 and Baltimore County's at $1,600. Counties that choose a uniform fee charge $15, or $20 in Baltimore City or County.

When does a Maryland trader's license expire?

Clerk-issued licenses run from May 1 to April 30, so you renew each spring. Applying after May 1 for the current year means the fee is prorated by quarter. Renewing late adds a late fee of 10% of the license fee for the first month and 2% for each month after, capped at 30% of the year's fee.

Do I need a trader's license for an online or service business?

A trader is someone who operates a room or other place of business for selling goods, so a pure service business with no goods for sale usually does not need one. Makers and manufacturers selling their own goods are exempt. An online seller with a Maryland premises holding inventory for sale should ask the clerk, and still needs a sales and use tax license to collect tax.

What is Maryland's sales tax rate in 2026?

The general rate is 6%. Since July 1, 2025, certain data and information technology services, such as hosting and software publishing services, are taxed at 3%, and cannabis rose to 12% in fiscal year 2026. Maryland has no local sales taxes, so the state rate applies everywhere.

Business registration & legal

Maryland Business License in 2026: Trader's License, Sales Tax License and the SDAT Annual Report

Q: What is the SDAT annual report and how much does it cost?

Every Maryland LLC, corporation, limited partnership, LLP and business trust, and any business that owns taxable personal property, files an annual report with the State Department of Assessments and Taxation by April 15. The filing fee for most entities is $300. The report also carries the personal property return used to value your inventory for the trader's license.

Maryland business license 2026: no general license, but a trader's license from the circuit court clerk, a sales tax license and the SDAT annual report.

Edited by Sumeet YadavFounder & editor, MSMETOOLS · fact-checked against official sources

Updated October 2026 Verified against official sources 9 October 2026 16 min read

Maryland business license — MSMETOOLS guide cover

Contents (10)

1. Does Maryland require a business license?
2. The trader's license: who needs one
3. Trader's license fees by inventory value
4. Applying for and renewing a trader's license
5. Sales and use tax license from the Comptroller
6. SDAT annual report and personal property return
7. Worked examples
8. Professional, trade and local permits
9. Common mistakes and how to fix them
10. What to do next

Search "Maryland business license" and you will find plenty of pages implying there is one state license to buy. There is not. Maryland licenses activities, not businesses in general: a shop that sells goods needs a trader's license from the clerk of the circuit court, a retailer needs a sales and use tax license from the Comptroller, and plumbers, salons and restaurants need their own permits. On top of that, every LLC and corporation files a yearly report with the State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT). This guide explains which of these you need, what they cost and how they connect, using the Maryland Code and SDAT forms as checked in October 2026.

Quick answer

Maryland has no general business license. If you operate a place that sells goods, you need a trader's license from the clerk of the circuit court in your county, priced by the value of your inventory: $15 to $800 in most counties. Retailers also need a sales and use tax license from the Comptroller (6% rate). LLCs and corporations file an SDAT annual report by April 15, usually $300.

Trader's licenses run May 1 to April 30 and are renewed every spring
One trader's license per store or fixed place of business
The Comptroller's sales and use tax license does not expire unless surrendered or revoked
Data and IT services have been taxed at 3% since July 1, 2025
Professions and trades need board licenses, and counties handle zoning and health permits

Does Maryland require a business license?

Not in the sense most people mean. There is no statewide registration that every business must hold before opening. What Maryland does have is a set of licenses under Title 17 of the Business Regulation Article that the clerk of the circuit court issues for particular activities. The statute lists them: construction licenses (including for nonresident contractors), garage licenses, peddler licenses, junk dealer and scrap metal licenses, on-site cleaning and laundering licenses, storage warehouse licenses, promoter licenses for shows, restaurant licenses, chain store licenses, vending machine licenses and, the one most small businesses meet, the trader's license.

The effect is that a consultant working from home may need nothing from the clerk at all, while a corner shop needs a trader's license, and a café may need a restaurant license from the clerk plus a food service permit from the county health department. Each license is tied to a location, so a business with two shops holds two. The clerk tells you which you need once you describe the business, and the county's planning office tells you whether the location is zoned for it.

Separately, you register with two state agencies. The Comptroller of Maryland handles sales and use tax, withholding and other business taxes. SDAT handles entity filings, the annual report and the business personal property return. Many owners do both through Maryland Business Express, the state's online portal for forming and registering a business.

What	Who issues it	Who needs it	Renewal
Trader's license	Clerk of the circuit court	Anyone operating a place of business that sells goods	Every year, May 1 to April 30
Other Title 17 licenses (restaurant, garage, construction, vending, etc.)	Clerk of the circuit court	Specific activities listed in the statute	Every year, same cycle
Sales and use tax license	Comptroller of Maryland	Retail vendors, out-of-state vendors and marketplace facilitators	No renewal; valid until surrendered or revoked
Annual report and personal property return	SDAT	LLCs, corporations, LPs, LLPs, trusts, and businesses with taxable personal property	Every year by April 15
Occupational and professional licenses	State boards (e.g. Department of Labor)	Regulated trades and professions	Set by each board

The trader's license: who needs one

Maryland law defines a trader as a person who operates a room or other place of business for selling goods, including goods sold at auction. If that describes you, you need a trader's license before you start, and you need a separate license for each store or fixed place of business. A food truck or other mobile business that always parks in one fixed spot needs its own trader's license; one that moves around the state needs a trader's license and a peddler's license.

Several groups are exempt. A grower, maker or manufacturer selling its own goods does not need one, which covers many craft producers and farm sellers. Nonresident traveling salespeople selling to licensed traders, private individuals holding a single sale of personal belongings of up to 14 consecutive days a year, and restaurants that make 10% or less of their sales from nonfood items are also outside the rule.

Show and flea market sellers have their own rules. An exhibitor generally needs a trader's license, but not for a show promoted by a church, a government unit, a volunteer fire company and certain hobby groups, or where the exhibitor gives the promoter an affidavit that the goods make up less than 10% of their annual income and they have done no more than three shows in the past year. A licensed trader can exhibit anywhere in the state by giving the promoter a copy of the license.

The concrete facade of the Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville, Maryland, with the US, Maryland and county flags above the entrance — In Maryland, trader's and other Title 17 business licenses come from the clerk of the circuit court in your county, not from a state licensing office.· Image: Tony Webster (CC BY 2.0)

Trader's license fees by inventory value

The fee depends on two things: whether your county or city has chosen a uniform fee, and, if not, the value of your stock-in-trade. Maryland law lets each county or municipality opt, by December 1 for the following year, into a uniform fee, and that choice is permanent. Where the uniform fee applies, every trader pays $15, or $20 in Baltimore City or Baltimore County, regardless of inventory.

Everywhere else, the fee is set by the value of the goods you hold for sale. "Stock-in-trade" is the inventory you report on the business personal property return filed with SDAT, which is why the annual report and the trader's license are linked. When you apply for a new license in a county that uses the value scale, you give the clerk an SDAT certification (or another certification the clerk accepts) of that inventory value. For most counties the valuation year is the second calendar year before the license year.

Trader's license fee by stock-in-trade value (counties other than Baltimore City and Baltimore County)

Stock-in-trade value	Annual fee
$1,000 or less	$15
$1,001 – $2,500	$18 – $20
$2,501 – $10,000	$25 – $50
$10,001 – $20,000	$65 – $80
$20,001 – $50,000	$100 – $150
$50,001 – $100,000	$200 – $250
$100,001 – $200,000	$300 – $350
$200,001 – $500,000	$400 – $600
$500,001 – $750,000	$750
Over $750,000	$800

$1,000 or less

Annual fee: $15

$1,001 – $2,500

Annual fee: $18 – $20

$2,501 – $10,000

Annual fee: $25 – $50

$10,001 – $20,000

Annual fee: $65 – $80

$20,001 – $50,000

Annual fee: $100 – $150

$50,001 – $100,000

Annual fee: $200 – $250

$100,001 – $200,000

Annual fee: $300 – $350

$200,001 – $500,000

Annual fee: $400 – $600

$500,001 – $750,000

Annual fee: $750

Over $750,000

Annual fee: $800

Baltimore City and Baltimore County use steeper scales. In both, the fee starts at $20 for stock of $1,000 or less, then $40 up to $5,000, $80 up to $10,000, $160 up to $50,000 and $375 up to $100,000. Above that the two part ways: Baltimore City charges $1,000 up to $300,000, $1,500 up to $750,000 and $2,125 above that, while Baltimore County climbs through $450, $500, $775, $1,000 and $1,250 to a top fee of $1,600.

The statute also sets rules that apply to all clerk-issued licenses. The minimum fee is $2.50. If you apply after May 1 for a license that runs to the following April 30, the fee is prorated by quarter. The Comptroller adds an issuance fee for each license issued or transferred; ask the clerk for the current total. A trader who sells the business can transfer the license to a buyer who takes over the stock and the premises, and the transfer is recorded with the clerk.

Applying for and renewing a trader's license

You apply to the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the business is located, on the clerk's form, stating the address where you will trade. The license names that address, and you may trade only there. In a few counties, the clerk cannot issue a first license until planning and zoning signs off: Baltimore County needs the zoning commissioner's approval, Howard County the planning director's (who must respond within three working days), Calvert County its planning office for new licenses and changes of location, and parts of Cecil County the county planning office. Elsewhere, getting zoning right is still your responsibility, and an unapproved use can cost you the lease.

Renewal is every spring for the year starting May 1. Along with the fee, you give the clerk an SDAT certification of the value of your fixtures and stock-in-trade, and certifications that you owe no unpaid taxes to the county, the municipality and the Comptroller. Most of this is handled electronically between agencies, but an unpaid personal property tax bill or an unfiled annual report is the classic reason a renewal is refused.

Late licenses cost more. If you are required to hold a license and do not get it on time, the clerk adds a late fee of 10% of the license fee for the calendar month after the fee was due, plus 2% for each month after that, capped at 30% of the year's fee.

Getting licensed in Maryland

1
Form the entity (if any) and get an EIN
Sole proprietors can start in their own name. LLCs file articles of organization with SDAT ($100), usually through Maryland Business Express. Get a free EIN from the IRS.
EIN guide
2
Check zoning and any board license
Confirm the premises can be used for your business, and get any trade or professional license your occupation requires.
3
Register with the Comptroller
Retailers apply for a sales and use tax license for each place of business; employers register for withholding.
4
Apply to the circuit court clerk
Get your trader's license, and any other Title 17 license that applies, for each location.
Tip: Starting mid-year? The fee is prorated by quarter after May 1.
5
File the SDAT annual report every April 15
Entities file the annual report; businesses with taxable property include the personal property return. Then renew the trader's license for May 1.

Sales and use tax license from the Comptroller

Before you can act as a retail vendor in Maryland, sell into the state as an out-of-state vendor or run a marketplace, you must hold a sales and use tax license from the Comptroller. You apply for one license for each place of business where you sell; if you sell only from vehicles, one per vehicle; and if you have no fixed place and no vehicle, one for your mailing address. The license is valid until you surrender it or the Comptroller revokes it, so there is no annual renewal, but you must keep filing returns.

The general rate is 6% and applies statewide; Maryland counties and cities do not add their own sales taxes. The 2025 budget law added a new 3% rate, from July 1, 2025, on certain data and information technology services, such as data processing, hosting and software publishing services, where no higher rate already applies. Cannabis moved from 9% to 12% for fiscal year 2026. If you sell software or digital services, check carefully which rate applies, because some digital products remain at 6%.

Try it — Maryland sales tax on a $250 sale

Purchase AmountState

Local / County Rate

Purchase Amount$250.00

State Tax (6.25%)$15.63

Local Tax (2%)$5.00

Combined Rate8.25%

Total Amount (Including Tax)$270.63

Open the full Sales Tax Calculator (PDF, save, compare)

SDAT annual report and personal property return

Every Maryland corporation, LLC, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, business trust and statutory trust, and every foreign entity registered to do business in Maryland, must file an annual report with SDAT by April 15. So must any person, including a sole proprietor, who owns or owned business personal property subject to property tax. The report is filed on Form 1, and the business personal property return is part of it. SDAT asks filers to use Maryland Business Express online.

The filing fee for most entities is $300; a certified family farm pays $100, and nonstock corporations pay nothing. The fee is due even if the LLC had no income that year, which surprises many owners of small or dormant companies. The 2026 Form 1 also asks whether the business was approved by MarylandSaves for a fee waiver, which is available to qualifying employers that registered with the state retirement savings program in the previous year.

The personal property return lists furniture, equipment and inventory located in Maryland, and SDAT uses it to assess personal property tax. It also produces the inventory figure the clerk uses for your trader's license fee. File late and SDAT can charge penalties; fail to file for long enough and an entity can forfeit its right to do business, which then blocks trader's license renewals and good standing certificates.

The red-brick Maryland State House in Annapolis with its white wooden dome, seen up a brick path past a bronze historic marker — The trader's license fee scales and the SDAT annual report fee are both written into the Maryland Code by the General Assembly in Annapolis.· Image: m01229 (CC BY 2.0)

Worked examples

A gift shop in Frederick County, run as an LLC, holds about $28,000 of inventory. In a county using the value scale, that falls in the $20,001 to $30,000 band, so the trader's license is $100 a year. The LLC paid $100 to form, holds a free-standing sales and use tax license from the Comptroller, collects 6% on every sale, and files the $300 annual report each April. Its recurring state cost for licensing and reporting is therefore $400 a year before any personal property tax.

If the same shop were in Baltimore City with $60,000 of stock, the trader's license would be $375 instead, because the city's scale is steeper above $10,000. If it opened in September, after May 1, it would pay a prorated fee for the remaining quarters of that license year and the full fee from the following May.

A freelance web developer in Montgomery County who sells only services has no place of business selling goods, so no trader's license. She does need to check whether her services are newly taxable: if she hosts client websites or sells software publishing services, the 3% rate from July 2025 may apply, which means a sales and use tax license. If she sets up an LLC, she owes the $300 annual report every year even if her income is small.

A trader whose license fee is $150 and who forgets to renew until July pays the 10% late fee for May plus 2% for June, 12% in all, or $18, and the late fee can never exceed $45 for that year because of the 30% cap.

Professional, trade and local permits

Many occupations are licensed by state boards rather than the clerk. Home improvement contractors, electricians, plumbers, HVAC contractors, barbers and cosmetologists, real estate agents and many others are licensed through the Maryland Department of Labor's occupational boards, and health professionals through their own boards. Check with the board before signing a lease, because some licenses take weeks to issue.

Counties and Baltimore City handle zoning, building permits, use and occupancy certificates, fire inspections and food service permits through their health departments. A restaurant, for example, typically needs a food service facility permit from the county health department and a restaurant license from the clerk, plus an alcoholic beverages license from the local liquor board if it serves alcohol.

Before you open a Maryland shop

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Common mistakes and how to fix them

The first mistake is assuming no license means no paperwork. Maryland has no general business license, but most shops need a trader's license and nearly every entity owes the SDAT annual report. If you have been trading without a trader's license, apply now; the late fee is capped at 30%, which is small next to the trouble of being cited.

The second is skipping the annual report because the business had no revenue. The $300 fee and the filing apply regardless of income. An LLC that misses reports risks forfeiture, and a forfeited entity cannot renew its trader's license until it is reinstated, which costs more than the reports it skipped.

The third is guessing your inventory value. The trader's license fee is based on the stock-in-trade shown on your personal property return, so a careless return can push you into a higher fee band, or leave you underpaying and facing questions at renewal. Use your actual inventory figures.

The fourth is licensing the wrong address. A trader's license authorises trading only at the address on the license. Moving shop, opening a second store or adding a market stall all need new or amended licenses from the clerk.

Official Maryland links

What to do next

Work out whether you operate a place that sells goods; if so, budget for a trader's license at your county's rate and plan the SDAT annual report that feeds it. Choose your structure with our LLC registration guide, get an EIN, and use the startup cost calculator to add up formation, license and report fees. Our business licenses overview compares Maryland with Virginia and Delaware.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice — confirm on the official source or with a professional.

Frequently asked questions

No. Maryland has no single statewide license that every business buys. Instead, specific activities need specific licenses: anyone running a place that sells goods needs a trader's license from the clerk of the circuit court, retailers need a sales and use tax license from the Comptroller, and many trades need a board license. LLCs and corporations also file an annual report with SDAT.

Sources & verification

Figures on this page were checked against the sources below when it was last reviewed on 9 October 2026. Each rate and limit is stored once with its own official source and review date, and official update channels are monitored daily so changes are picked up. How we verify

1.Business Regulation § 17-1803 — Trader's license required — Maryland General Assembly · accessed 9 October 2026
2.Business Regulation § 17-1807 — Trader's license fees — Maryland General Assembly · accessed 9 October 2026
3.Business Regulation §§ 17-101, 17-201, 17-302, 17-303 and 17-1805 — Maryland General Assembly · accessed 9 October 2026
4.Tax-General § 11-104 — Sales and use tax rates — Maryland General Assembly · accessed 9 October 2026
5.Tax-General §§ 11-702 to 11-706 — Sales and use tax licenses — Maryland General Assembly · accessed 9 October 2026
6.Corporations and Associations § 1-203 — SDAT fees — Maryland General Assembly · accessed 9 October 2026
7.Tax-Property § 11-101 — Annual report — Maryland General Assembly · accessed 9 October 2026
8.2026 Form 1 — Annual Report and Business Personal Property Return — Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation · accessed 9 October 2026
9.Fiscal and Policy Note, HB 459 (2018) — Trader's licenses — Maryland Department of Legislative Services · accessed 9 October 2026

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We provide tools, guides and information for general educational purposes only. Always refer to official government websites for the latest and most accurate information.