New Maryland Landlord-Tenant Laws 2026: What Changes on October 1

Every October 1, a new batch of General Assembly session laws goes live, and every October, Maryland landlords discover one of them the hard way. This year the verified list is four enacted laws that touch rental housing directly, plus a watch list of bills whose final status you should confirm before relying on them either way.

This post covers only what we could verify by bill number against mgaleg.maryland.gov. Where a bill's final disposition was unclear, we say so rather than guess. Accuracy over completeness.

The laws that hurt landlords are rarely the ones in the headlines. They're the ones that quietly become a defense at your Failure to Pay Rent hearing.

The Four Verified Laws Taking Effect October 1, 2026

1. SB 12 (Chapter 664): Air conditioning reaches renovated units

SB 12, the Residential Rental Apartments Air-Conditioning Requirement, was signed May 26, 2026 as Chapter 664. It applies to landlords of apartment buildings with 10 or more dwelling units and phases in:

• June 1, 2026: newly constructed units, and units equipped with air conditioning on or after January 2, 2025, must comply.
• October 1, 2026: units that undergo renovations replacing or substantially upgrading the electrical or heating systems join the requirement.

The operational standard: during the cooling season (June 1 through September 30), habitable spaces must not exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit, either maintained directly by the landlord's system or achievable by a properly working tenant-controlled system.

What to do now: if you own or manage a 10-plus-unit building and have any renovation touching electrical or heating on the calendar, budget the cooling equipment into the same scope. A unit renovated in November without compliant cooling is a habitability problem waiting for next June, and habitability complaints feed rent escrow cases.

2. SB 335 (Chapter 773): Subsidy discrimination ban + positive rent reporting

SB 335, signed May 26, 2026 as Chapter 773, does two distinct things effective October 1, 2026:

• Refusing to rent because a prospective tenant uses an income-based housing subsidy (a Housing Choice Voucher, for example) becomes a discriminatory housing practice, enforceable by the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights.
• Landlords must offer tenants the option of having positive rental payment history reported to consumer reporting agencies.

What to do now: scrub your listings and screening criteria for anything that reads as "no vouchers," and apply the same neutral screening standards to every applicant. Then build a simple offer-and-election step for rent reporting into your lease onboarding and renewal paperwork, and keep the tenant's signed election on file. If you already run Section 8 tenancies, the Section 8 eviction guide covers how subsidized cases differ once a nonpayment dispute starts.

3. SB 130 / HB 220: The water submetering rulebook

SB 130 and its cross-file HB 220, signed in late April 2026, create Maryland's first statewide framework for water submetering in apartment houses and mobile home parks, effective October 1, 2026. Owners and managers may bill occupants for actual submetered water usage, subject to guardrails:

• Administrative fees are capped (reported at $1 per unit per month; verify the enacted text before setting your fee).
• Tenants cannot be billed for common-area usage or owner-caused leaks.
• Billing records must be kept and made available to tenants during business hours.
• Prospective tenants receive historical cost information before signing.

What to do now: if you submeter, or planned to start, align your billing and disclosures with the framework before your first October-cycle invoice. Improper utility charges have a way of surfacing as setoffs and defenses in rent cases, because in a nonpayment hearing the judge asks what "rent" lawfully includes.

4. HB 1221 / SB 624 (Chapters 9 and 10): Short-term rental safety

The Jillian and Lindsay Wiener Short-Term Rental Safety Act (HB 1221, with cross-file SB 624) requires units rented for fewer than 30 consecutive days to carry specified fire prevention and detection equipment: smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, fire extinguishers, emergency contact information, and evacuation plans, effective October 1, 2026. If part of your portfolio runs short-term, the safety checklist is now statutory.

The Watch List: Confirm Before You Rely on These

Two closely watched 2026 bills passed the House but we could not verify their final enactment at publication time. Check their status pages on mgaleg.maryland.gov before assuming they do or do not apply:

• HB 80, residential lease fee disclosures. Would require landlords offering four or more units to give prospective tenants a written, itemized list of every mandatory and optional fee, with undisclosed mandatory fees unenforceable and tenant claims starting February 1, 2027. It passed the House 94-35 on March 5, 2026 and moved to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. Whatever its fate, itemizing your fees up front is cheap insurance: fee disputes are a growing theme in rent court.
• HB 774, local "good cause" eviction authority. Would let counties adopt local good-cause requirements for non-renewals and holdover terminations. It passed the House on March 19, 2026 and was referred to Senate Rules late in the session, which is often where bills end. If your county adopts good-cause rules under any future authority, non-renewal practices change significantly, so this one is worth tracking.

The Rules Already in Effect That Landlords Still Miss

October 1, 2026 is also the first anniversary of a rule set that is still generating dismissals and cancelled evictions. Treat this as the back half of your compliance checklist.

The 6-day eviction-date notice (HB 767, October 2025)

Since October 1, 2025, HB 767 (2025), codified at Real Property § 8-407, requires the landlord to give the tenant written notice of the scheduled eviction date: at least 6 days statewide, with counties free to set 4 to 14 days. Baltimore City requires 14 days by mail plus a 7-day posting; Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties are at 14 days. Miss it and the sheriff does not proceed. The county-by-county day counts are in the Maryland eviction notice requirements guide.

The Tenants' Bill of Rights (HB 693, effective October 2025)

The statewide Tenants' Bill of Rights is now a routine defense at FTPR hearings: the 5% late fee cap, the lease attachment and acknowledgment requirement, and the 24-hour entry notice rule. The full operational checklist is in the Tenants' Bill of Rights landlord compliance guide, and the late fee math specifically in the 5% late fee explainer.

The 90-day rent increase notice

Rent increases require 90 days' written notice. An increase served short is unenforceable, and an unenforceable increase claimed on a DC-CV-082 becomes an over-claim that can sink the whole complaint. See the 90-day rent increase notice guide.

The 10-day Notice of Intent

Still the single most common dismissal cause in nonpayment cases: a defective or prematurely filed 10-day NOI under Real Property § 8-401(c). EvictPro generates a compliant DC-CV-115 free at /notice-of-intent.

What Did Not Change

Just as important as the new list is what the 2026 session left alone. The core eviction machinery is unchanged going into October 2026:

• The 10-day Notice of Intent under Real Property § 8-401(c) remains the mandatory predicate to every Failure to Pay Rent filing, with the full period required to run before the complaint.
• The 4-day appeal window after an FTPR judgment is unchanged, and a tenant appeal still stays the warrant only when it is bonded.
• The warrant's two 60-day clocks stand: request within 60 days of judgment, execute within 60 days of issuance, with extensions available on petition.
• The No Right of Redemption thresholds are unchanged: 3 prior FTPR judgments in the prior 12 months statewide, 4 in Baltimore City.
• Baltimore City's filing prerequisites still apply: a current rental license and, for pre-1978 properties, a current lead paint certificate, checked at the bench.

If your eviction playbook was compliant in September, the October laws change your operations and your leases, not your court sequence. The step-by-step process is laid out in the FTPR process guide, and the overall pacing in how long a Maryland eviction takes.

The October 1 Compliance Checklist

1. 10+ unit buildings: renovation scopes touching electrical or heating now include cooling capability (SB 12).
2. Screening: no subsidy-based refusals anywhere in listings, criteria, or practice (SB 335).
3. Paperwork: positive rent-reporting offer added to onboarding and renewals, elections kept on file (SB 335).
4. Submetered properties: billing, fee caps, records, and pre-lease disclosures aligned with SB 130/HB 220.
5. Short-term units: statutory safety equipment installed (HB 1221/SB 624).
6. Still in force from 2025: 6-day-plus eviction-date notice, 5% late fee cap, lease attachment, 90-day rent increase notice, 10-day NOI.

Related reading:

• Maryland Eviction Notice Requirements by County
• Maryland's Tenants' Bill of Rights: Landlord Compliance Guide
• Maryland's 90-Day Rent Increase Notice
• Maryland's 5% Late Fee Cap
• Section 8 Evictions in Maryland

Compliance is cumulative, and so is the paper trail. EvictPro keeps both in one place, from the first notice to the last court date: