Maryland Landlord Entry Laws: The Landlord and Tenant Guide

Maryland landlord entry law changed on October 1, 2025. For the first time the state has a statewide entry statute — Real Property Article Section 8-221, enacted by House Bill 1076 (Chapter 564 of the 2025 laws). The rule is now concrete: a non-emergency entry needs at least twenty-four hours advance written notice, the notice must state the date, approximate time, and specific purpose, and entry may occur only between seven in the morning and seven in the evening, Monday through Saturday, unless the tenant agrees in writing to another time. A genuine emergency requires no notice. Get this right and you avoid a lawsuit; get it wrong and a Maryland court can issue an injunction and assess damages against the landlord for breach of the tenant’s covenant of quiet enjoyment. The Maryland entry rule is simple in principle and strict in practice: proper written notice, a legitimate purpose, lawful hours, respectful execution. Anything else is a statutory violation.

This guide covers the full Maryland landlord entry framework under Section 8-221 — the six enumerated entry reasons, the twenty-four-hour written-notice requirement, what the notice must say, the three permitted delivery methods, the seven-to-seven Monday-through-Saturday entry window, the emergency exception, tenant privacy and quiet-enjoyment rights, documentation best practices, and how to handle a tenant who refuses entry. Written for working Maryland landlords and informed tenants, every practice tip ties to a concrete reduction in liability under the new statute.

The key principles — proper written notice, a legitimate purpose, lawful timing — apply statewide, and they interlock with Maryland’s other tenant-protection rules. Entry sits close to the eviction process, the warranty of habitability, and the retaliation statute, so this page links out to those neighboring guides where they matter. Treat every figure and timeframe here as a starting point and verify the current statute, plus any local ordinance, before you enter, refuse entry, or file a claim.

For most of Maryland’s history there was no statewide statute telling a landlord how much notice to give before entering, when entry was allowed, or how to deliver the notice. The lease and common-law quiet enjoyment filled the gap, and Maryland was one of a shrinking number of jurisdictions with no entry-notice law on the books. That ended with House Bill 1076, which the General Assembly passed and Governor Wes Moore approved on May 13, 2025 as Chapter 564. The bill enacted the new section as Real Property Article Section 8-220, but Chapter 539 of the same session took that number for the landlord’s mold duties, so the codifier placed the entry law at Real Property Article Section 8-221 – the number to cite today, and the number under which the General Assembly’s own statute reader serves the entry text. Section 8-220 in the current code is the mold pamphlet, assessment and remediation duty, not entry. The entry law took effect October 1, 2025.

Extractable fact: Maryland’s first statewide landlord-entry statute, Real Property Article Section 8-221, took effect October 1, 2025 under House Bill 1076 (Chapter 564). It requires at least twenty-four hours advance written notice for a non-emergency entry and limits entry to the hours of seven in the morning to seven in the evening, Monday through Saturday.

If you are reading an older Maryland guide — or an older version of this page — that says Maryland has “no statutory requirement” and that the lease and common law control, that description is now out of date. It was accurate before October 1, 2025 and is wrong for any entry on or after that date. The rest of this guide states the law as Section 8-221 now writes it.

Before diving into scenarios, it helps to see exactly what Maryland law now controls. Landlord entry is governed by Real Property Article Section 8-221, which sets a twenty-four-hour advance-written-notice standard for non-emergency entry, fixes the hours during which entry may occur, lists the purposes for which a landlord may enter, and gives the tenant a court remedy when the landlord ignores those rules. That statutory framework sits alongside the common-law right to quiet enjoyment — and Section 8-221 expressly ties its damages remedy to that covenant, so the two now reinforce each other rather than standing apart.

Because Section 8-221 is a statutory floor, a lease cannot drop below it. A rental agreement may add detail — it can name a preferred contact, describe how showings will be scheduled, or set out an emergency procedure — but a clause purporting to authorize unnoticed entry, entry on Sundays, or entry after seven in the evening for a routine purpose conflicts with the statute and cannot be enforced against the tenant. The statute sets the minimum protection; the lease can only match it or offer the tenant more.

So the narrow legal question is never simply “may the landlord enter?” A landlord can almost always enter for a proper reason with proper notice. The real question is: was this entry made with at least twenty-four hours written notice, for one of the enumerated purposes, within the lawful hours? If yes, it is lawful. If it is unannounced, outside the seven-to-seven Monday-through-Saturday window, or for a purpose the statute does not list, it violates Section 8-221 and breaches quiet enjoyment. Everything else on this page — valid purposes, delivery methods, refusal, documentation — orbits that single question.

The Maryland notice requirement is at least twenty-four hours advance written notice for a non-emergency entry, under Real Property Article Section 8-221. The statute is specific about three things most guides gloss over: what the notice must say, how it may be delivered, and when the tenant can shorten it. A landlord who gets any of the three wrong has not given valid notice, even if the timing was right.

Extractable fact: Under Real Property Article Section 8-221, a Maryland landlord must give at least twenty-four hours advance written notice of a non-emergency entry, and the notice must state the date and approximate time of entry and the specific purpose of the entry.

What the Notice Must Contain

Section 8-221 requires the written notice to include two things: the date and the approximate time that the landlord intends to enter, and the specific purpose of the entry. “We may need to come by this week” is not compliant — it fixes neither a time nor a stated purpose. A defensible notice reads like a short appointment confirmation: the date, an approximate time window, the reason (for example, a plumbing repair or a scheduled showing), and, as best practice, the name and contact information of the person who will enter.

The Six Enumerated Statutory Entry Purposes

Section 8-221 does not leave permissible entry to “best practice” — it lists the reasons a landlord may enter. Under the statute, a landlord may enter a leased premises for the purpose of:

• Completing repairs, maintenance, modifications, renovations, or improvements to the leased premises.
• Inspecting the leased premises.
• Showing the leased premises to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, or contractors.
• Ensuring the protection and safety of the property and its occupants.
• Completing work ordered by a governmental entity — for example, a code-enforcement repair order.
• If appropriate, responding to any other written request of the tenant.

Anything outside these categories is not a statutory entry right. “Checking in,” surveilling the tenant, or building an eviction file is not on the list.

Lawful Entry Hours

Section 8-221 permits a non-emergency entry only between the hours of seven in the morning and seven in the evening, Monday through Saturday, unless the tenant agrees in writing to another time. That is a firm statutory window, not a vague “reasonable hours” standard: Sundays are excluded, as is any hour before seven in the morning or after seven in the evening on the permitted days. A landlord who needs to enter outside that window must get the tenant’s written agreement, or wait, unless a genuine emergency exists.

When the Tenant Can Agree to Shorter Notice

The twenty-four-hour minimum is the tenant’s protection, and only the tenant can waive it. Section 8-221 lets a tenant agree in writing to allow entry less than twenty-four hours after receiving notice. The agreement must be the tenant’s and in writing — a landlord cannot shorten the notice unilaterally or bury an advance waiver in the lease. In practice this is how same-day repairs get done: the tenant texts back “come today at two is fine,” and that written agreement supports the shorter notice.

Professional Execution and Written Documentation

Knock, announce, and wait. Enter for the stated purpose only, respect the tenant’s belongings, and leave the unit secure, then record what was done. Put every notice in writing, keep proof of how it was delivered, log every entry, and preserve every tenant communication. Documentation is the landlord’s single best defense against a later Section 8-221 claim, and it is the difference between a factual record and an unwinnable argument over who said what.

Real Property Article Section 8-221 recognizes a specific list of valid entry purposes. Any entry outside these categories invites a statutory violation. All non-emergency entries require at least twenty-four hours written notice and must fall within the lawful hours; emergency entries require no notice but must be genuinely urgent. Knowing which category an entry falls into is the first step in deciding whether notice is required and whether the entry is defensible at all.

Standard Valid Purposes

• Repairs, maintenance, modifications, renovations, and improvements — both scheduled and tenant-requested.
• Inspection of the premises.
• Showing the unit to a prospective or actual purchaser, mortgagee, tenant, or contractor.
• Ensuring the protection and safety of the property and its occupants.
• Completing work ordered by a governmental entity, such as a code-enforcement order.
• Responding to another written request of the tenant, where appropriate.

Emergency Entry (No Notice Required)

• Fire, smoke, or an active fire alarm.
• Water emergencies — burst pipes, flooding, and major leaks.
• Gas leaks or suspected gas leaks.
• Imminent threats to the property or occupants — a broken door or window leaving the unit unsecured.
• Threats to the health, safety, and welfare of other tenants and staff, which the statute expressly covers.

Purposes That Are Not Valid

• Casual visits or “checking in” without a defined, enumerated purpose.
• Harassment or intimidation of the tenant.
• Retaliation for tenant complaints or lawful activities.
• Pretextual inspections to gather eviction evidence.
• Entry outside the lawful hours for a routine purpose, without the tenant’s written agreement.

These purposes map directly onto the neighboring bodies of Maryland law. A landlord delivering a notice before an eviction, for example, should read our Maryland eviction notice laws guide before treating an inspection as a way to build an eviction case, and a landlord entering to make a repair is exercising the same duty of upkeep that runs through the Maryland habitability laws. A statewide overview of how these notice rules differ across the country lives on our landlord entry laws by state hub.

Section 8-221 does not just require written notice — it specifies how that notice may be delivered, and a delivery method outside the statute’s list does not count. There are three permitted methods, and the electronic option only becomes available if the tenant elects it.

Extractable fact: Section 8-221 permits three delivery methods for a Maryland entry notice: first-class mail with a certificate of mailing (delivered at least twenty-four hours ahead), a paper notice affixed to the door, or, only if the tenant elects it, electronic delivery by email, text, or tenant portal with proof of transmission.

The rules are easiest to internalize through concrete examples. Each of the following is a routine Maryland situation, tagged with how it typically comes out under the notice, purpose, and hours framework of Section 8-221. The pattern is consistent: at least twenty-four hours written notice plus an enumerated purpose within the lawful hours passes; a missing purpose, an unlawful hour, or an unannounced entry fails.