Maryland Packaging EPR: The Producer Guide for 2026

Maryland Packaging EPR: The Producer Guide for 2026

Maryland is now the sixth US state with a packaging extended producer responsibility law. Governor Wes Moore signed Senate Bill 901 in May 2025, after a two-year study process that started with SB 222 in 2023 and included a statewide recycling needs assessment.

If you sell packaged products into Maryland, you should not wait for the details to be finalized. The law's structure is already set, the clock is running, and the July 2026 milestones are less than nine months away.

What SB 901 covers

The law covers packaging and paper products sold into Maryland. Beverage containers and organics packaging are included. The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) will publish a statewide list of covered materials determined to be recyclable or compostable through curbside programs by July 1, 2027.

Maryland's model is a shared-responsibility one. Producers, or the producer responsibility organization (PRO) acting for them, reimburse local governments and recyclers for the cost of collecting, transporting, and processing covered materials. That reimbursement starts at 50% of cost per ton in 2028 and steps up to 90% by 2030.

Who has to comply

A producer is any business that introduces covered material into Maryland through the products it sells. There are two exemptions worth noting: producers that introduce less than one ton of covered material per year, and producers with less than $2 million in global gross revenue in the most recent fiscal year.

One ton sounds like a high bar until you do the math. A mid-size food or beverage brand shipping into the mid-Atlantic can clear one ton of packaging fast. If you are close to either threshold, track your numbers now rather than finding out later you were obligated.

Not sure where you stand? Read our explainer on who counts as an EPR producer to work through the definition.

The timeline

Here is what the law requires, and when:

• July 1, 2026: The MDE-approved PRO files a registration form listing participating producers and their covered materials. Producers may also operate alternative collection programs starting on this date.
• July 1, 2027: MDE publishes the statewide list of covered materials.
• July 1, 2028: Producer responsibility plans are due to MDE, which reviews them within 120 days. Reimbursement of recycling service providers begins at a minimum of 50% of cost per ton.
• January 1, 2029: Service providers seeking reimbursement must register with MDE.
• July 1, 2029: Reimbursement rate rises to at least 75%. Producers begin annual reporting to MDE.
• July 1, 2030: Reimbursement reaches at least 90% of cost per ton.

Participating in an approved producer responsibility plan also gives producers immunity from state antitrust and restraint-of-trade liability for the cooperating activities the plan covers, a provision written into the law.

Who runs the program

The industry-founded Circular Action Alliance, already the PRO behind the California SB 54, Oregon, Colorado, and Minnesota programs, participated in Maryland's EPR advisory board. A formal PRO designation is the next milestone to watch. If you are already registered with Circular Action Alliance in another state, your Maryland compliance will likely flow through the same relationship.

What Maryland producers should do now

First, measure. You cannot plan for a fee you cannot quantify. Pull your 2025 and 2026 packaging data by material and weight for everything sold into Maryland. We walked through the method in our guide to weighing packaging for a first EPR report.

Second, estimate your exposure. Maryland's fees will follow the reimbursement model: your share of the 50 to 90% of recycling system costs, allocated by material and weight, plus eco-modulation incentives for recyclable and recycled-content packaging. Our explainer on how EPR packaging fees are calculated shows how these formulas work across the states.

Third, watch the two rulemaking windows. The covered-materials list in July 2027 decides which of your packaging counts. The producer responsibility plan in July 2028 decides what you pay. Businesses that show up with clean data at each stage get better outcomes than businesses that scramble.

How Maryland compares

Maryland's timeline is slower than Oregon's, where producers are already reporting and paying fees, and more deliberate than Colorado's, which required PRO membership by mid-2025. It most resembles Minnesota's phased rollout, with a needs assessment behind it and substantive obligations landing at the end of the decade. The key difference from California is Maryland's reimbursement structure: instead of setting producer fees directly, the state requires the PRO to fund a rising share of what local recycling programs actually spend.

That matters for your budgeting. Your Maryland cost will track the real cost of Maryland's recycling system, not a fixed fee table published years in advance. Expect more variability and plan conservatively.

The bottom line

Maryland gave producers a genuine runway. Registration starts July 2026, plans are due July 2028, and the full 90% reimbursement rate does not arrive until 2030. But a runway is only useful if you use it. The producers who enter 2028 with measured packaging data and a registered PRO relationship will treat Maryland as paperwork. Everyone else will treat it as a fire drill.

We built NorthEPR to make that preparation boring: one engine that maps where you are obligated across all 16 US and Canadian jurisdictions, calculates what you owe, and gets your first filing ready. If Maryland is on your list, grab a free pilot check on your 2026 packaging data and we will run the numbers with you.