Maryland income tax rates for 2025 and 2026: state and county

Maryland’s state income tax has ten brackets. The Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act of 2025 added two new ones for tax years from 2025, 6.25% and 6.5%, and capped the 5.75% bracket below them. The brackets are not indexed for inflation, so the same table applies to 2026; the Comptroller’s 2026 estimated tax worksheet prints the same schedules.

Each rate applies only to taxable income inside its bracket. Married couples filing jointly, heads of household and surviving spouses use wider brackets from 4.75% up. Below $100,000 of taxable income the Comptroller’s booklet gives a tax table instead of these schedules.

From tax year 2025, Maryland adds a 2% tax on net capital gain included in Maryland adjusted gross income when federal AGI is over $350,000, whatever your filing status. It is figured on Form 502CG and continues for 2026; the law has no end date.

Some gains are left out: the sale of your primary home for less than $1,500,000, gains inside retirement accounts such as a 401(k), 403(b), 457(b), IRA or Roth IRA, and a few others, including certain farm livestock and section 179 business property.

Every Maryland county and Baltimore City adds its own income tax, on the same Maryland taxable income and on the same Form 502. The rate depends on where you live on the last day of the tax year, not where you work. Since 2026 the law lets local rates run from 2.25% to 3.3%, up from a 3.2% cap; Dorchester County moved to 3.3% retroactively for 2025.

Anne Arundel County uses brackets: for single filers 2.7% on the first $50,000, 2.94% to $400,000 and 3.2% above, and for joint filers 2.7% to $75,000, 2.94% to $480,000 and 3.2% above. Frederick County applies one rate to all your taxable income, picked by income: 2.25% up to $25,000, then 2.75%, 2.96% from $50,001 ($100,001 joint) and 3.2% from $150,001 ($250,001 joint). Nonresidents with Maryland income who owe no county tax pay a special nonresident tax of 2.25% instead.

A Maryland return starts from federal adjusted gross income, adds and subtracts Maryland items, such as Social Security on the subtraction side, and then takes off a deduction and personal exemptions. The state and county rates both apply to the result.

For 2025 the standard deduction became a flat $3,350 for single filers and married filing separately and $6,700 for joint filers, heads of household and surviving spouses, replacing the old 15%-of-income formula; it rises with inflation from 2026, and the Comptroller’s 2026 withholding guide uses $3,400 for a single filer. You can itemize in Maryland only if you itemized on your federal return, and from 2025 itemized deductions are cut by 7.5% of federal AGI over $200,000 ($100,000 married filing separately).

The personal exemption is $3,200 each for you, your spouse and each dependent, plus $1,000 at 65 or older and $1,000 if blind. It shrinks once federal AGI is over $100,000 for a single filer ($150,000 joint) and is gone above $150,000 ($200,000 joint).

For example, a single filer in Montgomery County with $60,000 of wages for 2025 has $53,450 of Maryland taxable income after the $3,350 standard deduction and $3,200 exemption. State tax is about $2,486 and the 3.2% county tax about $1,710, roughly $4,200 in all, or 7% of wages.

The July 2025 federal tax law (Public Law 119-21) created deductions for 2025 through 2028 for qualified tips (up to $25,000), overtime pay (up to $12,500, or $25,000 on a joint return), interest on a loan for a new U.S.-assembled car (up to $10,000) and an extra $6,000 for each person 65 or older. They are taken after federal AGI, where Maryland starts, and the Comptroller says they “do not impact the calculation of an individual’s Maryland tax liability”. 2026 bills to create Maryland versions for tips and overtime did not pass, so tips and overtime stay taxable in Maryland.

Maryland also does not follow federal bonus depreciation, and the 2026 budget law (SB 284) permanently decouples from the new federal write-off for qualified production property.

Maryland does not tax Social Security or Railroad Retirement benefits: you subtract the federally taxed part. Other retirement income is taxed, with these breaks.

Credits come off the state and, for some, the county tax.

A Maryland resident generally files if they must file a federal return; for 2025 the gross income levels match the federal standard deduction, $15,750 single and $31,500 joint under 65, not counting Social Security. Residents and part-year residents file Form 502, nonresidents Form 505, and amended returns go on Form 502X.

2025 returns were due April 15, 2026, and 2026 returns are due April 15, 2027. If no tax is due and you have a federal extension, the six-month Maryland extension is automatic; if you owe, pay what you expect with Form PV by April 15. An extension is not more time to pay.

The Comptroller’s refund information page links to the refund status tool, which now runs in MD Tax Connect, the portal that replaced iFile on September 1, 2026. You need your SSN or ITIN, the tax year and the refund amount you expect. The refund line is 1-800-218-8160, or 410-260-7701 in Central Maryland.

The Comptroller says it usually processes e-filed returns the day they arrive and sends a direct deposit within several days after that; paper returns take about 30 days. Math errors, missing W-2s or 1099s and estimated payments that do not match its records are the delays it names most.

Maryland has reciprocal agreements with Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia covering wages, salaries, tips and commissions. A resident of one of them who works in Maryland pays tax on that pay only at home, and files Form MW507 with the employer to stop Maryland withholding. DC, Pennsylvania and Virginia residents lose this if they keep a home in Maryland for more than six months of the year. Delaware has no agreement with Maryland.

A Maryland resident who pays income tax to a non-reciprocal state, such as Delaware, claims a credit on Form 502CR. Since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Comptroller v. Wynne, the credit applies against the county tax as well as the state tax. Nonresidents cannot claim it.

You are a Maryland resident if Maryland is your domicile, or if you keep a place to live here for more than six months of the year and are present 183 days or more. Part-year residents file Form 502 and prorate deductions and exemptions by the months they lived here, counting more than 15 days as a full month.