Maryland's records statute is the Public Information Act, found in the General Provisions Article, and the Attorney General's guidance page opens by calling the right to access information about government activities fundamental to democracy, describing an Act that gives broad access while protecting legitimate governmental interests and individual privacy. The working definition is wide: a public record is the original or copy of any documentary material in any form created or received by an agency in connection with the transaction of public business, which takes in written material, books, photographs, photocopies, microfilms, tapes, computerised records, maps and drawings, and as technology has moved has been read to include email and text messages.
There is no single place to ask. Each governmental unit must send the Attorney General its Public Information Act representative details every year, and that list of representatives is how a requester finds the person who takes requests for a state, county or municipal agency. Where the right agency is not obvious, the Ombudsman points to the State Archives' Maryland Manual Online, the agency's own website, or a local library for help. Requests should generally be in writing and should describe the records as specifically as possible, and some agencies run a portal or a dedicated mailbox for them. For Maryland records held locally, see the Maryland county pages.
- Thirty days to decide: access is granted or refused within thirty days of the written request, with one further reasonable period of up to thirty days where retrieval demands it.
- The ten day letter: where production will take longer than ten working days, the custodian must write with the time needed, the reason and an estimated fee range.
- Two hours free: no fee may be charged for the first two hours of search and preparation; beyond that, staff time is prorated salary without benefits.
- Ombudsman before Board: since July 1, 2022 a Compliance Board complaint is only possible after mediation has ended without resolution.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Maryland's own systems: the Maryland Attorney General Public Information Act page, the Maryland Public Information Act Manual, 20th edition, October 2026, the Office of the Public Access Ombudsman, the Ombudsman's questions and answers, the State Public Information Act Compliance Board, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Three deadlines, and how they fit together
The headline figure is thirty days from receipt of the written request to grant or deny access, with an additional reasonable period not exceeding thirty days available only where that extra time is required to retrieve the records and assess their status under the Act. The Manual tells custodians not to sit on a request, saying plainly that a custodian should not wait the full thirty days where that much time is not needed. Running inside that is a ten working day duty: if producing the records will take longer than ten working days, the custodian must notify the requester in writing or by email within that same ten working day period, and the notice must state the amount of time needed, the reason for the delay and an estimate of the range of fees that may be charged.
That document is known in Maryland practice as the ten day letter, and the Ombudsman asks for a copy of it when opening a file. The third clock governs refusals: a written statement of reasons is due within ten working days of the denial, a period the Court of Appeals confirmed in Stromberg Metal Works v. University of Maryland runs on top of the thirty day, or agreed sixty day, period, although in practice the refusal and its explanation usually arrive together.
What a Maryland refusal has to contain
Under GP 4-203(c) a written denial must give five things: the reasons for it, an explanation of why the denial is necessary and why redacting the information would not address those reasons where a Part IV exemption is invoked, the legal authority relied on, a brief description of the withheld record sufficient for the applicant to judge whether that authority really applies, and notice of the remedies available for review. Where the custodian simply says nothing, the Act treats silence as a refusal: failure to respond within thirty days may be deemed a denial under GP 4-203(b)(3), unless the applicant has agreed to an extension.
The Manual tells custodians facing a genuinely difficult retrieval to avoid that outcome by sending an interim response inside the thirty days and opening inspection of whatever portion is already available. There is also a routing duty. Where a written request goes to someone who is not the custodian, that person must within ten working days tell the applicant so and, if known, name the actual custodian and where the record is or may be, and the Manual adds the instruction that agencies should not play a game of hot potato with a request.
The two free hours, and what comes after them
Maryland's fee rule is one of the friendlier ones in the country at the start and one of the more exacting afterwards. No fee may be charged for the first two hours of search and preparation time, under GP 4-206(c). Beyond that, a custodian may charge the actual costs of searching for, preparing and producing a record in standard format, or a reasonable fee where the applicant has asked for a customised format, and search and preparation fees must be reasonably related to the actual cost of processing the request.
Staff time is calculated by prorating the salary of each employee involved according to the time they actually spent, and benefits are excluded. Search fees cover locating the records; preparation fees cover getting them ready for inspection or copying, including the time needed to assess whether any law requires material to be held back and to redact it. The Attorney General's long standing statement of the goal is that an agency should neither make a profit nor bear a loss on the cost of providing information to the public.
Prepayment is allowed, and the Court of Appeals held in Glass that requesting it before producing records is not a denial, on the reasoning that an agency is not expected to divert its resources to an exhaustive search for a broad request the requester will not focus and will not pay for. Fee waivers are decided case by case, with indigence and the public interest both capable of supporting one.
The Ombudsman, and what mediation can and cannot do
The Office of the Public Access Ombudsman was created in 2016 as an independent state agency, headed by an Ombudsman the Attorney General appoints to a four year term, with the Attorney General's office providing staff and resources. Its job under GP 4-1B-04 is to make reasonable attempts to help requesters and custodians resolve disputes, and the statute lists what it is specifically charged with hearing: the application of an exemption, redactions, failure to respond in time or to produce all responsive records, overly broad requests, the amount of time a custodian needs given its staff and resources, requests for or refusals of fee waivers, repetitive or redundant requests, fees imposed under section 4-206, and a request or pattern of requests alleged to be frivolous, vexatious or made in bad faith.
The limits are equally clear. Mediation is voluntary and confidential, the Ombudsman cannot compel a custodian to disclose anything or even to hand over records for private review, gives no legal advice, and makes no decision that could be appealed. The office aims to open a file within ten business days and then has ninety days to try to resolve the dispute unless the parties agree to longer, ending with a written final determination saying whether it was resolved.
Material submitted to the Ombudsman or the Board is itself exempt from disclosure under the Act. Asking for mediation also stops the statutory clock, because the time limits in section 4-203 are extended by operation of law once either side goes to the Ombudsman. Requests for assistance go by email, through the website or by post to the office at 200 St. Paul Place in Baltimore, and should come with the original request, the ten day letter or response, a description of the dispute and the relevant correspondence.
The office publishes a statement on the use of artificial intelligence in mediation that took effect on July 1, 2026.
The Compliance Board, and the order of play
The State Public Information Act Compliance Board is a five member volunteer body appointed by the Governor, confirmed by the Senate and serving staggered three year terms, staffed by the Attorney General's office. Until July 1, 2022 it could only decide complaints that a custodian had charged an unreasonable fee of more than 350 dollars. A 2021 law widened it, so the Board now issues binding decisions on complaints that an agency charged an unreasonable fee above that threshold, erroneously denied inspection of a public record, or failed to answer within the applicable time limits, and it can also hear a custodian's complaint that an applicant's request or pattern of requests is frivolous, vexatious or in bad faith.
It cannot review a refusal to waive fees, which is mediation territory. The sequence is fixed: a party must first have tried mediation and received a final determination that the dispute was not resolved, then file a signed complaint identifying the other side within thirty days of that determination. The Board refers the complaint on, the other party has thirty days to respond in writing, a reply may be filed within fifteen days, the Board may hold an informal conference or ask the custodian for the record itself or an index, and it must issue a written decision within thirty days of receiving the response, or within thirty days of a conference.
Where a custodian never responds, the Board decides on the facts before it, and it has ordered disclosure on that basis.
Going to court, and who carries the burden
Neither route has to be used first. The Act says in terms that a person or governmental unit need not exhaust the administrative remedy before filing suit, and judicial review of a denial runs under GP 4-362, so mediation and the Board are a voluntary alternative to litigation rather than a precondition for it. Whichever forum a dispute reaches, the custodian carries the weight: under GP 4-301(b)(1) the burden is on the custodian to show that the basis for the denial is clearly applicable to the record requested, and where the refusal rests on one of the discretionary exemptions the custodian must additionally show that the harm from disclosure is greater than the public interest in access.
For a requester, that allocation is the reason to keep every piece of paper, because the ten day letter, the written denial and the fee estimate are the documents a Board or a judge will measure the agency against.
Questions about public records requests in Maryland
Related Maryland records
Maryland's other public records guides on this site are the Maryland background check guide for the State Police criminal history service, the Maryland court records guide for Maryland Judiciary Case Search, the Maryland arrest records guide for what a booking makes public, and the Maryland county pages for every county office.