Maryland's Wage Range Transparency Act: what cleared job postings must now disclose
A small Maryland cleared contractor — twenty engineers, two SCIF programs, two open roles — has posted jobs the same way for ten years. Title, clearance, location, "salary commensurate with experience." A candidate on a phone screen asks about the range. The recruiter dodges. The candidate posts about it on LinkedIn. Three days later the contractor learns their postings have been out of compliance with a Maryland law that's been on the books since October 2024.
The Maryland Wage Range Transparency Act, codified at Md. Lab. & Empl. § 3-304.2, took effect October 1, 2024. Cleared-market posting templates have moved more slowly than the law.
Here's what the law actually requires, who it covers, and what's at stake when a posting doesn't comply.
Every Maryland job posting must include a good-faith wage range, a general description of benefits, and any other compensation offered for the position. Both public and internal postings. No employer-size exemption — a five-person contractor and a five-thousand-person prime are covered the same way. Penalties escalate from $300 per applicant for a second violation to $600 per applicant for subsequent ones, and an applicant can sue directly for up to $10,000 plus attorney's fees. The cleared market has been slow to update.
What the law actually requires
Three things must appear in every posting for a position that will be physically performed, at least in part, in Maryland:
- A good-faith wage range — the minimum and maximum hourly rate or salary for the position.
- A general description of benefits.
- Any other compensation offered for the position (bonuses, premiums, equity-equivalent payments).
"Posting" is defined broadly. Any solicitation intended to recruit applicants for a specific available position counts, whether the employer recruits directly or through a third party. That captures the LinkedIn post, the ClearanceJobs.com listing, the prime's careers page, and the boutique cleared-recruiter's job board entry. The disclosure obligation extends to internal postings too — promotions, transfers, lateral moves. The statute treats them identically to public postings.
The wage range itself has to be set in good faith. The statute is specific about what counts: the range must be anchored to at least one of four reference points — an applicable pay scale, a previously determined range for the same position, the range of someone currently holding a comparable position, or the budgeted amount for the position. "Commensurate with experience," "DOE," or a band so wide it spans junior-to-principal salaries does not anchor to any of those, and a court reviewing it would have no trouble calling it bad faith.
If a position is filled without a public or internal posting at all, the same information has to be disclosed to the applicant before any discussion of compensation, and again on request.
Who it covers — and who it doesn't
Two features make Maryland's rule broader than most state wage-transparency laws.
First, there is no employer-size threshold. Many comparable state statutes carve out small employers; Maryland's does not. The statute's definition of "employer" sweeps in any person engaged in a business in the state, with no headcount minimum. A five-person cleared contractor posting a single role is on the same footing as a five-thousand-person prime.
Second, the coverage trigger is the place where the work is performed, not where the company is headquartered or where the applicant lives. A Virginia-headquartered contractor staffing a Fort Meade detail has to comply for that posting. A Maryland-headquartered contractor staffing a fully-remote-out-of-state role does not. Earlier versions of the bill would have extended coverage to out-of-state work tied to a Maryland-located supervisor, but that language was struck during amendment.
Why so many cleared-market postings still don't comply
Three patterns drive most of the non-compliance in the wild.
- Posting templates that predate the law. A small contractor with no in-house HR copied its first posting from another contractor years ago and has not updated it since. The clearance language is right. The compensation language is missing entirely.
- The "commensurate with experience" hedge. This was always weak. Under § 3-304.2 it is also non-compliant. A good-faith range is a statutory requirement, not a stylistic preference.
- Cross-posting from a non-Maryland parent. A Virginia-headquartered prime drafts the posting in Virginia voice and syndicates it to ClearanceJobs, LinkedIn, and the boards. The originating template never carried a wage range; the syndicated copy doesn't either. The posting still violates Maryland law if the work will be physically performed in Maryland.
The compliant posting looks different from the cleared-market default in four predictable places:
| Element | Required by § 3-304.2 | Common cleared posting |
|---|---|---|
| Compensation | Good-faith wage range, anchored to a pay scale, budget, or comparable | "Salary commensurate with experience" |
| Benefits | General description | "Competitive benefits package" — or omitted |
| Other comp | Listed (bonuses, premiums, equity-equivalents) | Usually absent |
| Internal postings | Same disclosures as public | Often not disclosed at all |
What's at stake
Two enforcement tracks run in parallel.
The Commissioner of Labor and Industry can issue an order to comply. For a first violation, the Commissioner sends a letter — no monetary penalty. For a second violation, a civil penalty of up to $300 per applicant the posting was non-compliant for. For each subsequent violation within three years of a previous determination, up to $600 per applicant. The Commissioner weighs the gravity of the violation, the size of the business, the employer's good faith, and the employer's history.
A private right of action lets an affected applicant or employee sue directly for injunctive relief and damages, up to $10,000 or actual damages (whichever is greater), plus reasonable attorney's fees. The clock runs for three years from the date the applicant learned of the violation.
There is also a three-year record-keeping obligation. Each employer must retain proof of compliance for each posting for at least three years after the position is filled, or after it was initially posted if it is never filled. The record-keeping requirement is not optional; it is how an audit becomes an audit instead of a he-said-she-said.
Candidates have already adjusted. A cleared engineer scrolling jobs notices when a posting is missing a range and assumes one of two things: the employer is hiding the number because it is low, or the employer has not done basic homework on the market it is trying to hire into. Neither read helps the employer.
The law is not going to be repealed and it is not quietly underenforced. The market correction has started — the cleared postings that pay well are showing the range, and the ones that do not increasingly look like the outlier they are.
Need the deeper scoop on Maryland cleared hiring?
Our services walk past compliance basics into the salary movement, candidate signals, and market reads that actually decide whether your postings land — for the teams hiring and for the engineers reading them.
