Maryland's cash-payment law took effect October 1. Chapter 714 protects covered in-person retail purchases of essential goods between 6am and 10pm. A covered merchant cannot require a credit or debit card or charge more for the equivalent purchase simply because the customer pays cash.
Essential goods include food, beverages, hygiene and cleaning products, health products and fuel. The legislature's enrolled policy note describes purchases below $300 and exceptions including online, phone and mail orders, vending machines, kiosks, certain food businesses and membership-only fuel purchases. Not every Maryland business must take cash.
Merchants can refuse denominations above $20. A qualifying no-fee cash-to-prepaid-card device can satisfy the law, with cash required if it stops working. Limited rounding consistent with applicable law is allowed.
The enforcement structure gives merchants at least two separate opportunities to comply before specified civil fines. A violation is not an instant payment to a shopper. Keep the receipt, time, amount and payment policy if reporting a refusal. The change protects access without making every kind of cash payment mandatory.