Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed House Bill 557 into law earlier this year, establishing a process for people with criminal records to ask state licensing agencies whether their record will disqualify them from an occupational license before they invest time and money in training. The new law, which took effect on July 1, aims to reduce uncertainty for an estimated 500,000 Marylanders with felony or misdemeanor convictions who face barriers to entering licensed professions. Maryland joins more than 25 other states that have adopted predetermination processes for occupational licensing.
Nationally, roughly one in five workers holds a job that requires an occupational license, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In Maryland, at least 131 occupations require licensure or certification, according to the Archbridge Institute's 2025 State Occupational Licensing Index. Under the new predetermination process, departments may charge up to $100 for a review, but must waive the fee for applicants at or below 300% of the federal poverty level. HB 557 is written as a three-year pilot that will sunset on June 30, 2029, unless the legislature decides to continue it.
According to Del. Andrea Fletcher Harrison, who sponsored the bill, "previously incarcerated people face unemployment rates many times higher than the general population, and those barriers are especially acute during the first few years after release." John Dove, the commissioner for Occupational and Professional Licensing with the Maryland Department of Labor, testified that "qualified and capable Marylanders often never apply, cutting themselves off from professional opportunities before taking the necessary steps to start the process." The bill passed the House 96-28 and the Senate unanimously, 45-0.
Before HB 557, Maryland law already limited how licensing boards could use criminal history—they couldn't deny a license solely because of a conviction unless they found a direct relationship between the conviction and the occupation or concluded that licensure would pose an unreasonable risk to public safety. Additionally, applicants whose sentences ended at least seven years before their application and who had no new offenses couldn't be denied based on that old conviction at all. But Maryland lacked a way for applicants to get an answer before completing the training requirements. Someone with a conviction had no way to know whether a board would ultimately approve or deny their application until after they'd already spent months or years and potentially thousands of dollars on coursework, apprenticeship hours, and exam fees for trades like cosmetology or HVAC repair.
Under the new process, an applicant can ask a covered department to review their criminal history and determine whether it would disqualify them from a specific license before they apply. That determination is binding on the department unless the applicant's criminal history materially changes afterward. If a department determines the applicant would be denied, it must explain why, citing the same factors used in ordinary licensing decisions, including the seriousness of the offense, time elapsed, and evidence of rehabilitation. The law requires the affected departments to use existing staff and resources to conduct these reviews and to report to the legislature by October 2028 on how many predetermination requests they received and what it cost to process them.