MRECMd. Bus. Occ. & Prof. 17-534Read at the source
Real estate advertising rules in Maryland
A salesperson or associate broker may not advertise unless their name or registered trade name AND the full name of the brokerage are meaningfully and conspicuously included.
What has to be on the post
- your own name, as it appears on your licence
- the licensed name of your brokerage
The part that is easy to get wrong
Maryland insists on the FULL name of the brokerage as it appears on its licence, and it forbids advertising under your own name alone.
The numbers, in one place
| 2 | requirements MREC puts on the ad itself |
|---|---|
| 51 | US jurisdictions LOKAL carries, read at the source |
| 15 | of them set a text SIZE rule, not just a mention |
| 2 | require the licence number on the advertisement |
| no ratio | Maryland fixes no size ratio between the two |
| 2026 | the year this rule was last read at the source |
| 29 % | of US jurisdictions turn this into a measurable size rule |
| 14,853 | US markets LOKAL can pre-fill, down to the ZIP code |
| $29 | a month for the tool that checks this before you post |
A worked example, and why one template cannot do it
Two states contradict each other outright, and it is the clearest case study of why this matters. Texas asks for the broker name at 50 % of the largest agent contact text; Illinois asks for 100 %. A layout built for Texas is therefore non-compliant in Illinois, and the difference is not a missing word but a font size. That result is only visible if something measures the pixels after drawing them, which is what LOKAL does before you post.
Where this comes from
MREC, Md. Bus. Occ. & Prof. 17-534. Read the rule at the source
Your state regulator is not the only one with a say. These federal sources apply on top of Md. Bus. Occ. & Prof. 17-534, and no state commission will remind you of them:
- HUD, fair housing advertising and marketing
- FTC endorsement guides, for posts that carry a claim
- CFPB, when a post mentions rates or financing
LOKAL reproduces published regulator guidance and checks what it draws against it. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace your broker's review.
LOKAL checks this on the image, not on a form.
Pick your market, set your signature once, and LOKAL measures what it actually drew against Md. Bus. Occ. & Prof. 17-534 before you post. It carries all 51 US jurisdictions.
Open the generator for MarylandOther jurisdictions
Questions
- What must appear on a real estate ad in Maryland?
- Under Md. Bus. Occ. & Prof. 17-534, MREC requires your own name, as it appears on your licence; the licensed name of your brokerage. A salesperson or associate broker may not advertise unless their name or registered trade name AND the full name of the brokerage are meaningfully and conspicuously included.
- Does a social media post count as advertising in Maryland?
- MREC writes its rule for advertising in any medium, and a market-update post that invites contact is advertising. The safest place for the disclosures is inside the image itself, because a caption can be truncated and a bio can be missed.
- Is there a size requirement in Maryland?
- Maryland sets no size or prominence ratio between the brokerage name and your own. The mention has to be there and be readable; how big it is relative to your name is not fixed by Md. Bus. Occ. & Prof. 17-534.
- Anything easy to get wrong in Maryland?
- Maryland insists on the FULL name of the brokerage as it appears on its licence, and it forbids advertising under your own name alone.
How this page is written and checked
Written by the engineering team at INEYA Studio, the software studio that builds LOKAL. The Maryland rule on this page was read at MREC's own published text in 2026, not summarised from a third party.
It is checked automatically on every build against the compliance table the product itself applies: Md. Bus. Occ. & Prof. 17-534 appears on this page only because LOKAL enforces exactly that rule when it draws your image. A page that claimed a requirement the product does not check would fail the build.
Reviewed by the engineering team at INEYA Studio on 2026-09-17, and re-checked automatically on every deployment. Found something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.