How Maryland’s New Car Law Lets Dealers Legally Advertise Below Sticker Price

• Starting October 1, Maryland’s Jack Fitzgerald Price Transparency Act lets car dealers tell shoppers that an advertised price is the manufacturer’s minimum allowable price and that the dealer might sell the car for less.
• Manufacturers, distributors, and factory branches are barred from punishing a dealer for making that disclosure, though the protection doesn’t cover dealers who separately break advertising or consumer protection laws.
• The law also bars dealers from advertising a vehicle they don’t actually intend to sell at the listed price, a practice regulators have flagged as a classic bait-and-switch tactic.

A New Rule Aimed at What Dealers Can Tell You Online

Maryland car shoppers are getting a new layer of pricing information starting October 1, when House Bill 306, known as the Jack Fitzgerald Price Transparency Act, takes effect statewide. The law addresses a specific and common source of confusion in car buying: the gap between the price a manufacturer sets as a floor for advertising and the price a dealer is actually willing to accept. Under the new law, dealers can now tell customers directly that a listed price reflects the manufacturer’s minimum allowable advertised price, and that the dealer may be willing to sell the vehicle for less than what’s shown online.

Rob Smith, president of Fitzgerald Auto Malls, the dealership group the law is named after, said the legislation is about giving car buyers clear information up front, online, where they’re actually shopping. That points directly at the core problem lawmakers were trying to fix: most car shopping now starts on a dealer’s website, and the price posted there is often set less by the dealer’s own judgment and more by rules the manufacturer imposes on every dealer carrying that brand.

What a Minimum Advertised Price Actually Is

Minimum advertised pricing, often shortened to MAP, is an agreement between a manufacturer and its dealers that sets a floor for how low a vehicle’s price can be listed in an advertisement. It doesn’t set what the dealer must actually charge; a dealer can still sell a car below that number in person. What MAP controls is the number a dealer is allowed to print in an ad, on a website, or on a window sticker. Manufacturers use these policies partly to prevent dealers from undercutting each other with unrealistically low advertised prices designed to get a shopper in the door, only for that shopper to learn the car doesn’t actually exist at that price once they show up.

The problem is that shoppers rarely know a MAP floor exists at all. A price posted online looks like the dealer’s own number, not a manufacturer-set minimum the dealer is contractually required to advertise. Maryland’s new law changes that by giving dealers explicit legal cover to say, in plain language, that the online number is a floor rather than a final offer, something dealers in most states have historically avoided volunteering out of concern it could violate their agreement with the manufacturer.

Why Dealers Needed Legal Protection to Say This

Before this law, a Maryland dealer who told a customer the advertised price was a manufacturer floor, not the dealer’s real bottom line, risked friction with that manufacturer over the disclosure itself. House Bill 306 closes that gap directly: it states that a manufacturer, distributor, or factory branch may not take adverse action against a dealer for making the disclosure. That protection has real teeth for dealers, as manufacturers control everything from vehicle allocation to co-op advertising funds, giving them significant power over dealers who step outside expected practice.

The protection isn’t unconditional. It doesn’t shield a dealer who violates separate advertising rules or state and local consumer protection laws while making the disclosure. Lawmakers built that carve-out in specifically so the new transparency provision couldn’t be used as cover for other deceptive practices. The law also separately reinforces that dealers cannot use false or misleading advertising, and cannot list a vehicle for sale without actually intending to sell it on the terms advertised, a direct response to the bait-and-switch complaints that show up regularly in state consumer protection filings.

What This Means When You’re Shopping

For Maryland buyers, the practical change is that a dealer can now explain why a posted price looks the way it does, and can tell you outright if there’s room to negotiate below it. That doesn’t mean every advertised price will suddenly drop, or that every dealer will volunteer the information unprompted. It means asking a plain question, is this the manufacturer’s minimum advertised price or your own number, is now something a dealer is legally free to answer plainly without worrying it will cost them their franchise standing.

Shoppers negotiating a deal in Maryland after October 1 have a new reason to ask that question directly, especially on higher-demand models where dealers have historically had the least room to move off a manufacturer’s minimum. The answer won’t be the same for every brand or every vehicle, as MAP policies vary by manufacturer and sometimes by model, but the law removes the main reason a dealer previously had to stay quiet about it.

The law applies to new car dealers specifically, so the disclosure requirement and its protections don’t extend to used-vehicle-only lots or private sellers, where pricing works differently and manufacturer minimums don’t apply in the same way. Buyers cross-shopping a new model against a comparable used or certified pre-owned vehicle should keep that distinction in mind, as the new transparency rules only change the conversation on the new-car side of the lot.

Part of a Broader Push on Car-Buying Transparency

Maryland’s law lands the same week other states are tightening their own rules around how dealers advertise and price vehicles. California’s Combating Auto Retail Scams Act also takes effect October 1, requiring dealers there to display a vehicle’s full price, including non-optional features and destination charges, in all advertising, and to clearly disclose that add-on products are optional rather than required. At the federal level, the Federal Trade Commission’s own CARS Rule targeting deceptive auto advertising was vacated by a federal appeals court in January 2025 and formally withdrawn by the agency in February 2026, leaving states to fill the gap individually rather than through a single federal standard.

That state-by-state pattern means the protections a Maryland buyer gets on October 1 won’t automatically apply to the same purchase made across the border in Virginia, Delaware, or Pennsylvania. Buyers shopping near a state line, or comparing online listings from dealers in more than one state, should keep in mind that the disclosure rules, and the legal protection dealers have to be upfront about pricing, can differ meaningfully depending on which state the dealership is licensed in.

What to Do Before You Sign

Ask the dealer directly whether the advertised price is a manufacturer minimum or the dealer’s own figure, and get any answer in writing if it affects your decision to negotiate further. Compare the same model’s advertised price across two or three dealerships in the area, as MAP floors are set by the manufacturer and should be consistent across dealers carrying that brand, while the dealer’s willingness to go below that floor can vary. And if a dealer refuses to answer the question at all after October 1, that refusal is itself useful information, as the law now gives them explicit legal room to be plain about it.

It’s also worth remembering the law doesn’t cap how high a dealer can price a vehicle, only how the dealer can talk about the floor. A dealer is still free to add market adjustments, dealer-installed accessories, or optional protection packages on top of the advertised price, and those add-ons remain subject to Maryland’s separate rules requiring dealers to disclose clearly that such products are optional rather than a required part of the purchase. Reading the full breakdown of a deal, not just the headline price, still counts just as much after October 1 as it did before.

Sources:

• Patch, 8 New Maryland Laws Take Effect on Oct. 1, 2026
• Maryland General Assembly, House Bill 306
• Federal Trade Commission, Automobile Industry Pricing Transparency FAQs