Maryland will begin enforcing a first in the nation grocery pricing law on October 1, when the state’s Protection From Predatory Pricing Act takes effect for covered food retailers and third party delivery services. The law bars those businesses from using dynamic pricing or a shopper’s personal data to set higher prices for that consumer, according to the bill chapter and Gov. Wes Moore’s office.
The change puts Maryland at the front of a growing state fight over surveillance pricing, the practice of using information about a person’s behavior or characteristics to tailor prices. Maryland officials have said the law is meant to keep grocery prices transparent and consistent at the register.
What the law bans starting October 1
Gov. Moore signed the Protection From Predatory Pricing Act on April 28, 2026, during a post session bill signing ceremony in Annapolis. His office said the measure prohibits grocers and third party delivery services from using dynamic pricing or an individual’s personal data to set higher prices.
The enacted bill says a violation is treated as an unfair, abusive, or deceptive trade practice under the Maryland Consumer Protection Act. That gives the state an enforcement path through existing consumer protection law when the measure takes effect on October 1, 2026.
The chaptered bill also spells out who is covered. It applies to a food retailer and a third party food delivery service provider, and legislative summaries describe a covered food retailer as a business establishment of at least 15,000 square feet that sells food exempt from the state sales and use tax.
Moore’s office called the measure part of its effort to protect Marylanders’ pocketbooks in grocery stores. Consumer Reports, which backed the bill, said the new law made Maryland the first state in the nation to attempt to ban personalized pricing at grocery stores.
The law is statewide, so its effect reaches Maryland grocery stores and grocery delivery transactions that meet the definitions in the statute. That means shoppers in Baltimore, the Washington suburbs, the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland are all covered if they are buying from businesses that fall within the law’s terms.
What the state has not publicly detailed is which specific chains, store locations or delivery platforms have changed systems ahead of October 1. The governor’s office said the law covers grocers and third party delivery services, but it did not publish a store by store list in the materials reviewed for this article.
The statute also limits who can bring a case. Consumer Reports said consumers are not permitted to sue companies if they believe they were subjected to surveillance pricing, a departure from Maryland’s primary consumer protection law. Instead, enforcement runs through the state.
That matters because Maryland is not simply requiring a warning label. Other states have taken different approaches to surveillance pricing, according to Stateline, but Maryland’s law is narrower and focused on food retail and delivery, where grocery costs hit household budgets directly.
Supporters tied the law to evidence that personalized pricing could raise grocery bills. Consumer Reports said its 2025 investigation into Instacart found algorithmic pricing experiments that produced price differences as high as 23% for certain products and could cost families more than $1,200 a year at checkout.
Moore said in February that the legislation was designed to ensure price setting technologies are not used against Maryland consumers. His office said the measure also bans the use of surveillance data, defined in state testimony and bill materials as information derived from observing or inferring a consumer’s behavior or characteristics, in automated decision systems that set individualized prices.
Beginning October 1, covered businesses must comply with the new restrictions, and violations can be pursued as consumer protection cases by the state. The materials reviewed do not announce a separate grace period after the effective date for the core grocery pricing ban.
For shoppers, the practical change is straightforward on paper. Maryland officials say the price should not go up for one grocery customer because a business used that person’s data to decide the customer would pay more. The law’s real test starts Wednesday, October 1, 2026, when enforcement begins statewide.