Maryland cigarette tax
State tobacco excise · tax year 2026 · federal tax excluded
Per pack
$5
state tax only
Per carton
$50
A pack a day, a year
$1,825
Rate rank
3
1 is the highest
What Maryland charges on tobacco
- A pack costs $5 in Maryland state tax before anything else is counted. A carton carries $50. Buy a pack a day and the tax alone reaches $1,825 across a year. Maryland ranks 3 in the country on that rate.
- Tobacco is taxed heavily in Maryland — $3 more per pack than the middle of the country, and $1,825 a year at a pack a day. The gap is charged per pack, so it multiplies fast for anyone buying daily.
- The excise is not the end of it in Maryland. General sales tax of about 6% is charged on the shelf price as well, and that price already has the tobacco tax inside it. So part of what you pay is tax charged on tax.
- Maryland levies $5 of state excise per twenty-cigarette pack, $50 per carton, and $1,825 annually at a pack a day — rate rank 3 nationally. ⚠️ Federal excise applies on top and is excluded here, being uniform across states. Tobacco excise is the most cross-border-sensitive tax in common use: the differential between neighboring states is large enough that measured smuggling and casual cross-border purchase track it closely.
- At $3 per pack above the national median, Maryland sits in the upper band of state tobacco excise. ⚠️ The elasticity literature is unusually consistent here: consumption responds to price, and a substantial part of the measured response in high-rate states is substitution toward untaxed supply rather than cessation, which is why enforcement cost is a standard component of these programs.
- Maryland applies its general sales tax of about 6% to tobacco at retail in addition to the specific excise. ⚠️ Because the excise is embedded in the shelf price before sales tax is computed, the two levies compound — sales tax falls on a base that already includes the excise. ⛔ No dollar amount is given for that layer here: it depends on retail price, which this project does not hold and will not estimate.
Your year of fuel tax
A $75,000 salary
| State fuel taxper gallon | 23.5¢ |
|---|---|
| Fuel tax, year | $147 |
| Tobacco taxper pack | $5 |
| You must earn | $224 |
| Hours of work | 6.2 hr |
State excise only. Federal fuel tax and any local levy are not included.
What it comes to over time
State tobacco tax alone, at a pack a day. The cigarettes themselves are not included, and neither is federal tax or any local tobacco tax. A carton is 10 packs.
| Over | Packs | State tax |
|---|---|---|
| a week | 7 | $35 |
| a month | 30 | $150 |
| a year | 365 | $1,825 |
| five years | 1,825 | $9,125 |
What this page cannot tell you
- These are tax figures only. What a pack actually costs in Maryland depends on the shop, the brand and the sales tax on top, none of which is counted here.
- ⚠️ Federal tobacco tax is charged on top of every figure here and is the same in every state.
- Some cities and counties add their own tobacco tax as well. Those are not included, so the real figure at a particular address in Maryland can be higher.
- And this is cigarettes specifically. Cigars, loose tobacco and vaping products are taxed under different rules that are not covered here.
- Figures are state excise alone. Retail price, brand differentials and any general sales tax applied to the final price are excluded, and this project holds no price dataset — so nothing here should be read as the cost of a pack in Maryland, only as the state's charge on one.
- ⚠️ Federal excise applies in addition throughout and is excluded deliberately: it is uniform nationally, so its inclusion would raise every state's figure identically without changing any comparison.
- Local tobacco excise exists in a number of jurisdictions — including some of the largest cities — and is excluded from these figures, which cover the state levy only. Where a locality in Maryland imposes its own, the effective per-pack charge exceeds what this page reports.
- Scope is cigarettes in packs of twenty. Other tobacco products — cigars, roll-your-own, snuff — and electronic nicotine delivery systems are taxed under separate schedules, frequently ad valorem rather than specific, and are outside this dataset.
Questions people ask
Is the tax added when I pay, like it is on other things?
No. It is charged per pack before the shop ever receives it, usually through a stamp on the packet, so the shelf price already includes it. Sales tax may still be added on top at the register, which means the same purchase can carry two different taxes collected two different ways.
Is this a high-tax state for this?
Among the higher ones, yes — 3 of 51. The spread between states on this levy is wide enough that crossing a border can change the cost noticeably, which is exactly why cross-border buying is a live problem for revenue departments.
Does a higher tax here change what people actually do?
Deliberately so. The levy is a deterrent and a revenue source at once, and those two purposes work against each other as the rate climbs.
How is tobacco excise collected relative to the point of sale?
Tobacco excise is levied per pack upstream of retail, commonly evidenced by a tax stamp, and is therefore embedded in the shelf price. General sales tax, where applicable, is calculated on a base that already includes the excise, so the two compound rather than sit side by side.
Where does this state sit in the national distribution?
This state ranks 3 of 51, placing it in the upper third. Wide interstate dispersion in per-unit excise creates measurable cross-border purchasing effects, which several revenue departments model explicitly when forecasting receipts.
What behavioural effects follow an above-median tobacco excise?
This state's per-pack levy exceeds the national median. Tobacco excise serves both revenue and public-health objectives, which are in tension: consumption elasticity means a successful deterrent narrows its own base. Interstate differentials also drive cross-border and untaxed acquisition, which revenue forecasts adjust for.