Maryland FAMLI private plans and the Declaration of Intent

What the Declaration of Intent is

An employer that wants to meet its FAMLI obligation through a private plan rather than the State Plan has to tell the Maryland Department of Labor first, during a window that opened on Tuesday 1 September 2026 and closes on Sunday 15 November 2026. Maryland Department of Labor, private plans That notice is the Declaration of Intent.

The Declaration is not the application. It is the statement that you intend to apply, and it is what keeps the door open. The private plan application itself comes later: applications open in summer 2027 and are due 1 October 2027.

15 November 2026 is a Sunday. Nobody is on the phone at FAMLI Customer Care that day, and a portal problem on the Saturday has nowhere to go. The last business day before the close is Friday 13 November 2026, and that is the date the calculator plans to. Treat the 15th as the legal fact and the 13th as the operational one.

It is five stages, not a form

The submission itself takes minutes. Everything in front of it does not.

1. Designate an Authorized Officer and gather the EIN, NAICS code and resident agent details.
2. The Authorized Officer clears Login.gov identity verification, which needs a Social Security number and a driver's licence or state ID.
3. Register the employer in the FAMLI portal.
4. Find a licensed Maryland insurance agent and get a consultation booked.
5. Hold the consultation and get the signed Proof of Private Plan Consultation form back.

Then upload the signed form in the FAMLI account and attest. Private plan FAQs

In our planning estimates the agent consultation is the long pole: roughly 15 business days typically, and up to 25 if the agent is unfamiliar with the product. A cold start is a multi-week project, not an afternoon. Those durations are ours, not the Department's, and are marked as estimates wherever the calculator shows them. The only stage duration that is set by regulation is the decision itself.

The decision clock

FAMLI has 15 business days from submittal to approve or deny. COMAR 09.42.03.10A(2) That clock is the reason the calculator treats Wednesday 21 October 2026 as the submit-early-enough-to-survive-a-rejection date: 15 business days before the deadline. Submit after that and your first attempt is effectively your only attempt.

An approved Declaration takes effect on the first day of the next quarter, so a December approval still starts on 1 January 2027. COMAR 09.42.03.10A(3)

Two things this page leans on that no primary source states outright: that a rejected Declaration can be corrected and resubmitted before 15 November, and that the 15 business days start the business day after submittal. Both are reasonable readings and both are how the calculator models it. Neither is written down by the Department. If either matters to your plan, get it confirmed on (410) 525-4010 before you rely on it.

A private plan does not save you money in 2027

This is the sentence most employers have not heard, and it changes the decision.

If your Declaration is accepted you still collect the same contributions from 1 January 2027. You hold them in escrow instead of remitting them to the State. The cash cost is identical; only the destination changes. COMAR 09.42.03.10A(1)(d)

A 25-person employer on a $1.75m Maryland payroll collects $15,750.00 during 2027 either way. With a private plan that money sits in escrow rather than going to Annapolis.

And the escrow has an expiry on it: all Declarations of Intent lapse on 31 December 2027. Your plan has to be approved before 1 January 2028 or the escrowed money is remitted to the State with interest.

What a private plan has to be

A private plan must provide the same level of benefits and service as the State Plan, or better. Maryland Department of Labor, private plans Carriers set their own premiums and may charge an employer more than the State Plan would have. Two things are fixed: a carrier cannot cause more than 0.45 percent to be withheld from employees, and the annual application fee runs from $100 to $1,000 by headcount. COMAR 09.42.03.05F Approval lasts one year and the fee is annual.

Self-insuring, and the door that has already closed

Self-insurance requires 50 or more employees localized in Maryland. There was an exception for smaller employers, but it needed a FAMLI-compliant plan already in effect by 31 July 2026, and that date has passed. COMAR 09.42.03.05K If you have fewer than 50 Maryland employees and did not already have a compliant plan in place by the end of July, a commercial plan through a carrier is the route open to you.

If you miss 15 November 2026

Nothing breaks. You are on the State Plan for 2027, your contributions start on 1 January 2027 exactly as they would have anyway, and your 2027 cash cost is unchanged. You apply for a private plan for 2028 when applications open in summer 2027.

The thing you lose is a year of holding your own money and a year of setting your own plan terms. For most employers under 50 staff that is not the emergency it sounds like. For an employer that was going to buy a carrier plan regardless, it is a real cost of a missed deadline.