> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.topograph.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Maryland

> Country-specific identifiers, data sources, and integration details

## Start here

This guide contains public integration notes for Maryland. Use it for identifier formats, search behavior, and country-specific caveats. The live source of truth for coverage, pricing, data sources, documents, legal forms, roles, and status values is the pricing page.

<Card title="Maryland coverage, pricing, and sources" icon="arrow-up-right-from-square" href="https://topograph.co/pricing/us-md">
  Open the current catalog for supported datapoints, documents, sources, identifiers, and availability.
</Card>

<Warning>
  This jurisdiction may be in preview or limited availability. Check the live pricing page or contact support before relying on it in production.
</Warning>

<Note>
  Country details below are preserved as integration notes. If a table or example conflicts with the live pricing page, use the pricing page as the source of truth and contact support.
</Note>

## Table of Contents

* [Data Sources](#data-sources)
* [Company Identifiers](#company-identifiers)
* [Search Capabilities](#search-capabilities)
* [Quirks & Gotchas](#quirks--gotchas)
* [Mappings](#mappings)
  * [Legal Forms](#legal-forms)
  * [Entity Status](#entity-status)
* [Data Availability](#data-availability)

<Warning>
  **API access:** `US-MD` is not yet part of the public `countryCode` enum. Contact us to enable it on your workspace. Requests sent with `countryCode: "US-MD"` will otherwise return `400` until the enum is expanded.
</Warning>

## Data Sources

Maryland uses a single integration against the **Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT)**, served through the **Maryland Business Express** public entity-detail portal.

The public detail page returns the SDAT Department ID, legal name, principal office address, resident agent name and address, current status and good-standing flag, business type and business code, formation/registration date, state of formation, stock and close-corporation classifications, mailing address, and the entity's filing history. The free **Trade Register Extract** (a printable record of the public entity-detail page) is included with every lookup at no extra charge.

<Note>
  **Single authoritative mode.** All Maryland lookups are live reads from the SDAT portal. There is no non-authoritative snapshot or onboarding-mode fast path in v1.
</Note>

<Note>
  **Officers not on the public surface.** Officer, director, member, and manager rosters are not published on the Maryland Business Express public entity-detail page. They are visible only after authentication with a Maryland Business Express account or through a paid Personal Property Assessment record. The publicly-served Resident Agent (statutory service-of-process address) is included in the Trade Register Extract but is not returned as a legal representative in the API response.
</Note>

## Company Identifiers

### Query Identifiers

| Identifier Type        | Format                                | Example     | Notes                                                                                    |
| ---------------------- | ------------------------------------- | ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **SDAT Department ID** | One letter (A-Z) followed by 8 digits | `D22958060` | Primary identifier assigned by SDAT. Case-insensitive on input; normalized to uppercase. |

<Tip>
  The Department ID always starts with one uppercase letter followed by exactly eight digits (e.g. `D22958060`, `F04793998`, `Z25352915`). The prefix letter is an SDAT-internal classifier and is not a stable indicator of entity type. Do not use it to infer domestic vs. foreign status or entity form.
</Tip>

### Identifiers in API Response

| Identifier     | Format                 | Example                            | Notes                                                             |
| -------------- | ---------------------- | ---------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `departmentId` | Letter + 8 digits      | `D22958060`                        | Present for all entities. Primary identifier.                     |
| `businessCode` | Two-digit code + label | `04 ORDINARY BUSINESS - NON-STOCK` | Secondary SDAT classification code. Not present for all entities. |

## Search Capabilities

| Search Type      | Pattern           | Example     | Match Type                     | Notes                                |
| ---------------- | ----------------- | ----------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------ |
| By Business Name | 2-100 chars       | `"Acme"`    | Starts-with (case-insensitive) | Capped at the portal's result limit. |
| By Department ID | Letter + 8 digits | `D22958060` | Exact                          | Returns one result.                  |

<Note>
  Name search anchors on the beginning of the legal name (case-insensitive). Use a fuller query string to narrow the result set. Fictitious names (DBAs) and trade names are not indexed; search only resolves legal entity names as registered with SDAT.
</Note>

## Quirks & Gotchas

| Quirk                                                  | Details                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| ------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Prefix letter is not a reliable entity-type signal** | The letter prefix of the Department ID (D, F, Z, W, etc.) is an SDAT-internal classifier. It does not map cleanly to domestic vs. foreign or to a specific legal form. The authoritative entity type is the `Business Type` field published on the detail page (e.g. "DOMESTIC LLC", "FOREIGN CORPORATION"). |
| **Officers require authentication**                    | Officer, director, member, and manager rosters are not part of the anonymous public detail page. They are gated behind a Maryland Business Express user account or a paid Personal Property Assessment record.                                                                                               |
| **Resident Agent is informational only**               | The Resident Agent (name and address) is printed on the public detail page and included in the Trade Register Extract, but is not returned as a legal representative in `legalRepresentatives`.                                                                                                              |
| **No shareholder or UBO register**                     | Maryland does not publish shareholders or beneficial owners for any entity type on the public register. Federal FinCEN BOI records are a separate restricted system.                                                                                                                                         |
| **No activity codes**                                  | Industry classification codes are not published on Maryland SDAT business summary records.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   |
| **No tax identifier on the public surface**            | The SDAT Department ID is an internal entity identifier. Federal EIN and Maryland Comptroller tax accounts are not surfaced on the public business search.                                                                                                                                                   |
| **Paid documents carry a fixed statutory fee**         | Certified copies of charter filings, Certificates of Status, and the long-form Personal Property Assessment record each carry a mandatory statutory fee at SDAT. There is no non-expedited (lower-cost) path for document orders in Maryland. These paid documents are not offered through Topograph in v1.  |
| **No public bulk extract**                             | SDAT does not publish a free public bulk entity dataset. The SDAT Corporate Master File is distributed through a licensed contractor on a subscription basis. The Maryland Open Data Portal does not republish entity-level data.                                                                            |

## Mappings

### Legal Forms

Maryland reports entity type as a free-text `Business Type` field on the SDAT entity-detail page (e.g. "CORPORATION", "DOMESTIC LLC", "FOREIGN CORPORATION", "DOMESTIC LLC", "FOREIGN LLC"). A secondary `Business Code` (e.g. "04 ORDINARY BUSINESS - NON-STOCK") further classifies the entity.

The full vocabulary of observed business types, their standardized Topograph categories, and ISO 20275 ELF mappings where available are published on the pricing page.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Common Maryland entity types (representative sample)">
    | SDAT Business Type            | Standardized            |
    | ----------------------------- | ----------------------- |
    | CORPORATION                   | Corporation             |
    | DOMESTIC LLC                  | LimitedLiabilityCompany |
    | FOREIGN CORPORATION           | Corporation             |
    | FOREIGN LLC                   | LimitedLiabilityCompany |
    | LIMITED PARTNERSHIP           | Partnership             |
    | LIMITED LIABILITY PARTNERSHIP | Partnership             |
    | BUSINESS TRUST                | Trust                   |
    | NON-STOCK CORPORATION         | NonprofitOrganization   |
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

<Note>
  The complete list of observed SDAT business types and their mappings is on the [pricing page](https://topograph.co/pricing/us-md). The sample above covers the most common forms. Stock status ("STOCK" / "NONSTOCK") and close-corporation flag ("YES" / "NO") are additional qualifiers published on the detail page.
</Note>

### Entity Status

Maryland reports entity status as a free-text field (e.g. "Active", "Incorporated", "Forfeited", "Dissolved", "Cancelled"). The API normalizes it into a structured `status` object with a `localName` (the raw SDAT value) and an `active` boolean.

| SDAT Status      | `active` |
| ---------------- | -------- |
| Active           | `true`   |
| Incorporated     | `true`   |
| In Good Standing | `true`   |
| Forfeited        | `false`  |
| Dissolved        | `false`  |
| Cancelled        | `false`  |
| Terminated       | `false`  |
| Merged           | `false`  |

## Data Availability

| Data Point                               | Available     | Notes                                                                                             |
| ---------------------------------------- | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Company name                             | Yes           | Current legal name from SDAT                                                                      |
| Company status                           | Yes           | Normalized from SDAT free-text status + good-standing flag                                        |
| Registration date                        | Yes           | Date of formation/registration as published by SDAT                                               |
| Legal address                            | Yes           | Principal office address (street, city, state, ZIP)                                               |
| Mailing address                          | Yes           | Annual report mailing address when published                                                      |
| Legal form                               | Yes           | SDAT Business Type, normalized to standardized category                                           |
| Business code                            | Yes           | Secondary SDAT classification code, when published                                                |
| State of formation                       | Yes           | State where the entity was originally formed (relevant for foreign entities)                      |
| Legal representatives                    | No            | Not on the public detail page; requires account authentication                                    |
| Registered agent                         | Informational | Resident Agent is printed on the Trade Register Extract but not modeled as a legal representative |
| Activity codes                           | No            | Not published on SDAT business records                                                            |
| Shareholders                             | No            | Not held by SDAT public register                                                                  |
| UBOs                                     | No            | No Maryland or public federal register                                                            |
| Trade Register Extract                   | Yes           | Free printable record of the public entity-detail page, included at no extra charge               |
| Certified copies / Certificate of Status | No            | Paid documents at SDAT; not offered through Topograph in v1                                       |
| Financial data                           | No            | Not collected                                                                                     |

## Example API Responses

### Search by Name

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/search?country=US-MD&query=Acme" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"
```

```json theme={null}
[
  {
    "id": "D12345678",
    "legalName": "ACME HOLDINGS, INC.",
    "countryCode": "US-MD",
    "matchReason": {
      "matchType": "default"
    },
    "address": {
      "region": "MD",
      "countryCode": "US"
    }
  }
]
```

### Search by Department ID

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/search?country=US-MD&query=D12345678" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"
```

```json theme={null}
[
  {
    "id": "D12345678",
    "legalName": "ACME HOLDINGS, INC.",
    "countryCode": "US-MD",
    "matchReason": {
      "matchType": "id"
    }
  }
]
```

### Company Profile

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST "https://api.topograph.co/v2/company" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"countryCode": "US-MD", "id": "D12345678", "dataPoints": ["company"]}'
```

```json theme={null}
{
  "company": {
    "id": "D12345678",
    "countryCode": "US-MD",
    "identifiers": {
      "departmentId": "D12345678",
      "businessCode": "04 ORDINARY BUSINESS - NON-STOCK"
    },
    "legalName": "ACME HOLDINGS, INC.",
    "registrationDate": "2010-03-15",
    "legalForm": {
      "localName": "CORPORATION",
      "standardized": "Corporation"
    },
    "legalAddress": {
      "addressLine1": "100 COMMERCE DRIVE",
      "city": "ANNAPOLIS",
      "region": "MD",
      "postalCode": "21401",
      "countryCode": "US"
    },
    "status": {
      "localName": "Incorporated",
      "active": true
    }
  }
}
```