Maryland has roughly 750,000–850,000 unpaid family caregivers contributing substantial hours of care annually.1 The rollout of Time to Care in 2026 is the largest change to Maryland working-caregiver protections in decades.
Federal FMLA in Maryland
The Family and Medical Leave Act allows you to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to care for a parent with a serious health condition, with job protection and continued health-insurance coverage.2 Three conditions must be met:
- Your employer is covered. Private employers with 50+ employees within 75 miles of your worksite.
- You’re eligible.You’ve worked for the employer for 12+ months and at least 1,250 hours in the past year.
- Your parent qualifies as having a serious health condition. Inpatient care, continuing treatment, or chronic conditions like dementia all qualify under DOL regulations.
Maryland Time to Care (effective 2026)
Maryland enacted the Family and Medical Leave Insurance program (Time to Care) in 2022 under Md. Lab. & Empl. Code Ann. §8.3-101 et seq.. Funding through employer and employee contributions began July 1, 2025, and benefit payments begin July 1, 2026.3 Key features:
- Up to 12 weeks of paid leave per year for your own serious health condition, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, to bond with a new child, or for military-family situations.
- Wage replacement on a sliding scale weighted toward lower earners, with a weekly cap.
- Job protection for eligible employees taking leave.
- Employer coverage: applies more broadly than federal FMLA, including to many smaller employers.
- “Family member” includes parents for purposes of family-care leave.
For adult-child caregivers of Maryland parents, this is the largest concrete improvement in working-caregiver protection in decades.
Federal tax breaks available to Maryland caregivers
Maryland has no state caregiver tax credit. The federal options are modest but useful:
Claiming your parent as a dependent
You may be able to claim your parent as a qualifying relative if:
- You provide more than half of their total support during the year
- Their gross income is below the IRS dependent threshold (~$5,200 in 2025, indexed annually — Social Security benefits don’t count toward this limit)
- They’re a US citizen or resident
Claiming the parent unlocks the Credit for Other Dependents: a $500 nonrefundable credit. Plus, you can include your parent’s medical expenses in your own itemized medical-expense deduction.4
Medical and dental expenses deduction
If you itemize on Schedule A, you can deduct medical expenses for yourself, your spouse, and your dependents that exceed 7.5% of your AGI.
Dependent care FSA
If your employer offers a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account, you may be able to use pre-tax dollars to pay for adult day care or in-home care that allows you to work. Limit: $5,000 per year for most filers.
Maryland’s caregiver-support network
Each of Maryland’s 19 Area Agencies on Aging has a designated Caregiver Support Coordinator funded through the federal Older Americans Act Title IIIE (National Family Caregiver Support Program) and state appropriations.5 Services typically include:
- One-on-one caregiver consultations. Assessment, planning, navigation help.
- Respite care. Limited hours of paid respite to give family caregivers a break. Subject to funding availability.
- Education and training. Dementia care, fall prevention, medication management, end-of-life conversations.
- Support groups. In-person and virtual groups including dementia-specific tracks.
Most Maryland caregivers don’t know these programs exist or assume they’re means-tested. They’re generally not. Call your county AAA or use the Maryland Access Point (MAP) line at 1-844-627-5465 for referrals.
The sibling conversation
The most common Maryland caregiving pattern: one adult child lives nearby (often returning to Maryland after years elsewhere); siblings are dispersed across the East Coast and contribute money (or don’t). Three structural moves that defuse conflict:
- Personal-care agreement.If you’re the local sibling providing meaningful care, formalize the arrangement. Money your parent pays you is then compensation for servicesrather than a gift — which matters enormously for Medical Assistance look-back purposes.
- Quarterly check-ins. Standing 30-minute family calls with a written agenda.
- Geriatric Care Manager. A professional third party can run point on day-to-day logistics. Maryland has a well-developed GCM market concentrated in the DC suburbs and Baltimore.
Conversations to have with your employer
If you anticipate or are in the middle of intensive caregiving:
- Does the company offer family-care leave beyond FMLA?
- How will the company integrate Maryland Time to Care benefits with existing PTO and short-term disability policies? This is a live HR question in 2026.
- Can you take intermittent leave under FMLA and/or Time to Care rather than a single block?
- What caregiver-support benefits does the company offer — care navigators, EAP, backup care services? Many large Maryland employers now subsidize services like Cariloop, Wellthy, or Bright Horizons Back-up Care.
Working caregivers and Medical Assistance planning
If you’re paid by your parent for caregiving services, the arrangement has Medical Assistance implications. Without a written personal-care agreement, payments to a family caregiver look like gifts — which triggers the 5-year look-back penalty. With a properly drafted agreement that establishes fair-market-value compensation, the payments are legitimate income. See the Maryland Medicaid guide for the full picture.