Maryland’s 109 operating dispensaries sold $1.17 billion of cannabis in 2025, slightly above 2024, as adult-use growth offset a 23% fall in medical sales. Bank-to-bank ACH settles the full basket next day on federally regulated banking rails, with no card network in the transaction.
Maryland stores carry more revenue per license than any others in the country, through a single set of payment rails.
The short version
- Maryland sold $1.17B of cannabis in 2025 through 109 operating dispensaries.
- Adult-use sales grew while medical sales fell about 23%.
- Concentration means a single acceptance outage removes an enormous revenue line.
- Bank-to-bank ACH runs on federally regulated banking rails with next-day settlement.
The Maryland market, in numbers
Maryland recorded $1.17 billion in cannabis sales in 2025, slightly above $1.14 billion in 2024, according to the Maryland Cannabis Administration. Adult-use accounted for $918 million and medical for $256 million, with medical sales down about 23% as patients shifted to adult-use.
The license base is small for a market that size: 109 operating dispensaries as of January 2026. Maryland converted its existing medical dispensary base to dual licenses at launch and has added new licenses deliberately rather than quickly.
The state estimates about $97 million in cannabis sales tax revenue for 2025, after the adult-use rate rose from 9% to 12% in July 2025. The industry employs about 8,100 people.
Why card processing closes in Maryland too
The mechanism is national, not local. Card networks require every merchant to be classified with a four-digit merchant category code when an acquiring bank boards the account, and there is no code for state-licensed cannabis. A Maryland Cannabis Administration licensee accepting cards is boarded under a category that does not describe it, and network monitoring is built to find exactly that mismatch.
Maryland’s own rules do not change this. State licensing determines whether you can operate; card network operating rules are written against federal law, which has not moved. The sequence is the same everywhere: the account boards, it works for a while, monitoring flags the mismatch, and the account terminates with settled funds held, commonly for around 90 days.
Cashless ATM and PIN debit programs are common among Maryland dispensaries and carry the same underlying structure regardless of how the terminal is labeled at the counter.
Bank-to-bank ACH as the alternative
ACH moves money directly between the customer’s bank account and the merchant’s, on federally regulated banking rails. There is no card network in the transaction, so no merchant category code applies and there is no network monitoring comparing behavior against a coded category.
At the counter the customer scans a QR code with their phone camera, connects their bank once in about thirty seconds, and confirms. No app download. Every purchase after that is a single confirmation, typically under twenty seconds. Greencard Payments platform data puts the repeat rate at roughly 87%. Funds settle next day into your own account, and cash acceptance is unaffected — this is an addition to the payment mix, not a replacement.
A billion dollars through about a hundred counters
Maryland stores carry more than a billion dollars a year across about a hundred licenses, and the mix inside that total is shifting as medical patients move to adult-use. A changing customer and tax mix on the same counter is a stress test on every system in the building, and payment acceptance is the one with an external party able to end it unilaterally.
High, concentrated volume on a miscoded card account is precisely the profile that draws card network review. The account that looked unremarkable at boarding is a different risk profile once a store is running seven or eight figures a year through it.
Bank-to-bank ACH does not have that exposure, because there is no card network in the transaction to compare behavior against a coded category. The transaction moves between two bank accounts on federally regulated banking rails.
Delivery, online and wholesale
Maryland permits dispensary delivery, and SMS pay links settle those orders before dispatch. Given the volume per store, e-commerce prepay on pickup orders is also a throughput tool — the basket is paid before the customer reaches the counter.
On the supply side, wholesale between licensees still settles largely in cash and checks. B2B invoicing on the same platform settles against a specific invoice, next day, with recurring billing for standing orders.
Availability in Maryland
Seay Payments is an Independent Sales Organization. We do not process payments, handle onboarding, or provide ongoing merchant support; we connect licensed operators to the platform and to the team that runs it. Bank-to-bank ACH acceptance through Greencard Payments is offered to licensed cannabis businesses, and the demo confirms availability and fit for your license type, your volume and your bank before anything is signed.