What the Clerk of the District Court charges to file an eviction or a small claims case, what the sheriff charges to serve it, and how to ask the court to waive the fees.
This is a floor, not a total. It adds up only the components this county actually publishes — the missing pieces below will push it higher. Attorney fees, if you use one, are on top of this and are not included.
Everything the clerk charges on an eviction or small claims case in Caroline County. The figures set by state statute are verified and apply here. A dash means we have not yet read this county’s own schedule — not that the fee is zero.
| Fee | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Eviction filing — possession + rent claim | — | |
| Eviction filing — possession only | — | |
| Appearance fee — eviction defendant | — | There is no separate appearance fee on the District Court's cost schedule. Maryland's appearance fee under Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 7-204 is a Circuit Court charge; it does not apply to a District Court eviction filing. |
| Appearance fee — small claims defendant | — | Same as the eviction figure: no separate District Court appearance fee exists for a small claim. |
| Jury demand — 12 jurors | — | No jury trial is available in a Maryland District Court eviction or small claims case, so there is no jury demand fee. A party cannot even demand one unless the amount at stake is over $25,000, and if it is, the case moves to Circuit Court rather than staying in District Court for trial. |
| Jury demand — 6 jurors | — | Same as the 12-person jury figure: no jury trials happen in District Court eviction or small claims cases, so there is no fee for a smaller jury either. |
| Jury demand — small claims | — | No fee, because there is no jury option in a District Court small claim; the $25,000 threshold that would even allow a jury demand is far above the $5,000 small claims ceiling. |
| Mediation fee | — | The District Court's own cost schedule lists no mediation fee for a landlord-tenant case. We did not find one. |
| E-filing surcharge | — | The District Court's cost schedule lists no separate charge for filing electronically through MDEC. |
The filing fee is not the whole bill. Somebody has to serve the defendant, and in Maryland the sheriff sets that price county by county — it is the most variable number on this page. Service and enforcement costs in Maryland run from $5.00 per tenant, for the standard mail-and-posting service on a Failure to Pay Rent case, up to $40.00 per defendant, the statewide rate for sheriff or constable personal service required on a Tenant Holding Over or Breach of Lease case, and again $40.00 per case, plus $10.00 more in Baltimore City, to have the sheriff or constable carry out a Warrant of Restitution after judgment.
$5.00 per tenant of record is the standard price to serve a Failure to Pay Rent complaint by posting and mailing, and it is the same in every county. Baltimore City structures the same line differently: $5.00 per location, plus another $5.00 per tenant only if the landlord asks for personal service instead of the standard method. A Tenant Holding Over or Breach of Lease case is not covered by this figure at all; those case types require personal service by the sheriff or constable by law, at $40.00 per defendant, everywhere in the state.
$40.00 per case for the sheriff or constable to carry out a Warrant of Restitution, the order that actually puts a tenant out, and this rate is the same everywhere in the state. Baltimore City's cost schedule adds a separate $10.00 court fee on top of it for that same filing, bringing the Baltimore City total to $50.00.
Maryland courts will waive court fees, costs, and charges for people below certain income levels, under Md. Rule 1-325 and Md. Rule 1-325. There is one statewide form — you do not need a Caroline County version of it.
| The court waives | If your available income is |
|---|---|
| Full, prepaid costs | Decided at the start of the case, before the filing fee is due, on the poverty affidavit and the Maryland Legal Services Corporation income guidelines. |
| Full, open costs | Decided again at the end of the case for any costs that came up along the way, such as service or witness fees, using the same poverty test. |
Maryland's waiver is all-or-nothing at each of two separate checkpoints rather than a sliding scale by income band. You either qualify under the poverty test and the fee at that stage is waived in full, or you do not and you pay in full; there is no partial or percentage waiver the way there might be a discount. The two-checkpoint structure, one decision when you file and a second one for costs that arise later in the case, is the one real difference from a state that decides the whole case's costs in a single up-front ruling.
Fee waiver information verified August 1, 2026 against the Illinois General Assembly statute text and the Illinois Courts approved-forms library. We report what the statute and the form say. We cannot tell you whether you qualify — that is the court's decision.
Caroline County Circuit Court
Clerk of the District Court
No clerk website found. Contact the county courthouse directly.
Maryland Electronic Courts (MDEC)
E-filing through MDEC is mandatory for attorneys under Maryland Rule 20-106. A self-represented landlord or tenant is not required to use it and may still file on paper at the clerk's counter, so it is not mandatory for the person this site is written for. Once a self-represented filer chooses to e-file, though, every later filing in that case has to be e-filed too. eFileIL →
We publish the court's and clerk's own contact information and link to their pages. We do not take your information, route you to anyone, or file anything on your behalf. For questions about court procedure — as opposed to what it costs — use the Illinois Courts self-help center.
Maryland is not Georgia and it is not quite Florida either. The District Court of Maryland is one statewide court, not a separate court per county, and its filing fees are set once, centrally, by the Chief Judge of the District Court under Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 7-301(b) rather than by each county's own clerk or local rule. That produces a single official cost schedule that applies at every location in the state, with exactly one carve-out: Baltimore City. A Failure to Pay Rent case costs $50.00 to file in every county and $60.00 in Baltimore City. A Tenant Holding Over or Breach of Lease case costs $56.00 everywhere except Baltimore City, where it is $66.00. We read the schedule itself rather than any county's summary of it, and because it is one document governing the whole state, checking individual county clerk pages the way we did for Georgia would only reconfirm the same two numbers; the meaningful check was against the statewide document and the statute that authorizes it, effective March 1, 2026.
This is a real, single, statewide cost schedule, form DCA-109, published by the District Court of Maryland itself and effective March 1, 2026. It is closer in kind to Florida's statutory table than to Georgia's empty one, with one difference worth flagging: Florida's dollar figures sit directly in the statute passed by the Legislature, while Maryland's sit in an administrative schedule the Chief Judge of the District Court is authorized to set and change without a new statute. That makes the schedule itself, not the enabling statute, the document to check for the current number.
Statutory backbone: Md. Code, Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 7-301 — District Court costs. Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 7-301, Title 7, Subtitle 3 (District Court). Section 7-301(a) sets the base rule that District Court civil filing fees and costs are "those prescribed by law," subject to change by law, rule, or administrative regulation. Section 7-301(b) then gives the Chief Judge of the District Court authority to add a surcharge of up to $43.00 per summary ejectment case and up to $28.00 per case for other civil filings, with the money going to things like legal services and rental assistance funds, and a further surcharge of up to $10.00 per case in Baltimore City on ejectment, tenant holdover, breach of lease, and warrant of restitution filings. The $50/$60 and $56/$66 figures on the current cost schedule are the Chief Judge's exercise of that authority, not numbers printed directly in the statute itself, which is why the schedule rather than the bare statute is the number to trust. Statute text checked August 1, 2026.
Compiled and verified by David Scott. We re-check every source document monthly and re-read any county whose schedule has changed. If the clerk quotes you something different from what is on this page, tell us and we will fix it. Read the full methodology.