Howard County, MD Building Safety: Elevator Maintenance (2026)

100. 1, Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators, as adopted by the Maryland Department of Labor, shall apply to elevators and conveying systems. In practice this means Howard County has chosen not to regulate elevator installation, maintenance, or periodic testing under its own Building Code Sections 103 through 118, the same administrative chapter that otherwise governs permits, inspections, violations and appeals for buildings countywide. Instead, the Maryland Department of Labor's Elevator Safety Program, operating under the Public Safety Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland, functions as the authority having jurisdiction over elevators, escalators, platform lifts and conveying systems anywhere in the county, including in Ellicott City, Columbia and every other unincorporated Howard County community.

Building owners with an elevator, escalator, dumbwaiter, or similar conveying system should expect their permits, safety certificates and inspection scheduling to run through the state program rather than the county's Department of Inspections, Licenses and Permits, even though that same department handles every other building system in the structure. A property owner cannot substitute a Howard County Building Code inspection or a locally issued certificate of occupancy condition for the state elevator inspection; the two systems run separately, and the county amendment exists specifically to make that separation explicit rather than silently deferring to whichever code is stricter.