How much does a hunting lease cost in Maryland?

A 300-acre hunting lease in Maryland typically asks about $7,224 per year, with most comparable properties falling between $4,398 and $11,316. Smaller parcels cost more per acre and larger ones less.

What is the average price per acre for hunting land in Maryland?

About $24.08 per acre per year for a 300-acre property, which is 39% above the national median of $17.32. Per-acre rates fall as properties get larger, so this figure is quoted at a fixed 300 acres to stay comparable between states.

Are these Maryland lease prices what hunters actually pay?

No. Every figure here is an asking price — what landowners list at, not what a lease finally closes for. The model is fit on listing data, so it reflects what a property is likely to be advertised at.

How reliable is the Maryland estimate?

This rate blends listings in this state with the national median. It rests on 10 filtered lease listings from Maryland. Across all states, roughly half of real listings fall inside the range shown, and state and acreage together explain about a quarter of the variation in asking price.

Hunting Lease Prices in Maryland

$7,224

per year · 300 acres · Maryland

Comparable properties list $4,398–$11,316, or about $24.08 per acre.

That is 39% above the national median of $17.32 per acre, ranking Maryland 1 of 48 states by price.

What this rests on

Moderately supported

10 Maryland listings

This rate blends listings in this state with the national median.

By property size

Typical Maryland lease prices

Yearly asking prices for a property with no amenities or premium habitat specified. Adding food plots, a cabin or a trophy species raises the estimate; the calculator below accounts for those.
Property size	Typical asking price	Usual range	Per acre
40 acres	$3,974	$2,543–$6,120	$99.35
100 acres	$5,215	$3,338–$8,031	$52.15
250 acres	$6,844	$4,380–$10,539	$27.37
500 acres	$8,406	$4,447–$13,810	$16.81
1,000 acres	$10,324	$4,515–$18,095	$10.32
2,500 acres	$13,549	$4,607–$25,866	$5.42

The market

Hunting Maryland

Maryland carries the highest per-acre rate in this model. It is a small, densely populated state with a strong Chesapeake waterfowl tradition and 3.3 bucks taken per square mile — high demand pressed into a small land base with 5.5% public access. Eastern Shore farm ground that holds both deer and geese is the premium product.

Nationally, Maryland has a middling amount of public hunting ground — ranking 29 of 50 states at 5.5% public, and one of the denser whitetail herds in the country at 3.3 bucks taken per square mile. Neither figure feeds the estimate above; both are the ground truth a lease is negotiated against.

Whitetail deer
Waterfowl
Turkey

Context, not price drivers — see the methodology note below.
Public hunting land	5.5% of the state 344,000 acres · 29 of 50
Bucks harvested	31,601 3.3 per square mile · 2022 season
Leased for	Whitetail deer, Waterfowl, Turkey

Within the state

Where Maryland prices differ

The $24.08 per-acre figure above is a Maryland average. These are the sub-markets it averages over, and they do not trade alike:

Directional, not measured — the estimate is fitted at state level and has no sub-state resolution.
Eastern Shore	Farm ground carrying both deer and Chesapeake waterfowl; the premium product and the reason Maryland tops the rate table.
Central piedmont	Suburban-edge parcels between Baltimore and the mountains, small and expensive per acre because of what surrounds them.
Western mountains	Bear and forest country, much cheaper and competing with public land.

Your property

Price your own Maryland land

The table above assumes nothing about your land beyond its size. Add your game species, habitat, forage and amenities for an estimate that reflects the property you actually have.

Calculate a Maryland lease price Browse 2 Maryland leases

Nearby markets

How Maryland compares

States whose hunting lease markets are priced closest to Maryland.
State	Per acre	vs. Maryland
Louisiana	$20.88	lower
Wisconsin	$21.85	lower
Ohio	$22.26	lower
New Jersey	$22.52	lower

Maryland hunting guides

Methodology

How we estimate Maryland lease prices

The estimate comes from a model fit on 979 filtered hunting lease listings across 48 states. A state's rate and the way price scales with acreage are both measured from that data. 10 of those listings were in Maryland, so the Maryland rate is drawn largely from that state's own market.

Three things are worth knowing before you quote these numbers:

These are asking prices. They are what landowners list at, not what a lease closes for.
State and size explain about a quarter of the variation. Roughly half of real listings fall inside the range shown, which is what two features can support — it is the honest width of the answer, not a rough edge waiting to be tuned out.
The land and deer figures above are context, not inputs. They come from Backcountry Chronicles (public hunting acreage) and the National Deer Association's 2024 Deer Report (2022 buck harvest). Neither feeds the estimate, and both correlate only weakly with what states actually charge.
Habitat, game and amenity adjustments are expert judgement, not fit from data — the listing feed does not carry those fields. They are set to be neutral on an average property, so they nudge the estimate rather than drive it.