Anne Arundel County Council Votes 7-0 for Data Center Moratorium Through January 2028

The Anne Arundel County Council voted 7-0 Monday night, per WMAR News, to approve an amended version of Bill 63-26, establishing a temporary moratorium on new data center development. The moratorium will run until Jan. 31, 2028, or until the county adopts comprehensive data center legislation, whichever comes first. Council members initially considered banning new privately operated data centers in the county, then unanimously amended the proposal in September to replace the ban with a temporary moratorium. Projects already in the development process will generally be allowed to continue.

During the moratorium the county will establish a work group to study data center development and recommend permanent regulations. Microsoft, which is developing a data center campus at Annapolis Junction Business Park, previously testified against the original ban. The legislation also calls for repealing a personal property tax assessment reduction for qualified data storage centers.

Context: the vote follows other Maryland county actions in the corpus (2026-06-30–washington-county-md-datacenter-moratorium, 2026-07-28–montgomery-county-md-final-vote-18month-datacenter-moratorium) and the national moratorium wave (2026-08-19–indianapolis-marion-county-enacts-data-center-moratorium-through-2027).