BALTIMORE, MD (Wednesday, February 18, 2026) The City of Baltimore’s Bureau of Revenue Collections recently announced improvements in turnaround times, technology, and overall experience with its newly streamlined lien certificate process. Today, the turnround time to request and receive a lien certificate has been reduced to 24 to 48 hours compared from 7 to 21 days previously.
“The significant reduction in turnaround times have come from our investment in automation, staff training, and cross-department collaboration. These improvements reflect the City of Baltimore’s ongoing commitment to modernizing government operations, strengthening customer service, and delivering efficient, technology-driven solutions for the public,” said Director of Finance Michael Mocksten.
Before these improvements, lien certificates typically took 7 to 21 days because the process depended on a largely manual, paper-based workflow. During the COVID-19 pandemic, operations were further challenged by shutdowns and staffing levels reduced by approximately 50 percent.
Today, the modernized process delivers a faster, more accurate, and more reliable service for residents, businesses, and real estate professionals. The lien certificate process is now fully automated and paperless, replacing a system that once relied heavily on physical documents, manual handling, and mailing. In addition to process enhancements, the lien certificate format has been updated to support a clear, standardized, and digitally focused presentation and delivery.
In fact, in a recent survey among lien requestors the average satisfaction score was 8.3 (1=Not Satisfied, 10= Satisfied). The categories of improvement that scored the highest were technology, turnaround times, staff knowledge (tie) and overall satisfaction (tie).