How much can a landlord charge for a rental application fee in New Hampshire?

No dollar cap. A landlord may charge a rental application or renewal fee of any amount, but must disclose the amount in writing before collecting it, and where the applicant is not rented the unit the landlord may keep only the documented actual cost of the background check, credit check, and reasonable administrative costs.

Does an application fee have to be refunded in New Hampshire?

Yes — in New Hampshire at least one circumstance requires application-stage money to be returned. Trigger: the fee was collected and the unit is not rented to that applicant. Amount: everything beyond the actual cost of the documented background check, credit check, and reasonable administrative costs. Deadline: within 30 days of receipt of the fee.

Does a landlord have to give a receipt for an application fee in New Hampshire?

No statutory receipt duty for application money.

Does New Hampshire have a reusable tenant screening report law?

No statute on reusable screening reports.

Can a landlord charge a holding deposit in New Hampshire?

No statute on holding deposits.

What can a landlord charge for a rental application in New Hampshire?

Verified August 26, 2026 All New Hampshire topics →

Legislative changes ahead — not yet in force. The rules on this page reflect the law in force today. The following measure would change it:

HB 1598 (2026) — Eviction-process overhaul (compromise between NH Legal Assistance and landlord groups): caps discretionary eviction stays at 60 days (75 with special circumstances), requires tenants to raise affirmative defenses/counterclaims early, adds pre-hearing evidence-exchange rules and unauthorized-occupant removal procedures. Amends RSA 540:13, 540:13-c, 540:14, 540-A:2, 540-A:4 VII, and rewords RSA 540-A:3 V while keeping the entry standard 'notice which is adequate under the circumstances' verbatim — no change to the answers shown here.Status: Passed both chambers (Senate 2026-05-14, House concurrence 2026-05-21); enrolled 2026-06-04. As of 2026-07-12 the official gc.nh.gov docket still showed general status PASSED and ended at the 06-04 enrollment entries, carrying NO signing entry and NO chapter number; press reports of a signing the week of 2026-07-06 (InDepthNH, 2026-07-10) ran ahead of the official record. The bill takes effect 90 days after passage — approximately early October 2026 if signed — so it was NOT law on 2026-07-12. (checked 2026-07-12).

Measures that did not become law. The following recent proposals failed and are not law — noted here because failed bills are sometimes still described as if enacted:

HB 1336 (2026) — Would have created a 'regulated conditional deposit' letting landlords collect up to one additional month's rent beyond the RSA 540-A:6 one-month security-deposit cap from applicants failing standard screening criteria (credit, income, eviction history), with disclosure and re-screening rights.Status: Passed both chambers; VETOED by Gov. Ayotte 2026-07-02 (veto message: would impede access to housing and lacked clarity on how long landlords could hold the funds). Not law; an override attempt is possible at the fall 2026 veto day — re-check then. (checked 2026-07-11).
HB 1371 (2026) — Would have created a new section of the state's condominium and land-use title barring a landlord or a landlord's agent from charging any fee to apply for a residential dwelling unit, while leaving commercial and nonresidential application fees untouched, and would have barred requiring a Social Security number on a residential rental application or refusing an application for the lack of one.Status: The Housing Committee reported the bill inexpedient to legislate on February 3, 2026 by a vote of 16 to 2, and the House adopted that report on February 19, 2026, which ends the bill. (checked 2026-08-26).
HB 1375 (2026) — Would have barred a landlord from requiring or accepting more than one application fee from the same prospective tenant in any 12-month period, whatever the number of units applied for, and would have defined an application fee to include charges for background checks, credit checks and administrative costs, at initial application, at renewal, and on applying for another unit from the same landlord or agent.Status: The Housing Committee majority reported the bill inexpedient to legislate on March 3, 2026 by a vote of 9 to 8, with a minority report recommending passage with an amendment. The bill's record shows it died when the session ended. (checked 2026-08-26).

New Hampshire regulates rental application fees through a disclosure-and-refund rule rather than a dollar cap: before collecting any fee at application or renewal a landlord must disclose the amount in writing along with any requirement to pass a criminal background and credit check, and where the applicant is not rented the unit the landlord must return everything beyond the documented cost of those checks and reasonable administrative costs within 30 days.

Cited to RSA 540-A:3 VIII and 11 more New Hampshire statutes · Verified August 26, 2026

Nothing limits what may be charged to an applicant who does get the unit, and the landlord need not actually run a check or reject an applicant who fails one. The state sets no receipt duty for application money, no denial-notice duty of its own, no reusable screening report regime, no holding deposit rules, and no fee-transparency rules for rental advertising. A landlord who breaks the application-fee rule owes the applicant back all application monies plus court costs, and nothing more.

New Hampshire application fees at a glance

Application fee cap	No dollar cap. A landlord may charge a rental application or renewal fee of any amount, but must disclose the amount in writing before collecting it, and where the applicant is not rented the unit the landlord may keep only the documented actual cost of the background check, credit check, and reasonable administrative costs. New Hampshire answers the application-fee question with a disclosure-and-refund rule rather than a ceiling. The rule reaches any fee charged as part of the rental application or renewal process. It applies to owners, lessors and their agents alike. Where the applicant does become the tenant, the statute sets no limit on the amount charged.
Fee limited to actual screening cost	Yes
Screening charge rules	A fee may be collected only after the written disclosure described below. The landlord is not required to run a criminal background or credit check, and is not barred from renting to an applicant who does not pass one. Only documented check costs, plus reasonable administrative costs, may be kept from an applicant who is not rented the unit. The paragraph covers fees charged at the application stage and at lease renewal. It does not limit how many applicants may be charged for one unit, and it does not limit how often the same person may be charged. It sets no rule on who performs the screening or which reports may be obtained.
Receipt required	No statutory receipt duty for application money
Refund required in some circumstances	Yes
Refund rules	Trigger: the fee was collected and the unit is not rented to that applicant. Amount: everything beyond the actual cost of the documented background check, credit check, and reasonable administrative costs. Deadline: within 30 days of receipt of the fee. The refund duty runs from receipt of the money, not from the decision on the application. The statute sets no separate rule for an applicant who withdraws, for a unit taken off the market, or for an applicant who is rented the unit. The word documented does the work of limiting what may be kept, so costs a landlord cannot document are not retainable.
Disclosure before collecting	Before collecting any fee as part of the rental application or renewal process, the landlord must clearly disclose in writing to prospective tenants the amount of the fee and the requirement for a satisfactory criminal background and credit check, if any. The disclosure must come before the money changes hands. Its required content is the fee amount and whether passing a criminal background check and credit check is a condition of renting. New Hampshire does not require a landlord to publish screening criteria, to itemize what the fee pays for, to state applicant rights, or to give fresh notice when criteria change.
Denial-notice duties (state law)	No state statute — federal fair-credit duties still apply
Reusable screening reports	No statute on reusable screening reports
Holding deposits	No statute on holding deposits
Rental fee-transparency rules	No rental fee-transparency statute
Penalty for violation	For a violation of the application-fee paragraph the landlord is subject only to returning to the applicant all monies the applicant provided as part of the application, plus court costs. That remedy is exclusive and is stated to apply notwithstanding the general remedy for prohibited practices. The general remedy, which covers other prohibited practices but not application fees, routes to the consumer protection act's private action: actual damages or 1,000 dollars, whichever is greater, increased to at least twice and as much as three times that amount for a willful or knowing violation, with costs and reasonable attorney's fees to a prevailing plaintiff.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, New Hampshire Application & Screening Fee Laws (verified August 26, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/application-fees/new-hampshire/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the New Hampshire statute in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

One paragraph carries the whole rule — The state's application-fee law sits in a single paragraph of the prohibited-practices statute, added by a 2024 act that took effect on January 1, 2025. Everything a landlord must do at the application stage comes from that one paragraph.
The refund duty is conditional — The duty to return money above documented costs is triggered only where the unit is not rented to the applicant who paid. An applicant who signs the lease has no statutory claim to a refund of any part of the fee.
Administrative costs are retainable — Alongside the documented cost of the background and credit checks, a landlord may keep reasonable administrative costs. The statute does not define that term or set a ceiling on it.
The remedy is narrow by design — Other prohibited practices under this chapter carry consumer protection act damages of at least 1,000 dollars, doubled or trebled for willful conduct. The statute expressly withholds that remedy for application-fee violations and limits recovery to the application monies plus court costs.
No cap on the number of applicants charged — Two 2026 bills, one to ban residential application fees outright and one to allow only one fee per applicant per 12 months, both failed. Neither rule is law.
Federal law governs denial notices — New Hampshire's own consumer credit reporting act limits its adverse-action notice duty to credit, insurance and employment decisions. A landlord who denies an applicant because of a screening report answers to federal law, not to a state notice statute.
Manufactured housing is included — The definitions for this chapter fold manufactured housing and spaces in manufactured housing parks into the terms landlord and tenant, so the application-fee rule is not limited to conventional apartments.
Where to read the law — The New Hampshire General Court publishes the Revised Statutes Annotated at gc.nh.gov; older addresses on the gencourt.state.nh.us host redirect there.
How the cost limit works — The statute ties the amount a landlord may keep to the actual cost of the documented background check and credit check, plus reasonable administrative costs. The tie operates on refunds: it applies where the fee was collected and the unit is not rented to that applicant. It does not cap what may be charged to an applicant who is rented the unit.
What the receipt duty covers — No New Hampshire statute requires a receipt for application or screening money. The one receipt duty in the state's residential landlord-tenant law applies to security deposits: on receiving a deposit from a tenant the landlord must deliver a signed receipt stating the amount and where the deposit will be held. That section does not reach money taken at the application stage, and the application-fee paragraph contains no receipt duty of its own.
When money must come back — Where a fee is collected from an applicant and the unit is not rented to that applicant, the landlord must return everything beyond the documented cost of the background check and credit check and reasonable administrative costs.
Denial notices — New Hampshire imposes no state denial-notice duty on a landlord who turns down a rental applicant. The state's own consumer credit reporting act requires a user of a consumer report to notify the consumer and name the reporting agency, but only where credit or insurance for personal, family or household purposes, or employment, is denied or repriced. Tenancy is not within that list, and the application-fee paragraph adds no notice duty. Federal consumer-report law supplies the duties that do apply.
Reusable screening reports — New Hampshire has no reusable or portable tenant screening report statute. A landlord is not required to accept a screening report an applicant obtained for another landlord, is not barred from charging a fee when one is offered, and no validity window is set. The paragraph that governs application fees and the chapter governing actions against tenants are both silent on the question.
Money to hold a unit — No New Hampshire statute addresses money taken to hold a unit between application and lease signing. The state's security deposit rules define a security deposit as all funds in excess of the monthly rent transferred from the tenant to the landlord for any purpose, cap it at one month's rent or 100 dollars, whichever is greater, and require a signed receipt. Those rules are written around a tenant, and no provision states how they apply to money taken from someone who has not yet signed a lease.
Advertising and fee transparency — New Hampshire has no fee-transparency statute for residential rental advertising: no all-in advertised price duty, no mandatory-fee itemization duty, and no hidden-fee ban. The state consumer protection act does reach real property, since it defines trade and commerce to include the advertising, offering for sale, sale or distribution of property that is real, personal or mixed, and it bans unfair or deceptive acts in trade or commerce. But none of its enumerated practices requires a total advertised price or an itemization of mandatory fees, and none mentions rent, leases, dwellings or housing. The act also gives the attorney general enforcement powers without authority to adopt rules defining unfair or deceptive acts, so no state regulation supplies the rule either.

Common questions: New Hampshire application fees

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

How much can a landlord charge for a rental application fee in New Hampshire?: No dollar cap. A landlord may charge a rental application or renewal fee of any amount, but must disclose the amount in writing before collecting it, and where the applicant is not rented the unit the landlord may keep only the documented actual cost of the background check, credit check, and reasonable administrative costs.
Does an application fee have to be refunded in New Hampshire?: Yes — in New Hampshire at least one circumstance requires application-stage money to be returned. Trigger: the fee was collected and the unit is not rented to that applicant. Amount: everything beyond the actual cost of the documented background check, credit check, and reasonable administrative costs. Deadline: within 30 days of receipt of the fee.
Does a landlord have to give a receipt for an application fee in New Hampshire?: No statutory receipt duty for application money.
Does New Hampshire have a reusable tenant screening report law?: No statute on reusable screening reports.
Can a landlord charge a holding deposit in New Hampshire?: No statute on holding deposits.

Statute citations

RSA 540-A:3 VIII (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 540-A:1 (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 540-A:6 I (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 359-B:15 (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 540 (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 540-A:5 II (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 358-A:2 (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 358-A:1 (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 358-A:4 (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 540-A:4 IX(f) (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 540-A:4 IX(a) (verified 2026) Official source
RSA 358-A:10 I (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of RSA 540-A:1 through 540-A:6 on gc.nh.gov, paragraph by paragraph through RSA 540-A:3 and through subparagraphs (a) to (g) of RSA 540-A:4, IX; a term search of the full text of RSA chapter 540 for application, screening, credit report, background check, holding deposit and fee; direct read of RSA 359-B:15 and of RSA 358-A:1, 358-A:2, 358-A:4 and 358-A:10; and a 2025-2026 session sweep taken from the official amendment notes printed on RSA 540-A:3 and 540-A:4 together with the New Hampshire General Court bill pages for HB 309-FN (2025) and HB 1371, HB 1375 and HB 1450 (2026).