How much notice must a landlord give before entering in New Hampshire?

Verified July 11, 2026 All New Hampshire topics →

Pending legislation — not yet law. The rules on this page reflect current law only. The following bills would change it if enacted:

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 fields encoded here.Status: Passed both chambers (Senate 2026-05-14, House concurrence 2026-05-21); enrolled 2026-06-04. Official gc.nh.gov docket checked 2026-07-11 shows general status PASSED with NO signing entry and NO chapter number yet — press reports of a signing the week of 2026-07-06 (InDepthNH, 2026-07-10) are ahead of the official record. Effective 90 days after passage per the bill — approximately early October 2026 if signed, so NOT law on 2026-07-11. Re-check the docket for the signing entry and chapter number next session. (checked 2026-07-11).
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).

New Hampshire sets no fixed entry-notice period — the statute instead bars a landlord from willfully entering a tenant's home without prior consent except to make emergency repairs, and requires the tenant to allow access for repairs and other normal ownership functions at a reasonable time after 'notice which is adequate under the circumstances.' The practical shape: a landlord who wants in for a routine repair, inspection, or showing gives circumstance-appropriate notice and the tenant may not unreasonably refuse, but if the tenant does refuse, the landlord's lawful remedies are a court order or, for true emergencies, direct entry — the statute expressly limits non-consensual entry to those two paths.

Emergency repairs are defined to include pest and bed-bug response within 72 hours of first notice of an infestation, and a tenant must allow bed-bug evaluation on 48 hours' written notice when a neighboring unit is affected. Violations carry Consumer Protection Act remedies with costs and attorney's fees, and every day a violation continues after a court's temporary order counts as a separate violation. These entry rules bind ALL landlords — the small-landlord exemption in New Hampshire's deposit law does not extend to them.

New Hampshire entry notice at a glance

Advance notice required	No fixed statutory period (see notice standard)
Notice standard	Consent-based regime, stricter than most 'reasonable notice' states: no landlord may willfully enter the tenant's premises without prior consent, other than to make emergency repairs (RSA 540-A:3, IV), and notwithstanding anything else in the chapter, non-consensual entry is allowed ONLY for emergency repairs or under a court order obtained pursuant to RSA 540-A:4 (RSA 540-A:3, V-d). The notice language runs against the tenant: a tenant may not willfully refuse the landlord access to make necessary repairs or perform other reasonable and lawful ownership functions 'at a reasonable time after notice which is adequate under the circumstances' (RSA 540-A:3, V) — no fixed hours anywhere in the statute.
Permitted reasons	With adequate notice and at a reasonable time, the tenant must allow access for necessary repairs and 'other reasonable and lawful functions commonly associated with the ownership of rental property' (540-A:3, V) — showings and inspections ride on that clause. Without consent: emergency repairs, expressly including entry within 72 hours of first notice of a rodent/insect (incl. bed bug) infestation to evaluate, plan, or remediate (IV, IV-a), or a court order (V-d(b)). A tenant also may not refuse access to evaluate for bed bugs after an adjacent/above/below unit is affected, on 48 hours' written notice (V-b(b)).
Emergency exception	Yes
Time-of-day restrictions	None by the clock — access must be 'at a reasonable time' only (RSA 540-A:3, V).

Notes and caveats

notice_hours null + standard per convention: the only statutory phrase is 'notice which is adequate under the circumstances' (540-A:3, V), with no presumption of hours. Architecture point for page copy: NH is unusual in placing the notice duty in the TENANT-obligation paragraph while the landlord-side rule is a consent requirement (IV) with an exclusive non-consensual-entry list (V-d, added 2013 ch. 48: emergency repairs or court order) — a landlord who enters over objection after 'adequate notice' is still exposed; the safe sequence is notice, then consent or a 540-A:4 petition. Exemption trap (mirror of the deposit note): 540-A:1's landlord definition for the Prohibited Practices subdivision has NO single-family/owner-occupied carve-out — the 540-A:5 exemption is deposits-only, so small landlords are fully bound here. Remedies: violations of 540-A:3 trigger RSA 358-A:10 civil remedies plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees, each day after a temporary order a separate violation (540-A:4); the not-less-than-$3,000 figure in 540-A:4 is for lockouts with re-let premises, not entry violations. 'Premises' covers only areas of exclusive tenant access (540-A:1, III). Pending, not incorporated: HB 1598 (2026, signed week of 2026-07-06, effective 90 days after passage, approximately early October 2026) rewords 540-A:3, V to add 'prevent completion of necessary repairs' but keeps the adequate-under-the-circumstances standard verbatim — re-verify wording after it takes effect. All entry text triple-read (merged chapter page, section page, raw curl capture).

Statute citations

NH RSA 540-A:3 IV, IV-a, V, V-b(b), V-d Official source
NH RSA 540-A:1 I, III Official source
NH RSA 540-A:4 Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official NH General Court site (gc.nh.gov, the redirect target of www.gencourt.state.nh.us): every load-bearing section read at least twice via independent URLs — the merged chapter pages (540-mrg.htm fetched twice via upper- and lowercase paths, 540-A-mrg.htm, 540-B-mrg.htm) plus each individual section page (540-A:1, :2, :3, :4, :5, :6, :7, :8; 540:1-a, :2, :3, :9; 540-B:10; 205-A:6) captured raw via curl for verbatim quotes, with all figures matching across reads (greater-of one month/$100 cap, 30-day return from termination, one-year interest trigger with 3-year request cycle, double-damages penalty, 6-month unclaimed-deposit rule, 540-A:5 small-landlord exemption, consent-based entry with adequate-under-the-circumstances notice, 540:2 IV 30-day rent-increase notice, new 540:2 II(i) 60-day end-of-lease notice effective 2026-07-01). Negative checks (no late-fee or grace-period statute, no rent control, no express preemption) run against the full text of RSA chapters 540, 540-A, and 540-B plus a gc.nh.gov-restricted search. Session-law identities pinned by cross-referencing official source lines with bill records: 2025 ch. 263 = HB 60 (signed 2025-08-01, eff. 2026-07-01), 2025 ch. 176 = HB 309 (eff. 2026-01-01), 2024 ch. 9 = HB 261. 2026-session check on 2026-07-11: HB 1336 vetoed 2026-07-02; HB 1598 signed week of 2026-07-06, effective 90 days after passage, flagged as pending; dead bills HB 95 (2023) and HB 1362 (2024) debunked from contemporaneous reporting.