New Hampshire Landlord-Tenant Laws
Local rent regulation in New Hampshire
No New Hampshire statute expressly addresses local rent control — state law neither authorizes municipalities to adopt rent-stabilization ordinances nor expressly prohibits them from doing so.
Verified August 12, 2026 · Full New Hampshire rent-increase rules →
New Hampshire landlord-tenant laws by topic
New Hampshire security deposits
New Hampshire caps security deposits at one month's rent or $100, whichever is greater, and the landlord must return the deposit within 30 days after the tenancy ends, with a written itemized list — backed by receipts or estimates — for anything withheld.
New Hampshire rent increase notice
New Hampshire landlords must give written notice of the amount and effective date of a rent increase at least 30 days before it takes effect — that is the express condition in RSA 540:2, IV for making a tenant's refusal to pay the higher rent 'good cause' for eviction.
New Hampshire late fees
New Hampshire sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period for apartments and houses — the state's landlord-tenant chapters never mention late fees, so the lease governs, bounded only by ordinary contract-law limits on penalty clauses.
New Hampshire entry notice
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.'
New Hampshire eviction process
New Hampshire requires good cause to evict most residential tenants, so the first question is not how long the notice is but whether the landlord has a statutory ground at all: for 'restricted property' - which under RSA 540:1-a means every residential rental except a single-family house whose owner owns no more than 3 of them, a unit in an owner-occupied building of 4 units or fewer, and a single-family house a bank took by foreclosure - RSA 540:2, II lets the owner terminate 'only for one of the following reasons,' and the landlord then serves a written eviction notice of 7 days (nonpayment, substantial damage, health-or-safety behavior, or a cotenant accused of domestic violence) or 30 days for everything else, and files a possessory action in the circuit court district division.
New Hampshire application & screening fees
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.
New Hampshire deposit interest
New Hampshire requires interest on a security deposit held for one year or longer, at the regular savings rate of the New Hampshire institution where the money sits.
New Hampshire habitability & repairs
New Hampshire's habitability duty comes from statute and case law together, and each supplies what the other leaves out.
New Hampshire lease termination
New Hampshire is a good-cause state, but only for what it calls restricted property, and 30 days' written notice ends a residential tenancy either way.
New Hampshire lease disclosures
New Hampshire never tells a tenant who owns the building: the owner of larger rental property files an in-state agent for service of process with the town or city clerk, and nothing goes to the tenant.
New Hampshire pets & assistance animals
New Hampshire has no pet-deposit or pet-fee statute, but its security-deposit law is wide enough to swallow both.
New Hampshire mobile home park laws
New Hampshire's Regulation of Manufactured Housing Parks law, RSA chapter 205-A, covers residents who own their home and rent a lot in a park of two or more manufactured houses: lot rent may rise only after 60 days' written notice carrying a written explanation, a tenancy may be ended only for six statutory reasons, and closure or a change of use takes 18 months' notice.
New Hampshire Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every New Hampshire metro area and county.
Editable New Hampshire deposit kit · Editable New Hampshire disclosure packet — editable documents built on the verified New Hampshire rules on this page, in Word, fillable PDF and Excel.
Changes since last full verification
The Verified date above (July 11, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).
- Updated, October 8, 2026 — New Hampshire 2026 chapter 308 (HB 1598) took effect October 8, 2026. A tenant who contests an eviction must file an answer stating affirmative defenses and counterclaims within 5 days after the return date (RSA 540:13, II(a)); a tenant who does not appear is in default and the court mails the default notice the day after the default, with no statutory wait before the writ and no discretionary stay (RSA 540:13, V; 540:13-c, I); after a contested hearing the court mails the notice of judgment within 2 days and issues the writ 7 days after mailing it where the landlord prevails; the discretionary stay is capped at 60 days, or 75 days where the tenant proves no financial harm, no damage and no health or safety threat and a need based on factors such as age, familial status, disability or limited English proficiency; a sheriff's delay does not invalidate a valid writ (RSA 540:14, V). The tenant-side entry duty now bars willfully preventing completion of necessary repairs (RSA 540-A:3, V) and the prohibited-practices chapter reaches household members, guests and occupants (RSA 540-A:2); the entry notice standard is unchanged. The uncontested timeline is about 15 days on a nonpayment ground and about 38 on a 30-day ground. HB 1336 (a second deposit month) was vetoed July 2, 2026 and the veto was sustained August 19, 2026.
- Correction, September 20, 2026 — New Hampshire: the manufactured housing park page routed park deposits to RSA 477:48, a section repealed in 1985; the live rules are the general deposit subdivision, RSA 540-A:5 to 540-A:8, whose definitions expressly reach a park space, and the page now states them. The lease termination page adds the tenant's own right to end a written lease within 7 days of a relocation forced by a lead exposure hazard (RSA 130-A:8-a, VIII) and the required contents of the 30-day lead-hazard notice. The habitability page adds the asbestos enforcement route in RSA 141-E. The entry and eviction pages now state exactly what 2026 ch. 308 changes on October 8, 2026. The application page adds RSA 540:2, VIII: a no-fault lease-expiration termination is not an eviction for screening purposes.
- Correction, September 5, 2026 — New Hampshire: the pending entry for 2026 chapter 308 (HB 1598, effective October 8, 2026) now describes the eviction-process changes the act makes — the 60-day discretionary stay (75 days on a specific showing), no discretionary stay after a default, the five-day answer, the two-day judgment notice and the seven-day writ — instead of saying it changes no answer.
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 section these answers rest on read at least twice via independent URLs — the merged chapter pages (540-mrg.htm read twice via independent 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) read in full 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.