What are the security deposit rules 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 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.

Deposits must sit in a trust account (or be bonded with the town clerk), and a deposit held a year or longer earns savings-account interest that the tenant can also claim every three years. A landlord who blows the return or interest duties owes double the deposit plus interest, and the cap, receipt, and trust rules are enforceable as consumer-protection violations. Two big carve-outs: none of these deposit rules bind a person renting out a single-family home who owns no other rental property, or units in an owner-occupied building of five units or fewer (unless the unit's occupant is 60 or older), and owner-occupied room rentals fall under a separate shared-facilities law with no cap at all. One more NH quirk cuts for landlords: if the tenant never provides a forwarding address, the landlord is off the hook, and a deposit unclaimed for six months becomes the landlord's property.

New Hampshire security deposits at a glance

Maximum deposit	1 month's rent — Greater of one month's rent or $100 (RSA 540-A:6, I(a)). Under a written lease with quarterly or less frequent rent, the deposit collected on top of the initial rent payment still may not exceed one month's rent equivalent. MAJOR EXEMPTION: for the entire deposit subdivision (RSA 540-A:5 through :8) a person who rents a single-family residence and owns no other rental property, or who rents units in an owner-occupied building of 5 units or less, is not a 'landlord' — except as to any unit in such a building occupied by a person 60 or older, which keeps full protection (RSA 540-A:5, I). Shared facilities (owner-occupied room rentals under RSA 540-B) are outside 540-A entirely: deposit amount is whatever the owner sets (RSA 540-B:10).
Return deadline	30 days
Deadline conditions	Deposit plus any interest due must be returned within 30 days from the termination of the tenancy (RSA 540-A:7, I); no tenant demand is required, but per RSA 540-A:8, II the landlord is fully excused if noncompliance is due to the tenant's failure to provide a new address on termination. In a shared facility with no written deposit agreement, return is due within 20 days after the occupant vacates (RSA 540-B:10).
Itemization required	Yes
Itemization rules	For damage deductions (reasonable wear and tear excluded): a written, itemized list indicating with particularity the nature of each necessary repair, plus satisfactory evidence the repair has been or will be completed — receipts for materials, labor estimates, bills, or invoices (RSA 540-A:7, I, as tightened by 2006 ch. 296 effective 2006-07-01). For deductions of unpaid rent, the tenant's lease share of real-estate-tax increases, or other unpaid lawful lease charges: a written, itemized list indicating with particularity the period claimed (RSA 540-A:7, II).
Separate account required	Yes
Interest owed to tenant	Yes
Account & interest rules	Deposits remain the tenant's money and must be held in trust, not mingled with the landlord's personal funds; all deposits may be pooled in one trust account at a NH-chartered bank, savings and loan, or credit union, or the landlord may instead post a bond with the city/town clerk (RSA 540-A:6, II). Interest is owed only if the deposit is held one year or longer, at the regular-savings-account rate of the institution where deposited, running from receipt; pooled accounts pay actual interest earned, proportionately (RSA 540-A:6, IV(a)). The tenant may demand the bank name, account number, amount, and rate, and examine deposit records (IV(b)), and may collect accrued interest every 3 years by requesting it 30 days before that lease year expires, with the landlord obliged to comply within 15 days of that year's expiration (IV(c), added 2014 ch. 56 effective 2014-07-26); otherwise interest is paid with the deposit at return.
Pet deposits	No separate pet-deposit statute. 'Security deposit' means ALL funds in excess of the monthly rent transferred from tenant to landlord for any purpose (RSA 540-A:5, II), so a pet deposit counts against the same greater-of-one-month/$100 cap and follows the same trust, interest, return, and itemization rules — a pet deposit stacked on a full one-month deposit exceeds the cap.
Non-refundable fees allowed	Not addressed by statute
Penalty for violation	Two-tier: failing the return/itemization or interest duties (RSA 540-A:6, IV or 540-A:7) makes the landlord liable for twice the sum of the deposit plus interest due, less payments made and lawful charges owing (RSA 540-A:8, I(b)). Violating the cap, receipt, trust-account, or transfer-on-sale rules (RSA 540-A:6, I-III) is deemed a violation of the Consumer Protection Act, RSA 358-A:2, carrying its civil remedies. Lease waivers of these rights are void (RSA 540-A:8, III).
Tenant forwarding-address duty	Decisive in NH: the landlord is not liable and forfeits no rights if noncompliance is due to the tenant's failure to notify the landlord of a new address upon termination, and any deposit plus interest unclaimed 6 months after termination becomes the LANDLORD'S property free and clear, absent fraud (RSA 540-A:8, II) — the opposite of unclaimed-property escheat states.

Notes and caveats

Exemption trap (the headline): the RSA 540-A:5, I carve-out is scoped 'for the purposes of this subdivision' — the SECURITY DEPOSIT subdivision (540-A:5 through :8) only. Exempt small landlords remain fully bound by the entry, utility-shutoff, and lockout rules, because the Prohibited Practices subdivision uses the broad landlord definition in RSA 540-A:1 with no carve-out (verified from both definition sections). The 60-and-older exception restores full deposit protections unit-by-unit inside otherwise-exempt owner-occupied buildings. separate_account_required encoded true: 540-A:6, II requires trust holding and bars mingling with the landlord's personal money — but pooling all tenants' deposits in one NH trust account is fine and a municipal bond substitutes entirely; that alternative is in interest_rules. nonrefundable_fees_allowed null: no statute expressly allows or bans nonrefundable fees, but the sweeping 540-A:5, II definition (all funds in excess of monthly rent, for any purpose) pulls any move-in fee into the refundable-deposit scheme for covered landlords; application fees for prospective tenants are separately regulated by RSA 540-A:3, VIII (excess over documented costs refundable within 30 days if the unit is not rented, added by 2024 ch. 46 effective 2025-01-01). Interest trap: many charts say NH interest is only payable at move-out — the every-3-years request right (540-A:6, IV(c), added 2014) says otherwise. Pending: HB 1336 (2026), which would have let landlords take an extra month from screening-marginal applicants, was VETOED 2026-07-02 (override conceivable at fall veto day); do not encode it. All figures double-read (merged chapter page + individual section pages + raw curl capture, all on gc.nh.gov).

Statute citations

NH RSA 540-A:6 I(a)-(c), II, III, IV Official source
NH RSA 540-A:7 I, II Official source
NH RSA 540-A:8 I-III Official source
NH RSA 540-A:5 I, II Official source
NH RSA 540-B:10 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.