New Hampshire Residency Rules 2026: No Income Tax & I&D Repeal

Who needs to read this

As of 2025, New Hampshire taxes no personal income at all: the last piece, the interest and dividends (I&D) tax, is fully repealed. The state's role in your tax life is now almost entirely defensive: becoming a New Hampshire resident convincingly enough that a neighboring state lets go. Read this if:

• You're moving from Massachusetts (or Vermont, Maine, or New York) to New Hampshire
• You commute or telecommute across the Massachusetts border
• You're a retiree or investor who was watching the I&D tax and wants to confirm it's gone
• You split the year between New Hampshire and somewhere warmer
• You're self-employed and assumed "no income tax" meant no filings at all

How New Hampshire defines residency

Under RSA 21:6, a resident is someone who is "domiciled or has a place of abode" in the state with "a current intent to designate that place of abode as his or her principal place of physical presence to the exclusion of all others." New Hampshire never built a statutory-resident day test, because there was never a broad income tax to hang one on.

On the tax side, the landscape after repeal:

• Wages and salaries: never taxed by the state.
• Interest and dividends: RSA Chapter 77 was repealed effective January 1, 2025 (enacted 2021, later accelerated). The rate stepped down from 5% to 4% for 2023 and 3% for 2024, and the 2024 DP-10 was the last return. Periods before 2025 can still be examined, so keep old records.
• Capital gains, retirement income, Social Security: not taxed.

What survives is not personal: the Business Profits Tax (7.5% for periods ending on or after December 31, 2023, under RSA 77-A) and Business Enterprise Tax (0.55% under RSA 77-E) for businesses over their filing thresholds, high local property taxes, and a meals and rooms tax. There is no general sales tax.

Counting the days

New Hampshire won't count your days, but the state you're leaving will, and so will Massachusetts' wage-sourcing rules:

• If you're escaping a state with a statutory-resident test (Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut all use 183 days), your defense is a contemporaneous log showing you were mostly in New Hampshire. iReside's automatic day tracking exists for exactly this.
• Cross-border workers have a second day count: Massachusetts taxes nonresidents on wages for days physically worked in Massachusetts. A hybrid schedule means your allocation percentage is only as good as your records.
• Snowbirds pairing New Hampshire with Florida have no income tax exposure on either end, but keep records anyway if a third state (an old domicile, a rental property state) still has a claim on you.

Domicile: the stickier test

The domicile battle is fought under the departing state's law, for most readers Massachusetts. Build the New Hampshire record accordingly:

• A real principal home in New Hampshire, genuinely lived in; RSA 21:6's "to the exclusion of all others" is a good private standard too
• Driver's license within 60 days of establishing residency (RSA 263:35), vehicle registration, and voter registration
• Family and daily life moved with you: schools, physicians, dentists, accountants, place of worship
• Old-state ties trimmed: sell or lease the former home; a kept, empty Massachusetts house is the tie their auditors weigh most
• Consistent paperwork: federal return address, bank and brokerage records, insurance, estate documents naming New Hampshire

Part-year residents and nonresidents

There is no New Hampshire personal income tax return, so there is no part-year or nonresident filing here; for 2025 and later, individuals file nothing regardless of status. The move-year mechanics live elsewhere:

• File the final or part-year return in the state you left, with a departure date your records support.
• Their claim on source income continues: wages for days worked back in the old state, rent and gains from its real estate, and business income earned there stay taxable to it after you move.
• If you moved during 2024 or earlier and had interest and dividend income above the old filing thresholds as a New Hampshire resident, a DP-10 for that year may still be owed; the repeal is not retroactive.
• Business owners: the BPT and BET apply to business activity in the state above the thresholds (BPT filing required over $109,000 of gross business income for periods beginning on or after January 1, 2025; BET over $298,000 of gross receipts), sole proprietors included.

Changing your residency status

Establishing New Hampshire residency is mostly about building evidence your old state will accept. The checklist for a clean landing:

• Close on or lease the New Hampshire home first; make it your actual base before claiming the change
• Hit the statutory step: license within 60 days, vehicle registration, then voter rolls
• Move the days: spend clearly more time in New Hampshire than in the state you left, and log them
• Re-point the professional orbit (doctors, advisers, banking) and the mail
• File the old state's part-year return with consistent dates, and expect its questionnaire to probe the next year or two
• Keep proving it: the audit window covers the move year plus the following seasons, not just moving day

How New Hampshire enforces its rules

For individuals, there is almost nothing left to enforce:

• The Department of Revenue Administration's individual-facing work is now historical: I&D periods through 2024 remain auditable, so keep those records and any final DP-10.
• Active enforcement centers on business taxes (BPT/BET) and the meals and rooms tax; if you're self-employed above the thresholds, expect the state to notice unfiled business returns.
• The residency pressure comes from outside: Massachusetts pursues both domicile challenges and wage-day allocations of border-hoppers; it fought for (and briefly kept) the right to tax remote NH telecommuters during 2020-21, a dispute New Hampshire took all the way to the Supreme Court. Assume the burden of proof is yours.
• Property taxes are enforced locally, and they are the visible price of the no-income-tax bargain; budget for them before celebrating the rate of zero.

Common mistakes

• Filing a 2025 DP-10. There isn't one; the 2024 return was the last. But don't shred pre-2025 records, since old periods can still be examined.
• Assuming "no income tax" means "no filings." Sole proprietors and business owners over the thresholds owe BPT/BET returns even with zero personal income tax.
• Working in Massachusetts and expecting zero tax. Days physically worked in Massachusetts stay Massachusetts-source; only the New Hampshire remote days escape, with records to prove the split.
• The paper-only move. A New Hampshire license with a life still in Boston loses the domicile fight; the old state's factor test looks at home, family, days, and habits.
• Missing the 60-day license window. It's a legal obligation, and a missed one hands the old state an argument the move wasn't real.
• Ignoring property taxes. For many movers the property tax bill exceeds what a modest income tax would have been; model the whole picture before the move.