Property Tax New Hampshire: 2025 Tax Rates by Town

New Hampshire property taxes are set town by town, not county by county, so the rate that matters is the one certified for your specific municipality. In 2025 the total tax rate ranged from $2.62 per $1,000 of assessed value in Hart’s Location to $36.54 in Charlestown, with a statewide average of $17.15 and a median of $16.90 across all 235 cities and towns, a tax system built on local control. The property tax calculator below carries every final 2025 tax rate in New Hampshire as certified by the NH Department of Revenue Administration for every municipality in the state: pick your town, enter your assessed value, and it returns your estimated annual property tax bill with the municipal, county, local school, and statewide education pieces broken out.

How Property Taxes in New Hampshire Work

The Granite State has no tax on wages and no general sales tax, and since the interest and dividends tax was repealed effective January 1, 2025, there is no state income tax on investment earnings either. That leaves local property taxes to fund public services almost single-handedly. Cities and towns pay for schools, police, fire, roads, and county government primarily through the taxation of real estate, which is why the overall New Hampshire tax burden shows a heavy reliance on property levies in every national comparison: roughly six of every ten dollars of state and local government revenue here comes from this one levy, the highest share in the country, and effective property tax rates on market value sit near two percent, among the highest of any state.

Each fall, the Department of Revenue Administration certifies a rate for every municipality. The math is simple in principle: the amount each town, school district, and county needs to raise, divided by the municipality’s taxable property, expressed in dollars per $1,000 of assessed value. A town that must raise $10 million against $500 million of property valuation gets a $20.00 rate. The 2025 rates were certified between October 2025 and January 2026, which makes them the current numbers on every bill until the 2026 rates are set.

The Four Parts of an NH Property Tax Bill

Every one of these bills is really four taxes added together, and the calculator itemizes each piece for your town.

Municipal. Set by the town meeting or city council budget, this portion pays for local public services: police, fire, public works, and town administration. It ranged widely in 2025, from under a dollar in some resort communities to $16.20 per $1,000 in Berlin.

County. Each of the ten counties apportions its budget, mostly courts, corrections, and the county nursing home, across its member municipalities in proportion to their property values.

Local education. Usually the largest single component, this funds the local school district budget that voters approve. In Concord, for example, the local school portion was $14.81 of the city’s $29.11 total in 2025, roughly half the bill. High education costs in a district with a modest tax base translate directly into a higher tax rate.

State education. The statewide education property tax, often called SWEPT, is a uniform levy under RSA 76:3 that raises roughly $363 million statewide toward the state’s obligation to fund an adequate education. It is assessed on all taxable property and collected locally with the rest of the bill.

Highest Property Taxes and Lowest Rates in 2025

The highest property taxes in the state in 2025 belonged to Charlestown at $36.54 per $1,000, followed by Keene at $34.37, Berlin at $33.60, Marlborough at $31.24, and Canaan at $31.16. At the other end, the lowest property tax rates were in Hart’s Location at $2.62, Moultonborough at $5.33, New Castle at $5.73, Bartlett at $6.02, and Bridgewater at $6.35. The pattern is not an accident: waterfront and resort communities with enormous property valuation per resident can fund the same public services at a fraction of the rate a mill town needs, so high property taxes usually signal a thin base rather than lavish spending, and higher property values generally buy a lower tax rate.

The larger cities landed in between. Nashua’s 2025 rate was $16.83, Manchester came in at $20.24, and Concord at $29.11. On the state’s median rate of $16.90, a home assessed at $400,000 produces an annual property tax bill of $6,760, due in most municipalities in two installments, one in early summer and one in December, and property taxes in New Hampshire are billed by the local collector, never the state. A few cities bill on a different schedule, so check your collector’s calendar.

Why New Hampshire Property Tax Rates Vary by Town

New Hampshire property tax rates vary more than in almost any other state, and three forces drive the disparity in the local tax picture. First, the size of the tax base: a municipality with lakefront estates or a strong commercial corridor spreads its budget across far more taxable property, so each owner pays a lower rate. Second, local spending choices: school district budgets are voted locally, and education costs are typically 55 to 70 percent of the total rate, so two neighboring towns can sit $8 apart on school spending alone. Third, the state’s school funding structure: because state aid covers less of education than in most states, communities with modest valuations must impose a higher tax rate to raise the same money per student, a fiscal disparity litigated since the Claremont school funding decisions of the 1990s and is still being argued in the current ConVal litigation. Towns whose statewide education levy raises more than their schools receive back are commonly called donor towns, and the redistribution debate resurfaces in nearly every legislative session.

Assessed Value, Market Value, and Equalization

The rate is only half of your bill; the property valuation it is applied to is the other half, and comparing towns on the rate alone will mislead you. New Hampshire municipalities must fully revalue at least every five years, so between revaluations the assessed value on the books drifts below the true market value of the property, and the assessed property base ages with it. The Department of Revenue Administration measures this each year and publishes an equalization ratio for every municipality: assessed value as a share of market value. A town taxing at $17.00 while assessing at 80 percent of market value is effectively charging $13.60 in full value terms, cheaper than a town at $15.00 that just revalued to 100 percent. That is also why a revaluation year can cut a town’s rate nearly in half while individual bills barely move: the valuation doubles, the levy does not. In 2025, more than 50 municipalities recorded valuation jumps consistent with a revaluation. When you compare, look at the effective property tax rate and at actual bills on comparable homes, not the nominal number alone.

Exemptions, Credits, and Abatements

Several programs reduce what a homeowner actually owes. The elderly exemption reduces assessed value for residents 65 and older, with amounts and income and asset limits set by each municipality. Veterans receive a credit that towns may set between $50 and $750, with larger credits for service-connected disability. Exemptions also exist for the blind and for the disabled where adopted locally, and the state’s Low and Moderate Income Homeowners program rebates part of the statewide education portion for qualifying households. Applications are due to your municipality by April 15.

If you believe your assessment is simply too high, New Hampshire gives every taxpayer an abatement path: apply to your municipality by March 1 following the final tax bill, and if the town denies or ignores the request, appeal to the Board of Tax and Land Appeals or superior court by September 1. There is no fee to ask your town, and a successful abatement lowers the taxable value itself, which pays off every year until the next revaluation.

What Changes for 2026

The 2026 tax rates will be certified municipality by municipality between October 2026 and early 2027, after this year’s budgets, valuation updates, and county apportionments are finalized. Until then, the 2025 figures in the calculator above are the rates behind the bills property owners are paying right now. When the Department of Revenue publishes the 2026 numbers we will update every municipality the same week. If you are comparing towns for a purchase, calculate the same assessed value in each town you are considering, then ask the assessing office when the town last revalued; that one question explains most of the gap between any two rates in New Hampshire.

Rates: NH Department of Revenue Administration, 2025 Municipal Tax Rates, final as certified January 2026. Estimates exclude village district and precinct rates and any exemptions or credits; confirm amounts with your municipal tax collector.