How do New Hampshire wage, overtime and meal break laws work in 2026?

New Hampshire has no scheduled increase and no automatic inflation adjustment, so the $7.25 floor holds until federal wage and hour law moves. The state sets no separate municipal rates, so the same figure applies in Manchester, Nashua, Concord and the North Country alike. You have no city-by-city map to track, unlike Massachusetts neighbours where local ordinances layer on top.

The tip credit is the calculation that bites. Under RSA 279:21, a tipped worker paid $3.27 in cash must reach $7.25 an hour once tips are counted, a tip credit of $3.98, and the burden of proving they did sits with you. Track tips against the floor each pay period and top up any shortfall, or the credit can be disallowed in an NH Department of Labor audit. Compare how this works across the region: Maine runs a higher tipped minimum and Vermont has a different tip-credit formula, so if you have staff across state lines, the rules diverge quickly.

This is where New Hampshire diverges from states like California and Nevada, which add daily overtime after eight hours. In New Hampshire, a four-day, ten-hour roster carries no premium, because the week lands at exactly 40 hours. Plan your schedules around the weekly total, not the daily shape. The regular rate still has to include non-discretionary bonuses and commissions under FLSA regulations, so the overtime figure is calculated on total earnings, not base pay alone. Get that base wrong and every overtime hour is underpaid. If you are also running hires in the region, see how Massachusetts overtime rules stack up alongside New Hampshire's simpler weekly test.

The pay treatment follows federal FLSA rules. A genuine 30-minute meal break, fully relieved of duty, can be unpaid. But if you rely on the eat-while-working exception, that time is hours worked and must be paid, because the employee never stopped. The expensive error is docking the 30 minutes while the worker keeps covering a station, which turns into back-pay across a year. Either protect the break or pay for the working lunch. If you are managing staff across New England, see how the New Hampshire leave rules interact with scheduling, and check the termination rules before any break-related disciplinary action.

The $684 weekly threshold is the 2019 federal level, restored after the 2024 increase was vacated by a federal court and formally rolled back by the US Department of Labor in May 2026. So the in-force 2026 figure is $684 a week, not the higher number some payroll tables still show. Verify the current threshold on the WHD overtime rulemaking page before classifying any new hire.

Misclassification is the costly New Hampshire error, sitting right alongside the meal-break rule. Because the state adds little to the wage and overtime numbers, the exemption test is the main compliance surface for a salaried hire. If the salary or duties test is not met, every over-40-hour week becomes back-pay, often doubled as liquidated damages. Test the duties, not just the salary, before you classify anyone as exempt. See the New Hampshire state tax and unemployment insurance guide for what runs alongside the payroll compliance picture, and the US hiring overview for how federal rules frame every state you hire in.

Real HR and legal experts handle your New Hampshire hires and know the exemption bar, the tip-credit top-up and the RSA 275:30-a meal break. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue. Overtime, premium pay and any tip make-up are computed, and costs pass through at cost, itemised on every invoice. No setup fee, no exit fee.

Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll and entity graduation all live on one platform: a New Hampshire contractor who converts to W-2 keeps their record, and that same employee can graduate to your own US entity when the model no longer fits. Use the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips, or the Employer Cost Calculator to size the full cost of a New Hampshire hire. EOR is the right model for a first New Hampshire hire, until it isn't.