New Hampshire: rules for your site, phone line and inbox

New Hampshire is a short list of rules with sharp edges. There is no general state sales tax and the privacy law has a high threshold. The rules that bite are about phones and selling at the customer's door. This page covers the ones that have a written source. Statutes were read on the General Court's website in October 2026.

Recording calls: New Hampshire is an all-party state

RSA 570-A:2 makes it a class B felony to intercept a telecommunication without the consent of all parties. Paragraph I-a adds a misdemeanor for a person who is on the call and records it without everyone's consent. That second point surprises owners. Being a party to the call does not protect you here.

Put the notice before the first word of the conversation: "This call may be recorded for quality and training." If the caller objects, stop recording. The rule covers a call-tracking service that records, a business phone system with automatic recording and an AI receptionist that stores audio or a transcript. See our recording guide for scripts and the 50-state table for the neighbors you may serve across the line.

Telemarketing: chapter 359-E and the do-not-call rule

The telemarketing subdivision of RSA chapter 359-E bars telemarketers from making sales calls to customers who have registered with the national do-not-call registry (RSA 359-E:8). A telemarketer must also follow the FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule for calls into the state, and must obtain the registry list from the list administrator every quarter (RSA 359-E:9). The list administrator is the Federal Trade Commission.

The definitions decide whether a small contractor is covered. "Telemarketing" is a plan or campaign using phones to induce payment that involves more than 5 calls a month by a telemarketer to customers located in the state (RSA 359-E:7). A call is not a "telemarketing sales call" if it is made at the customer's express written or verbal request, in connection with an established business relationship (defined by reference to the federal rule at 16 C.F.R. 310.2(n)), or on behalf of a nonprofit charity. So a spring reminder to a customer you serviced last year may sit inside the carve-out. A campaign of cold calls to a purchased list does not.

The penalties are real. The Department of Justice imposes a civil penalty of $5,000 per violation, and a person hurt by a violation can sue for actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater, with two to three times that amount for a willful or knowing violation, plus attorney's fees (RSA 359-E:11). A telemarketer has a defense if it shows by clear and convincing evidence that it had written procedures, trained staff, scrubbed against a registry list no more than 3 months old, and kept records (RSA 359-E:11, III). Write your do-not-call procedure down and keep the records. Federal rules and the TCPA guide cover texts, which this chapter does not address.

Prerecorded-message dialers have their own registration

The first half of chapter 359-E is older and targets automatic dialing systems. RSA 359-E:1 defines the term as equipment that stores or produces numbers to be called randomly or sequentially and delivers a prerecorded message without a live operator. Under RSA 359-E:2, anyone who intends to use one for solicitation in New Hampshire must register with the consumer protection and antitrust bureau at least 10 business days before use and pay a $20 annual non-proratable fee. The system must hang up within 30 seconds after the called party does (RSA 359-E:4), and the message must name the company and the purpose of the call immediately (RSA 359-E:5).

If you plan a voicemail-drop or robocall campaign, this is a state step that is easy to miss. If you only answer inbound calls with an AI receptionist, it does not apply.

Selling at the customer's home: the three-day cancellation notice

A quote written at the kitchen table is a sale away from your place of business. RSA 361-B defines a home solicitation sale as a sale of goods or services priced at $150 or more, where the seller or a representative solicits and sells at any place other than the seller's permanent place of business (RSA 361-B:1). The seller must hand over a fully completed receipt and a copy of the contract at signing. It shows your name and address and the date, and carries, next to the buyer's signature line, a boldface statement of at least 10 points that any buyer may cancel before midnight of the third business day after the transaction. A cancellation notice that follows the FTC's door-to-door sales rule is accepted if it gives at least equal information.

Two details matter to a contractor. After cancellation you must return payments and any trade-in within 15 days. And if the buyer cancels within the period after you have performed work that physically altered the property, the buyer gets back all funds and you may not deduct the value of the work. As an alternative the buyer can ask for the property restored. Do not start work, order custom materials or take a payment before the three business days run out unless you have thought about that exposure. Put the notice in your estimate template.

New Hampshire's privacy act and your website

RSA chapter 507-H took effect January 1, 2025. Under RSA 507-H:2 it applies to a person doing business in the state, or targeting residents, that in one year controlled or processed the personal data of at least 35,000 unique consumers (not counting data used only to complete a payment), or at least 10,000 consumers while earning more than 25 percent of gross revenue from selling personal data. A small trade's contact form and customer list will not reach 35,000 people. The attorney general is the only enforcer, and the chapter creates no private right of action (RSA 507-H:11). If you grow into the threshold, you can come back to this section. Check the date of the page before relying on the number, since privacy laws are being amended often.

Taxes on invoices and online payments

The Department of Revenue Administration says New Hampshire has no general sales tax on goods, so a mowing, cleaning or pressure washing invoice carries no state sales tax line. Your online checkout needs no tax calculation for New Hampshire work. The state's business taxes are taxes on the company, not lines on a customer bill: the Business Profits Tax at 7.5 percent and the Business Enterprise Tax at 0.55 percent. Each applies only above a gross-income filing threshold that is adjusted over time and has been the subject of 2026 legislation, so read the current figure on the department's page before you decide whether you file. The sales tax table compares states. We did not research a New Hampshire rule on credit card surcharges for this page, and did not find a state statute on contractor license numbers in ads, so we report neither here.

What this means for your setup

• Website: no tax line and no state license number to show. Keep a clear cancellation notice in the estimate you send for home sales. Link a privacy policy anyway, because customers expect one.
• Business phone line: a recording announcement on the greeting. All-party consent applies to every call, including after-hours voicemail transcripts.
• AI receptionist: have it announce recording first. Inbound answering is not telemarketing, and the answer logic should record opt-out requests for later outbound calls. See our AI receptionist service.
• Email and customer list: store the date of each job so you can show an established business relationship, and keep a do-not-call flag in your CRM.

This page is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change, so confirm with the Attorney General's consumer protection bureau, the Department of Revenue Administration or a New Hampshire attorney. Our New Hampshire startup guide covers formation, licensing and insurance, and the contractor licenses guide covers trades.

Frequently asked questions