Property tax relief in New Hampshire: the elderly exemption, the veterans’ credit, and the DP-8 check

A New Hampshire homeowner who is 65 or older, a wartime veteran, legally blind or disabled can take a sizable piece off the property tax bill, and a homeowner of any age with household income of $47,000 or less (married or head of household; $37,000 single, on the 2025 claim) can get a check back from the state for part of the statewide education tax. Every one of these must be applied for. The town programs, the elderly exemption, the veterans’ credits and the exemptions for the blind, the disabled and the deaf, are claimed once on Form PA-29 with the town assessor by April 15 of the tax year, with the amounts and the income and asset limits set by each town above a state floor. The state program, Low and Moderate Income Homeowners Property Tax Relief, is claimed every year on Form DP-8 with the Department of Revenue Administration, postmarked between May 1 and June 30 of the year after the tax year, and a claim outside that window is denied. The bill is figured as of April 1, so ownership and residence on that day decide everything.

The amounts matter because the bills are large. A $350,000 home in a town with a $20 per $1,000 rate (illustrative; rates vary widely) carries a $7,000 bill. An elderly exemption of $120,000 in such a town is worth $2,400 a year; a veterans’ credit is worth up to $750 (verify); a DP-8 check for a low-income homeowner is typically a few hundred dollars. None of it reaches a return. All of it reaches the bill.

How the bill is built

Each town assesses property as of April 1 and sets a single rate, in dollars per $1,000 of assessed value, that the Department certifies in the fall. The rate has four parts, the town, the local school, the county and the Statewide Education Property Tax, a uniform rate the Department sets so that it raises a fixed sum across the state, and the town collects all four. Exemptions reduce the assessed value before the rate is applied, so an exemption is worth more in a high-rate town. Credits come off the tax itself, dollar for dollar. Most towns bill twice, a summer bill estimated from the prior year and a final bill in the late fall or December once the rate is set. A homeowner who thinks the assessment is wrong files an abatement application with the town by March 1 after the final bill, and appeals a denial to the Board of Tax and Land Appeals or the superior court by September 1.

Towns may also exempt solar, wind and wood-heating systems, and a totally disabled veteran’s specially adapted home is fully exempt (RSA 72:36-a). Ask the assessor which optional programs the town has adopted and at what amounts; the Department publishes a summary of every town’s adopted exemptions and credits.

The elderly exemption

The exemption every town must offer is the one most retirees miss. The statute sets the structure and the town sets the numbers. The structure: the applicant must be 65 or older on April 1 of the tax year, must have been a New Hampshire resident for at least three consecutive years before that April 1, must own the home alone, with a spouse or with another person, or hold it through a revocable trust, life estate or beneficial interest for life with Form PA-33 attached, and must have had net income in the prior calendar year and net assets under the town’s limits. The numbers: the exemption amount for each of the three tiers, 65 to 74, 75 to 79 and 80 and over, and the income and asset limits, are adopted by the town at or above the statutory minimums, which are $5,000 of exemption, $13,400 of net income for a single person and $20,400 for a married couple, and $35,000 of net assets excluding the home and up to two acres or the minimum lot size (verify minimums). Most towns are far above the floor; an exemption of $100,000 or more in the top tier with an income limit of $40,000 to $60,000 is common in the larger towns (verify with the town). A surviving spouse uses the couple’s combined asset limit but the single income limit.

Net income for the town’s test is not federal adjusted gross income; it counts money received from nearly all sources, Social Security included, less a short list of exclusions (verify the current statutory definition). A retiree whose income is well under the limit in an ordinary year can go over it with a large IRA withdrawal, a Roth conversion or the sale of an asset, and lose the exemption for the following year. The application, Form PA-29, is filed once with the assessor by April 15 of the tax year; it is a permanent application, but towns may require periodic re-filing or an annual income statement, and the assessor will say which (verify). A denial can be appealed to the Board of Tax and Land Appeals or the superior court.

The veterans’ credits

The veterans’ credit is a credit against the tax, not an exemption from value, and it is the one town program with no income test. The standard credit is $50 on the veteran’s principal residence for a veteran with wartime service, or the veteran’s spouse or surviving spouse; a town may adopt an optional amount above $50, which the Department’s assessing manual caps at $500 and more recent law at $750 (verify current maximum and the 2026 statutory change). Where the town has adopted the all veterans’ credit, any honorably discharged veteran with at least 90 days of active service gets the same amount, without the wartime test. A veteran with a 100% permanent and total service-connected disability gets $700, or a town-adopted amount from $701 to $4,000, with no 90-day requirement. The surviving spouse of a service member killed or who died on active duty gets $700 to $2,000. All are claimed on PA-29 by April 15 with a copy of the discharge papers, and once granted they continue without re-application.

The deferral

For a homeowner who is 65 or older and has owned the home for five consecutive years, or is disabled and has owned it for one, the town may defer all or part of the tax at 5% annual interest, so long as the total deferred does not exceed 85% of the owner’s equity. Form PA-30 goes to the town by March 1 after the final bill. The deferred tax and interest become a lien on the property and are paid when the home is sold or the owner dies. A mortgage lender’s consent is required (verify). It is not forgiveness, and the interest compounds, but 5% is a modest rate for a homeowner whose alternative is a reverse mortgage or a forced sale.

The state’s relief check: Form DP-8

The Low and Moderate Income Homeowners Property Tax Relief program is the one piece of property tax relief the state pays for itself, and the only one claimed with the Department rather than the town. It refunds part of the statewide education portion of the bill, which is a small share of the whole, so the checks are modest; the Department has paid more than $48 million since 2002, which works out to a few hundred dollars per claim. It is also the program with the hardest deadline. The claim must be postmarked no earlier than May 1 and no later than June 30 of the year after the tax year; a claim for 2025 taxes had to be postmarked between May 1 and June 30, 2026, and the window for 2026 taxes, presumably May 1 to June 30, 2027, is to come (verify). The Commissioner has accepted late claims until November 1 from a homeowner whose federal return was on extension, with a copy of the extension attached.

Eligibility for the 2025 claim: the claimant owned the homestead, or held an interest in it through a trust, life estate or land contract, and lived in it as a principal residence on April 1, 2025; and total household income, the federal adjusted gross income of the claimant and every adult in the household plus the income of any trust holding the home, was $37,000 or less for a single person or $47,000 or less for a married couple or head of a New Hampshire household. The relief is the state education tax rate for the town, applied to the lesser of the home’s assessed value and a statewide cap on equalized value, $220,000 in the Department’s 2024 release (verify the current cap), multiplied by an income factor: 1.00 for the lowest band, then 0.60, 0.40 and 0.20 as income rises toward the limit. The claim is Form DP-8, filed on Granite Tax Connect or on paper, with a complete copy of the federal return and the entire final property tax bill showing the assessed value; a payment receipt is not enough. Social Security numbers for the claimant and co-claimant are required and a claim without them is denied. A rejected or reduced claim can be appealed to the Board of Tax and Land Appeals within 30 days of the notice.