New Hampshire HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

Section 1: Overview — Can an HOA restrict short-term rentals in New Hampshire?

A New Hampshire condominium restricts short-term rentals through its recorded declaration operating within the New Hampshire Condominium Act, and a planned community does so through its recorded covenants. For condominiums, the governing statute is the Condominium Act, RSA 356-B,¹ and for planned communities the framework is CC&R-primary, meaning the recorded covenants are the primary and usually the only governing instrument on rentals, with the voluntary-corporations statute, RSA 292, supplying corporate formalities.⁷

The Condominium Act is a condominium-only statute that took effect September 10, 1977, predating the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and it contains no 2008-UCIOA rental owner-protection provision.¹ New Hampshire does not appear to have enacted a statewide statute preempting local short-term-rental regulation, so short-term-rental rules for the owner-to-government relationship are set locally and are contested in the tourism markets, including the Lakes Region, the White Mountains, and the Seacoast, including Portsmouth.^3,4,14,15

New Hampshire also has a distinctive court structure with no intermediate appellate court: a contested association dispute proceeds in the New Hampshire Superior Court, with any appeal taken directly to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.¹³ The sections that follow set out the legal framework, the mechanics of adopting and enforcing a restriction, the distinctive tax posture, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The legal framework for HOA short-term rental restrictions

2A. The Condominium Act and the CC&R-primary planned-community framework

Condominiums in New Hampshire are governed by the Condominium Act, RSA 356-B, a condominium-only statute that took effect on September 10, 1977 and superseded the earlier Unit Ownership of Real Property Act, RSA 479-A.¹ The Act predates the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act and is not a UCIOA statute. It regulates the creation of condominiums, the contents of the declaration and bylaws, the unit owners' association, meetings and voting, assessments and liens, and enforcement, but it does not contain a provision that specifically authorizes or limits rental or short-term-rental restrictions. Authority to restrict rentals therefore comes from the recorded declaration, operating within the Act.^1,6

Planned communities, meaning non-condominium homeowners associations, are not governed by a comprehensive New Hampshire statute. Their authority comes from the recorded covenants and restrictions, supplemented by the voluntary-corporations statute, RSA 292, where the association is organized as a nonprofit corporation, and by common law.⁷ RSA 292:8-m, added in 2023, supplies narrow guardrails, requiring a two-thirds vote to amend bylaws, budgets, and management contracts where one person acquires more than 50 percent of the votes after declarant control ends, and a hearing before dissolution, but it does not address rentals.¹⁶ RSA 356-A, the Land Sales Full Disclosure Act, is a subdivided-land sales and disclosure statute administered through the Attorney General, not a planned-community governance act, and it should not be treated as one.¹⁷

For both community types, the governing document is the source of rental authority. A distinction runs through the analysis: authority over long-term leasing and authority over short-term or transient rentals both derive from the same instruments, but a document that limits leasing generally may not clearly reach transient use, and vice versa, so the specific language controls.

2B. Restricting rentals, amendments, and grandfathering

A condominium adopts or strengthens a rental restriction by amending its declaration. Under RSA 356-B:34, II, once any unit has been conveyed to an owner other than the declarant, the condominium instruments may be amended only by agreement of unit owners holding two-thirds of the votes in the association, unless the instruments specify a larger majority.⁸ A planned community amends its covenants under the covenants' own amendment clause; there is no statutory percentage, so the recorded document controls.

Because the Condominium Act predates UCIOA and contains no owner-protection provision addressing rental amendments, New Hampshire provides no statutory shield for an owner who bought before a restriction was adopted.^1,8 Whether a later-adopted restriction binds an existing owner turns on the Condominium Act, the governing documents, and New Hampshire common law. New Hampshire does not provide the Florida-style or California-style statutory grandfathering protection that exempts pre-amendment owners, and none should be imported into the analysis.

New Hampshire also does not appear to limit an association's authority to restrict rentals by statute. Unlike California, whose Civil Code section 4741 caps and constrains rental prohibitions, and Arizona, whose statute addresses vacation and short-term rentals, RSA 356-B contains no comparable limit on association rental authority.¹ The framework is document-driven: the declaration or covenants both grant and bound the authority, subject to the reasonableness and good-faith review that New Hampshire courts apply to restrictive covenants.

2C. State law, the distinctive tax posture, and the local layer

New Hampshire does not appear to have enacted a statute preempting local short-term-rental regulation. Bills have surfaced from both directions; Senate Bill 249 in 2022 would have barred municipalities from prohibiting short-term rentals in single- and two-family buildings. It passed the Senate on a voice vote in February 2022, but the House Municipal and County Government Committee voted 17 to 2 to refer it to interim study, the motion was adopted on May 4, 2022, and the interim study report of October 27, 2022 found it not recommended for future legislation on a 17 to 0 vote, so it did not become law.¹⁸ Short-term-rental regulation is therefore primarily local. The New Hampshire Supreme Court has addressed the owner-to-government layer twice: in Working Stiff Partners, LLC v. City of Portsmouth, 172 N.H. 611, 232 A.3d 379 (2019), issued September 27, 2019, it affirmed that daily rentals to paying guests constitute a transient occupancy like a hotel, motel, rooming house, or boarding house, prohibited under the city's residential zoning,³ and in Town of Conway v. Kudrick, No. 2022-0098, issued May 2, 2023, it held that the Conway zoning ordinance permitted non-owner-occupied short-term rentals in the town's residential districts.⁴ Both are zoning decisions about municipal authority, not decisions about association authority.

New Hampshire's tax posture is distinctive. The state has no general statewide sales tax, but it does tax short-term lodging through the Meals and Rooms (Rentals) Tax, RSA 78-A, at a rate of 8.5 percent, a rate that took effect October 1, 2021 when the Department of Revenue Administration reduced it from 9 percent.^2,9 The tax applies to room rentals for stays of less than 185 consecutive days, and the statute defines a short-term rental as the rental of one or more rooms in a residential unit for tourist or transient use for less than 185 consecutive days.^2,10 Operators must obtain a Meals and Rooms operator license from the Department of Revenue Administration under RSA 78-A:4.^2,9

The critical point for associations is that local regulation and the rooms tax govern the owner-to-government relationship; they neither grant nor remove association authority. An owner who registers with a town, passes a life-safety inspection, and remits the rooms tax may still violate a declaration or covenant that bars transient rentals. Conversely, an owner whose association permits short-term rentals may still be barred by a municipal zoning ordinance or owe the rooms tax. The two layers operate independently.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

A. Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The most common mechanism is a minimum-lease-term restriction written into the declaration or covenants, for example a requirement that no unit be leased for a term shorter than 30 days or some longer period. New Hampshire sets no statewide statutory minimum lease term for associations, so any day-count comes from the governing document rather than from statute; the 185-day figure in RSA 78-A is a tax threshold, not an association default.^2,10 Rental caps, meaning limits on the number or percentage of units that may be leased at one time, are likewise not addressed by the Condominium Act and are governed by the declaration.¹ An association may also impose internal requirements, such as registering tenants, filing leases with the board, and providing owner and occupant contact information, where the governing documents authorize them.

For condominiums, adopting or tightening any of these mechanisms after units have been sold requires a declaration amendment by the two-thirds vote set in RSA 356-B:34, II, unless the instruments require more.⁸ For planned communities, the covenants' amendment clause controls.

B. Enforcement

The Condominium Act does not prescribe a specific notice-and-hearing procedure before an association imposes a fine, so the governing documents supply that process, and New Hampshire boards are expected to follow their own bylaws and act in good faith.^1,11 The Act does require advance notice of association meetings under RSA 356-B:37.¹¹

Remedies available to a condominium association include an action to recover sums due, damages, injunctive relief, or any other remedy available at law or in equity under RSA 356-B:15, and a lien on the unit for unpaid assessments, perfected as provided in RSA 356-B:46.^6,12 Planned communities enforce their covenants as a contract, using the remedies provided in the documents and at common law.

A contested enforcement action is filed in the New Hampshire Superior Court, the trial court of general jurisdiction. Any appeal is taken directly to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, because New Hampshire has no intermediate appellate court.¹³ Association enforcement is separate from municipal enforcement: a town may pursue its own zoning or licensing penalties, such as fines or a cease-and-desist order, at the same time an association pursues a covenant remedy, and neither controls the other.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

Two bills within the past 24 months bear on the Condominium Act or short-term-rental taxation.

B. Recent rulings

No New Hampshire Supreme Court decision in the past 36 months resolved the enforceability of an association rental restriction, a declaration or covenant amendment, or association authority over rentals. The prominent short-term-rental decisions, Working Stiff Partners, LLC v. City of Portsmouth (2019) and Town of Conway v. Kudrick (2023), are municipal zoning cases about the owner-to-government relationship, not decisions on association authority, and are noted here as background rather than as controlling on CC&R enforcement.^3,4

C. Active legislative or local debates

Proposals to set a statewide framework for local short-term-rental authority continue to surface in the Legislature without becoming law, and tourism-market municipalities keep revising their own rules, with Laconia licensing short-term lodging by zone and Portsmouth prohibiting transient rentals in residential districts.^14,15,18

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

New Hampshire is a CC&R-primary state with a condominium-only, non-UCIOA condominium statute and no comprehensive planned-community statute, which leaves rental authority to the governing documents. It does not appear to preempt local short-term-rental bans, unlike states that have restricted local authority, and it does not limit HOA rental authority directly the way California (Civil Code section 4741) and Arizona do. Local zoning regulation and the Meals and Rooms Tax restrain local governments and owners; they do not restrain associations, whose authority is set by the declaration or covenants. For a multi-state operator entering New Hampshire, the practical implications are that rental authority is document-driven, the state levies a distinctive 8.5 percent rooms tax while imposing no general sales tax, and any contested dispute runs through a court system with no intermediate appellate court between the Superior Court and the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

HOA Weekly's New Hampshire Short-Term Rentals coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature, the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and local governments act. Federal frameworks, including the FHA, ADA, FDCPA, SCRA, and OTARD, also apply to New Hampshire associations regardless of the state framework.

Footnotes

1. RSA 356-B (Condominium Act), short title (356-B:1) and application (356-B:2), New Hampshire General Court ↩
2. RSA 356-B:15, Compliance With Condominium Instruments, New Hampshire General Court ↩
3. RSA 356-B:34, Termination of Condominium or Amendment of Instruments After Conveyance of Unit, New Hampshire General Court ↩
4. RSA 356-B:46, Lien for Assessments, New Hampshire General Court ↩
5. RSA 356-B:47, Restraints on Alienation, New Hampshire General Court ↩
6. RSA 356-B:37, Meetings, New Hampshire General Court ↩
7. RSA 292:8-m, Homeowners' Associations, New Hampshire General Court ↩
8. RSA 292, Voluntary Corporations and Associations, New Hampshire General Court ↩
9. RSA 356-A, Land Sales Full Disclosure Act, New Hampshire General Court ↩
10. RSA 78-A, Tax on Meals and Rooms (including 78-A:3 definition of "short-term rental" and 78-A:4 license requirement), New Hampshire General Court ↩
11. New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration, Meals & Rooms (Rentals) Tax (8.5 percent rate effective October 1, 2021; license required under RSA 78-A:4) ↩
12. New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration, Meals & Rooms (Rentals) Tax FAQ (tax due on room rentals of less than 185 consecutive days) ↩
13. New Hampshire Judicial Branch, Supreme Court (the state's sole appellate court) ↩
14. Working Stiff Partners, LLC v. City of Portsmouth, 172 N.H. 611, 232 A.3d 379, No. 2018-0491 (N.H. Sept. 27, 2019), New Hampshire Judicial Branch ↩
15. Town of Conway v. Kudrick, No. 2022-0098 (N.H. May 2, 2023), New Hampshire Judicial Branch ↩
16. City of Laconia, Short-Term Rentals (ordinance adopted December 9, 2019; permit required through the Planning Department) ↩
17. City of Portsmouth, Land Use and Zoning Regulations (Zoning Ordinance; "Dwelling Unit" definition at Section 10.1530 excludes transient occupancies) ↩
18. New Hampshire HB1129 (2024), signed July 19, 2024, Chapter 222, effective January 15, 2025 (amending RSA 356-B:3 and RSA 356-B:39, IV) ↩
19. New Hampshire HB503 (2025), Inexpedient to Legislate 345-27 on March 6, 2025 ↩
20. New Hampshire SB249 (2022), prohibiting planning and zoning ordinances that prohibit short-term rentals; referred to interim study, not recommended for future legislation ↩