State veteran benefits · NH
New Hampshire Veteran Benefits
New Hampshire municipalities credit veterans with service-connected permanent and total disability between $700 and $5,000 a year against property taxes, with each city or town setting its own amount.
By Mario Bailey, U.S. Air Force veteran · current Air National Guard member. Data updated 2026-07-10.
What New Hampshire adds, benefit by benefit
Your federal VA benefits travel with you to any state. Everything below is the second stack: what New Hampshire itself offers, each item checked against the state's own official source on the date shown.
Service-connected total disability credit, RSA 72:35
A veteran honorably discharged with a total and permanent service-connected disability, a double amputee or paraplegic from service-connected injury, or the surviving spouse of such a veteran, receives a standard $700 yearly credit against property taxes on their residence. Cities and towns may instead adopt an optional credit of any amount from $701 up to $5,000. Applicants provide VA certification of the permanent and total rating to the assessors.
The credit you actually receive depends entirely on what your municipality has adopted, so the same rating is worth $700 in one town and $5,000 in the next. There is also a separate wartime veterans credit under RSA 72:28: $50 standard, or $51 to $750 where a town adopts the optional amount.
SOURCE: New Hampshire RSA 72:35 · retrieved 2026-07-10
No income tax, and the last piece was repealed in 2025
New Hampshire taxes neither wages nor pensions, and the Interest and Dividends Tax, the state's last personal income tax, was repealed effective January 1, 2025. Military retirement pay therefore goes entirely untaxed by default, and VA disability compensation is never taxed by any state or the IRS.
SOURCE: New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration · retrieved 2026-07-10
Free USNH tuition for children of 100 percent disabled veterans
A child of a veteran who is totally and permanently disabled from a service-connected disability pays no tuition at University System of New Hampshire institutions, provided the veteran was discharged under other than dishonorable conditions, was domiciled in New Hampshire at entry into service or when the VA determined the disability, and is a current New Hampshire resident (or was at death). Eligibility runs through the end of the semester in which the student turns 27.
A separate program dating to 1943 gives children of service members who died on active duty or of service-connected causes $2,500 scholarships plus free tuition at USNH and community college campuses.
SOURCE: NH Department of Military Affairs and Veterans Services · retrieved 2026-07-10
The New Hampshire Veterans Home at Tilton
The state's single veterans home, at 139 Winter Street in Tilton, is a 250-bed long-term care facility for honorably discharged veterans, including a 100-bed secured dementia unit opened in 2004. It is strictly long-term care: it is not a Medicare skilled nursing facility and does not take short rehabilitation stays.
SOURCE: New Hampshire Veterans Home · retrieved 2026-07-10
State Veterans Cemetery at Boscawen, no residency required
Veterans discharged under honorable conditions and their eligible dependents may be buried at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen. New Hampshire residency is not a requirement, which is unusual among state cemeteries.
SOURCE: NH Department of Military Affairs and Veterans Services · retrieved 2026-07-10
Perpetual free Fish and Game license at 100 percent
New Hampshire resident veterans who are totally and permanently disabled from a service-connected disability, with a discharge other than dishonorable, are issued a special perpetual fishing, hunting, or bow and arrow license, with a one-time $10 administrative fee at application.
SOURCE: New Hampshire Fish and Game Department · retrieved 2026-07-10
In New Hampshire, the town you buy in is itself a veterans benefit decision. The state sets the menu, RSA 72:35’s credit for permanent and total disability, but each municipality picks the price, anywhere from the $700 standard up to $5,000. Two 100 percent P&T veterans on opposite sides of a town line can see a $4,300 annual difference on otherwise identical houses. Before any purchase, call both assessors and ask two questions: what optional veterans credit amounts has the town adopted under RSA 72:35 and 72:28, and when did they last raise them. No other state on this site makes that phone call worth more.
The income picture needs no maneuvering. With the Interest and Dividends Tax gone as of 2025, New Hampshire taxes no personal income of any kind, so a military pension arrives whole without a veteran carve-out ever being needed, and the VA check was never taxable anywhere. The trade-off is structural: the state funds itself through the very property taxes the town credits only dent, so a 100 percent P&T homeowner here still writes a meaningful check in most towns, unlike in full-exemption states.
The education benefit is aimed at the next generation rather than the veteran. Free USNH tuition for children of 100 percent P&T New Hampshire veterans, good through the semester the student turns 27, pairs naturally with transferred Post-9/11 GI Bill months: spend the state waiver on tuition-heavy years and bank Chapter 33’s housing allowance where rent is worst. The domicile requirements are strict, tied to where the veteran lived at enlistment or at the disability determination, so read them before promising a teenager anything.
Two easily missed details round the state out. The Boscawen cemetery does not require New Hampshire residency, which makes it an option for veterans across the border in Vermont or Massachusetts, layered on the federal burial benefits. And the perpetual Fish and Game license at 100 percent is exactly that, perpetual, one $10 fee for life. Small benefit, but it is the kind New Hampshire specializes in: modest, local, and yours only if you ask.
Where to apply
State benefits are administered by the state, not by VA, so the applications above run through New Hampshire Department of Military Affairs and Veterans Services or the specific agency named in each source link. A free VA-accredited representative or VSO in New Hampshire will know both stacks, the federal claim and the state paperwork, and charges nothing to help with either.